Another out-take

Another tangent. Design. At the moment I’m writing an essay-cum-paper endeavouring to evaluate the place for epaper/rewriteable paper in our brave new world of 2012 (chosen I wonder because of its meter?), hopefully having staunched effectively the worst effects of climate change and dealt tolerably well with our need for non-fossil fuelled energy (easy, innit???). This is not the subject of this post…I’ll come to the point.

We need bookcasing. Serious bookcasing. As I’ve said before, I love wood. So wood it is (recycled or from sustainably managed forests), but with the number of books it needs to be open plan but strong and functional. Returning to the above, of course books could soon be destined to be the LPs of the literary world, so, it is hoped that our need here need not be expandable. Rather a shrine to the products of the printing press. Turning pages though still has a calming quality that will be, I feel, impossible to replace with an electronic gizmo. It may look almost like paper, but where’s the tactility? Although I, for one, won’t miss the olfactory experience of newsprint or old sticky library books ;).

There was almost a shrine-like feeling around Wren and Ray’s Remembrance Path at the Shift Time festival: sad to see so many worn out books (and some with a future through Oxfam shops and similar) and to reflect on things passed. And a future in charged microcapsules.

So, to design. I’m on the trail of my own, simplified take on the elusive and beautiful Massimo Castagna’s Flying Circles.. Why is nothing ever straightforward?