» Will Fixed Dimension Designs Become a Luxury of the Past?

I have written before to ask the question “How will the adoption of eBook Readers affect designers?” but now I can’t help but think about how it will affect the entire practice of design. Are the fixed dimensions of print design a luxury that we are going to have to let go of? The printed page has been disappearing around us for years, but now more than ever this is beginning to manifest for designers.

Technology is rapidly changing the way the information is received and absorbed in a way that may be even more profound than the widespread adoption of the Internet. Never before has the printing press been challenged so admirably. With the printed mediums being replaced with small lightweight devices that are high resolution and arguably more convenient to use how can we expect anything less?

eReaders and Their Impact

Recent announcements such as the new Kindle DX can only make me conclude that eBook readers are here to stay. The technology keeps on getting more sophisticated and applications of use wider. Without some sort of standardization amongst them this means designers will be faced with hundreds of devices all with different screen sizes at different resolutions. This will most certainly change the context of the “page” as we know it.

While this is a similar to the problems faced by early web designers, it is a fundamentally different problem with eReaders. When dealing with web browsers, the document exists within a viewport that can be scrolled to show more information. However with current eReader hardware content is displayed in conceptual “page flips” due to the low refresh rate of the eInk displays they contain. In some units the refresh rate is even over 4 seconds, making scrolling completely unlikely.

Viewport / Scrolling Example

The second problem of which will keep fixed dimension designs from being possible is page scaling. The new Kindle DX has a screen with a diagonal length of 9.7 inches, which is far smaller than the roughly 14” diagonal inches of a typical 8.5”x11” sheet of paper. Most documents have obviously been designed around this older US print standard, so as of right now we can expect that our designs will be viewed at what is slightly less than 70% of its intended size. When I was reading the initial impressions of the device earlier today, this is something that I was very surprised that most of the tech critics did not jump on. The problem only worsens when you consider the devices of other manufacturers who all have different sized displays, the majority of which are even smaller.

What Do You Think Will Happen?

I obviously do not know what this will mean for the practice of design, will it force designers to abandon art direction because of inconsistent results, Will it some sort of system to separate content from presentation in a PDF be adopted, or will some sort of standard be created? I am not really sure, but I do think it is an interesting topic to debate, so please share your thoughts in the comments below. I look forward to hearing what other designers think.

05/06

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13 Responses to “Will Fixed Dimension Designs Become a Luxury of the Past?”

Robin Cannon
May 6th, 2009 at 8:25 pm

Interesting article, but I’m not sure where the leap is from the growth in Kindle and less popular e-readers to a wider change in the concepts of design.

To be honest I don’t see the printed word really being replaced any time soon. The Kindle and it’s ilk will I think become important for academic texts, magazines, roleplaying books, anything that’s used for reference or a quick read. I don’t think it’s got any real prospect of replacing printed books for the more relaxed read, novels, biographies etc, at least not in a major way.
Zinni
May 6th, 2009 at 9:13 pm

@Robin

Well if you change the context of something as fundamental as the fixed dimension of a page doesn’t that pretty much change everything?

I also thought it was interesting that Jeff Bezos was saying that 35% of the book sales on Amazon now are Kindle books. Maybe that is why I feel that we are on the verge of a huge change?
Claire
May 7th, 2009 at 1:41 am

For a start, reading books on a computer is bad for your eyes. I know i wouldn’t want to stare at a flickering screen in the evening after sitting in front of a computer all day at work. It strains your eyes, and is probably worse than watching TV. Like Robin says, it will probably only ever be used for quick reference text.
Zinni
May 7th, 2009 at 8:16 am

@Claire

Maybe I should have described eInk technology a little better, because there actually is no flicker on these screens. Flicker is caused by the refreshing of the pixels on the screen hundreds of times per second on conventional monitor. eInk only refreshes the pixels once, when you hit next page. When it is no being refreshed it uses no power, meaning that the battery life of these device is up to weeks. In fact, there is not even a backlight on the Kindle it is a reflective medium just like a sheet of paper. So there shouldn’t be eye strain associated with looking at a light source.

