AtAT's latest demographic data on our viewing audience suggests that several of you have been messing with computers long enough to remember back when the Macintosh "desktop publishing" revolution was in its early stages. Do you remember what happened? Suddenly it seemed like everyone and their grandmothers were putting together their own newsletters, since it could all be done on a single Mac and printed right to a laser printer. No messy cutting and pasting, no haggling with the local print shop, etc. And if you recall, the vast majority of those "do-it-yourself" newsletters looked like ransom notes. People used every font available, just because they could. More recently we saw the same kind of anarchic design disasters with the growth in popularity of the World Wide Web, which made anyone with a computer, an Internet account, and a copy of Pagemill into a publisher. In both instances, lots of people with absolutely no design training (or inherent design sense) violated just about every rule of legible and pleasing layout. It was publishing anarchy-- and, truth be told, it was pretty cool, because it got people trying new things. And after a while, the excitement of freedom died down for most people, the truly ugly creations either went away or got prettier, and all was right with the world.

Why do we bring this up? Because we expect a similar paradigm to infect the personal computer market. Apple opened the doors with the iMac, showing the computer manufacturing world that not only would people accept an unconventionally-styled computer, but that they'd also line up in droves to buy one. So now the rest of the industry is jumping on the bandwagon, as evidenced by Intel's recent "fashion show" of "new computer styles." Pat Gelsinger, the veep of Intel's desktop products group, says that "the point is that beige minitowers aren't the only form factor that the PC industry can deliver." (Hmmm, we wonder where he got that idea?) Consequently, Intel hosted this shindig at which multiple vendors (not including Apple, of course) showed off their latest attempts to cash in on the public's thirst for computers in cool enclosures.

Now here's where the DTP and web anarchy scenarios come into play: according to a Reuters article, the kinds of designs companies are coming up with don't share much in common with the years of design thought and consideration that went into the iMac or the new G3's. The makers of many of the systems at the show apparently didn't think, "we need to craft a functional, friendly system that invites the user to explore and have fun." Instead, it seems they sat down and said, "Let's make a computer that looks like a bunny and see if people buy that." Yes, a bunny. There were also computers shaped like fish, Aztec pyramids, superheroes (!), and the Sydney Opera House. Again, it's the exuberance of anarchy rearing its head as the manufacturers are freed from the constraints of the beige box (though without the "anyone can join in" dynamic, and driven by dollar signs instead of creative expression)-- but it sounds to us like the new designs are different for difference's sake, instead of striving to accomplish an overall synergy of form and function. And besides, even if the new designs are all looks, though we haven't seen it ourselves, we have a hard time believing that a bunny-shaped computer is really all that stylish. As the article points out, "the fashion papparazzi were noticeably absent." Well, heck, we can't say we're all that surprised...