This Is Still My Favourite Reality Though

On Earth 7, a parallel universe where an alternate version of me has achieved everything I desire in life, I am the second switch pitcher in Major League history to pitch in the modern era, tossing knuckle balls righty and throwing sinister 103 mph heat with late movement on the other side. I will lead my hometown Blue Jays to back to back championships and then tear out the collective heart of the entire city by signing with the Yankees for more money in free agency so that I can be with but never ultimately settle down with progressively younger and hotter supermodels and polarize the entire sport’s fanbase by splintering it into groups that endlessly debate whether I should just concentrate on pitching left-handed or right-handed all the time instead or just to keep switching depending on the batter. Also this is a mystical reality so everyone has magical powers and the ruling class consists of 5th dimensional imps.

On Earth 30, another parallel universe that contains an alternate version of me that’s more limited by reality but still decides to pursue things that actually interest me, I end up taking more than just a passing interest in that one course in university on interface design. Maybe I decide to pursue a career in a field that I actually enjoy, versus just what I’m good (or minimally passable) at. Maybe I’ve fostered my writing habit into something productive instead, and I contribute articles that are kind of funny but not very insightful for free to a baseball blog that has a mid-sized following. Also in this reality infant Superman crash-landed in Soviet Russia instead of Kansas, so everyone in the world speaks Russian but everything else is kind of the same.

But unfortunately this is Prime Earth, nexus of the multiverse, and I have lived the life that I’ve lived. I can only post amusing links on my shitty website and point to them and grunt with interest because my understanding of the underlying concepts is so poor and lacking.

For example, those re-imaginings of Game of Thrones houses as modern brands that I posted a while ago? (Spoilers on top of spoilers, don’t you fucking dare click this shit if you aren’t up to date on this show.) I had totally missed that they added House Frey as event planners. That works for me. But I only know this is cool because it name drops a television show I watch. I want to be able to appreciate how they got there as well, and appreciate all the little bits of cleverness that was added along the way. But that stuff is over my head.

Another case in point, these amusing product designs that are intended as an exercise in minimalism. Some of these are pretty neat. And there’s a second round here as well. These are cool. But I cannot express why they are cool to me.

Some consider this part of a movement in today’s design trends called blanding, which to be honest, looks pretty awesome to me. We’ve seen some of these already, obviously with Yahoo! and recently YouTube as well. I would love to live in a future world in which you can just walk into a store with aisles lined with bins labeled FOOD, filled with some sort of nutrient powder or paste, and that’s all your week’s groceries right there. Obviously I’m extrapolating a bit, but I’m pretty sure we’re trending there.

I mean I kind of did it to The WAMBAG without even noticing. Scary how all this stuff just seeps into your brain.

Or maybe this will just be a weird bump in the road for graphic design trends, and we’ll look back at the 2010’s and think “Man, what was up with that decade’s obsession with Helvetica?” Kind of like how I think back to the 90’s and remember all the wack colour gradients and how everyone thought the future was going to be really colourful.

And I guess it will be again? After they themselves made clean white gadgets the new cool thing, Apple’s switching it up again! History is cyclical! Let’s buy it all up again anyway!

But there’s just something very cheap looking about the iPhone 5c’s colourful polycarbonate back, despite the actual non-cheapness of the phone. Especially after all the rumours about how the 5c would be the budget version and how it’s actually even got a cheaper plastic back now…the thing is still $550? For comparison, the 16 GB Nexus 4 is $250 now, that is bonkers. But Apple, not exactly a slouch in the design department, must have had good reason to push funky colours for their flagship product, considering the current crop of top Android phones are mostly going the opposite way. For example, Google’s current flagship phone only comes in shatter prone black, as does LG’s upcoming G2, and the HTC flagship phone is all slick aluminium. I guess Samsung’s Galaxy S4 can come in white in addition to black, but there’s clearly a consistent look across the board. Even BlackBerry’s upcoming Z30 looks the same. Colourful phones were cheap and crappy back then when Apple turned the game around with their pristine, expensive white iGadgets…they established that impression themselves. In the early days of the smartphone market, Apple was playing chess while everyone was playing checkers…but now that everyone’s playing chess too (Android phones now have a 50% market share compared to Apple’s 40%)…it’s time for them to go back down to checkers?

It’s not completely accurate to say the entire world’s trending the other way though. Nokia’s flagship phone (essentially also the Microsoft flagship phone, including the colour-based Windows Phone 8 interface) tried to break the colour barrier first. Though despite great reviews, you can’t really set many trends when only 3% of the market is listening to you. I mean…Windows Phone? HA!

And Motorola, who was recently acquired by Google and suspected to be the guys behind the next Nexus phone, already allows you (if you are an AT&T customer) to customize your Moto X like a Nike sneaker. Which admittedly, is pretty awesome. And thus it’s with some considerable interest that everyone’s looking to October, when the next Google flagship phone, the Nexus 5, is rumoured to be announced.

So maybe the colour re-revolution is already here. Bright colours. Minimalist text. Blocky sans serif font.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF TOMORROW!