Musing philosophically on the increasing distance between “form” and “function” in modern design, an article in the New York Times examines the disappearance of this clichéd mantra. Oft misquoted and misattributed (the architect Louis Sullivan was the one who said “form ever follows function”), this design principle holds little sway in the age of the iPhone and the iPod. Nowadays, it is ever more difficult to divine the use of a technological gadget from its appearance—take, for instance, the small, rectangular iPhone with its almost endless litany of uses.
The article goes on to examine the next steps in interface design, which include sci-fi-esque computers controlled by electrical activity in the brain. In the end, it raises interesting questions of how far this type of design can go and of whether “function” will be a determining factor of “form” in the future, as technological design becomes more and more complex.
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