The Virtual Designer
Our favorite Monday night TV show, by far, is Antiques Roadshow. Adva (my wife) and I never miss an episode. Each week, specialists from leading auction houses and independent dealers from across the country offer free appraisals of antiques and collectibles. Since Adva is about to graduate with a degree in Art History and I am a designer, we both love seeing the fascinating art and design pieces people bring to the show: everything from family heirlooms to garage sale finds, from 17th-century piano stools to a laugh machine from the '60s.
While watching the show a few weeks ago, I had a thought: how amazing would it be if, 150 years from now, my great-great-grandson brought one of my designs in for appraisal? But after a moment of reflection, I realized that could never really happen. I can count on one hand the number of site designs that have lasted more than a decade without a redesign, one that usually erases all traces of the original. A 150-year-old web design? That seems impossible.
It made me a little sad to think that my designs aren't built to last beyond a decade at best, that they are, by nature, temporary. This should have been obvious to me throughout my career (and maybe it was, subconsciously), but I had never truly confronted it. Compared to the incredible posters, furniture, and other tangible designs featured on the show, the reality became crystal clear. How did I miss this?
After shedding a few virtual tears and ranting on Twitter, another question came to mind: what does this mean for us as web designers?
Then I read Mandy Brown's article, which really resonated with me. She advocates for preserving web content, for shielding it from digital decay, not just through technological solutions but through sheer will. Technically speaking, I believe preserving content is achievable. Text, images, and videos can be converted into different formats or even physical objects (printed on paper, stored on film) if necessary. But as a designer, what interests me most is not just the content, but the design itself.
Web design (or more broadly, screen and interface design) is uniquely dependent on the technology it's built upon. And technology evolves so quickly that maintaining seamless backward compatibility for, say, 150 years, feels nearly impossible. Flash, once ubiquitous, is now dead. Who's to say what will remain in 200 years? When the technology disappears, the designs built on it vanish into the same digital void from which they emerged.
Unlike other forms of design, web design cannot easily be transferred to a physical medium. It relies on interaction (hovers, notifications, dropdowns, animations), all of which cease to function once removed from their technological context. A painting or a chair can be displayed in a museum, but a website without its underlying technology is just a collection of disconnected assets.
So, can we all agree that appraising websites will never happen? And if so, are we okay with that? Do we accept that what we create exists solely in a virtual world, destined to disappear? If preservation is impossible without a new solution, what does that mean for us as designers?
I'm starting to believe this is one of the biggest distinctions between web design and other design fields, particularly print, to which it is often compared. In some ways, web design has more in common with cake design, stage design, or window displays: things that are meant to be experienced in the moment and then fade away. Cakes are eaten, sets are dismantled after the show, window displays change with the seasons. Their beauty lies in their temporariness.
Is that why we've never had a universally agreed-upon masterpiece of web design? Will we ever? And if we do, how would it be preserved and referenced? Could this be why so many designers are caught up in fleeting trends? Should we be thinking about internet museums? If web design were more permanent, would designers focus less on trends and more on creating something timeless? And can web design even be timeless?
I don't have the answers, only more questions. But I'm increasingly convinced that the temporary nature of our work is one of the defining characteristics of web design. Sure, technical aspects like screen sizes and interactivity set us apart from other fields, but maybe it's time to dig a little deeper.