If that title doesn’t make any kind of sense, let me explain.

One of the things I liked in the movie Her was its portrayal of the near future and one aspect that the set designers focused on was putting the digital world in a more physical space. Around the offices and homes in the movie, there is a lot of wood-paneling, fabric and paper that it is integrated into the set design. I’ve never seen a computer be constructed out of anything besides a kind of plastic or aluminum.

However, the design serves a related purpose for not only for the movie, but also is a glimpse into our own future in technological design.

You can go onto any online store and find covers, skins and cases for any of your devices with a wood panel background. Anything from a mouse to a whole laptop can look like it, and it was not too long ago that steampunk focused on making things look more aesthetically industrial. As technology has advanced, more people have tried to make these devices feel more real.

The internet and digital interfaces are completely foreign to human senses and just simply don’t exist physically, so designers are working to make these devices at least look more familiar.

During the early iOS', multiple apps were designed in that way. The podcast app had the look and sounds of a cassette player. The camera app is opened and takes pictures with a shutter sound and closing and opening animation. It was created like that so people would understand the functions of these apps, but I see the same kind of philosophy used just out of preference, not education for a brand new technology.

I see these prints and schools of designs becoming even more popular in the future as things become even less reliant on physical objects to display the information. We’ve seen prototypes for things appearing just on a piece of glass or being virtually displayed through virtual reality. I just don’t think people will be as willing to accept that as it might be anticipated (e.g. Google Glass) or at least there will be a certain amount of people that want their devices wrapped up in something that can sit in front you and looks at least halfway nice.

As our devices become more complicated and are able to do more incredible tasks, I think people will buy these products. However, they will also accept these designs as a way to make it feel like a simpler time and enjoy the more tactile sensations that you get from all the little sounds and feel the design evokes.

If you think it sounds strange, or against some kind of progress of technology, just know that these kinds of devices already exist and I think that people will only become more fond of the past.