It really is quite interesting technology.
Markus
May 7th, 2009 at 10:34 am

I don’t think this is a problem. In fact this is what CSS and the whole separation of content and design thing is for! You will have one beautiful design (CSS file) for presenting your website on a usual computer display (where fixed width is perfectly fine) and another one (or no CSS at all?) for displaying your content on eBook readers. Same content, different layout on different devices!
Andy
May 7th, 2009 at 1:20 pm

Jason Santa Maria did a great SVA Dot Dot Dot presentation on this issue. Worth watching the vid!

http://vimeo.com/4394152
Chad
May 7th, 2009 at 11:14 pm

This was a really interesting post - I really enjoyed it! I must say, however, that I disagree. I think that the advances in technology are great but that ultimately print still plays a vital role in everyday life, and could no likelier go extinct than drinking water when we’re thirsty could. I do think though, that advances in technology, coupled together with print will be a vital and highly successful partnership. An example of this is having an online portal where prints can be ordered by yourself, or clients, or really anyone involved (I found this at: http://www.digitallizard.com/graphic-designer.php). This is a great combination of technological advance and good “old-fashioned” print.
Stephen Olmstead
May 8th, 2009 at 12:06 am

This was an interesting and insightful post. So good points are raised. I think the future of design is actually dependent on fixed-width designs: let me explain. I believe that the best workaround is to design a piece that ‘degrades’ gracefully when viewed on different screen dimensions, sizes, proportions. The only constant we can really rely on is the width of the piece in question. Everything else bases its degradation off of that.

What will this mean for design? Simplicity. Designers will have to ensure that their designs and layouts work on a very simple level. Detail-laden content may look great on your 22” widescreen monitor, but on the Kindle or iPhone, the detail is… superfluous at best. IMHO web designers will have to take a page from the logo designer book and invest time in communicating a powerful piece with minimal building blocks. Its definitely an art!
Zinni
May 8th, 2009 at 9:32 am

@Andy,
Thanks for the great link, was an awesome lecture.

@Chad,
I agree that print won’t go extinct, but I think these technological changes will surely impact it. There is always a place for printed artifacts, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a time where clients also wanted these pieces to be compatible with the digital devices as well.

@Stephen,
I see your point, I just hope it doesn’t happen completely.I believe that there is a place for work that pushes the boundaries of form. If most of this were to disappear we could be faced with some rather boring stuff. I mean I love eye candy just as much as any other designer.
Chris Grayson
May 12th, 2009 at 12:44 am

@Robin

You’re not paying attention. I expect high-cost glossies, like art magazines, to stick around for a while, and obviously the world’s existing inventory of printed material will be around for some time. But otherwise, eReaders are taking over.

In the next 12 to 18 months most newspapers in the U.S. will cease the print editions. Period. Magazines will follow suite to, save for publications where super-high-resolution are the now (fine art and fashion).

eReaders are going to be, for 2009 & 2010 what cell phones became less than a decade ago. They are going to go from cutting edge to completely ubiquitous.
Zinni
May 12th, 2009 at 8:22 am

@Chris,

I agree that there is always going to be a place for high-quality pieces which act more as a possession than a publication.

As a public transportation commuter, I see the devices popping up every day. If it isn’t a dedicated device like the kindle right now, it is surely the iPhones and netbooks that are replacing the books/newspapers on the train. I wouldn’t be surprised if you are correct in your 2010 prediction that the eReaders start making a significant impact.

Thanks for your comment!
Tim Donaldson
May 20th, 2009 at 4:14 am

Wow, really thought provoking article. Thanks for bringing this technology to light for me. I hope this kind of screen technology can come into use in computers in a near future. Maybe this could open up the option of using subtractive cmyk for screens instead of additive rgb? And computers you can use outside of a nice sunny day. What a joy the world would be.
Tim Donaldson
May 20th, 2009 at 4:20 am

…please excuse the spelling mistakes above