Aesthetics and Luxury in GPS Systems
In the AIGA's Voice Paul Patton has an interesting article, quoting me, about how luxury car makers are extending good aesthetics to their navigation systems. The opening:
Dragons have begun to appear on our dashboards and sea serpents on our mobile devices. The screens of our navigation units have very quietly, almost without our noticing, begun to acquire decorations like those of ancient maps: fictional elements, like the monsters than once warned sailors against traveling too far, the full-cheeked mythological figures of winds, the elaborate florid geometry of the compass rose.
Most GPS (global positioning system) manufacturers such as Garmin, TomTom and their digital media ilk have made maps abstract again. The perfectly highlighted green and red pushpins that mark the beginning and end of my usual journey suggest huge water tanks along the New Jersey turnpike. Even the most barebones functional maps are decorated with notional, stylized green hills and puffy clouds that garnish the roads on our navigation screens.
Choices among parallel lanes and schematics of freeway exits ahead are often represented by bold rods or ribbons. The design is in the tradition of John Ogilby's coaching maps of Britain, circa 1675, in which each road is depicted independently, like a literal scroll that is being unfurled. These are charming effects. But a new generation of units have brought glitzier effects and something like luxury to the dashboard.
"Luxury vehicles promise to deliver 'the best,' whatever that may mean," says Virginia Postrel, author of The Substance of Style, who is working on a book about glamour. "That means giving drivers not just the most up-to-date technology — something that they can also get in much cheaper cars — but the most beautiful. Elegant displays, which extend sensory perception, contribute to the feeling of mastery."
Read the rest here.