So there are coffee table books with beautiful photos of Braun equipment, Apple computers, collections of corporate brand standards, typeface specimens etc.
-
So there are coffee table books with beautiful photos of Braun equipment, Apple computers, collections of corporate brand standards, typeface specimens etc.
But outside of some nostalgic video game coffee table books, have their ever been coffee table books showing primarily software? Graphical user interfaces or apps?
The closest I can think of is the macOS/iOS app icon book (by Michael Flarup), but that’s specific to icons.
@mwichary no! I'd love to see a book like this. There was so much experimentation in the late 80s that people no longer remember
-
@mwichary the In Your Face (too!) books are almost exactly that - specific to multimedia/interactive software in the mid/late-90s
@vga256 Oh, so interesting! I think this is both exactly what I was curious about, and exactly the opposite – this probably has a lot of flashy weird “agency” kind of stuff that I hate, rather than everyday UI worth celebrating. But I just snagged a used copy.
-
@mwichary no! I'd love to see a book like this. There was so much experimentation in the late 80s that people no longer remember
@scottjenson I’d love to see a celebration of more utilitarian kind of stuff. The most beautiful DOS apps, for example. Or particularly nice early Mac apps before the conventions solidified.
-
So there are coffee table books with beautiful photos of Braun equipment, Apple computers, collections of corporate brand standards, typeface specimens etc.
But outside of some nostalgic video game coffee table books, have their ever been coffee table books showing primarily software? Graphical user interfaces or apps?
The closest I can think of is the macOS/iOS app icon book (by Michael Flarup), but that’s specific to icons.
I was just looking at Scala on Amiga and look how beautiful!
(Source + kudos to Stone Tools: https://stonetools.ghost.io/scala-amiga)
-
So there are coffee table books with beautiful photos of Braun equipment, Apple computers, collections of corporate brand standards, typeface specimens etc.
But outside of some nostalgic video game coffee table books, have their ever been coffee table books showing primarily software? Graphical user interfaces or apps?
The closest I can think of is the macOS/iOS app icon book (by Michael Flarup), but that’s specific to icons.
@mwichary I have to admit my first reflex was "please, no, I spend all the rest of my time looking at software already!"
but it's not, of course, curated for its aesthetics
-
@vga256 Oh, so interesting! I think this is both exactly what I was curious about, and exactly the opposite – this probably has a lot of flashy weird “agency” kind of stuff that I hate, rather than everyday UI worth celebrating. But I just snagged a used copy.
@mwichary yeah - exactly. it's agency stuff, however they did pick some very artsy work for many of them. since almost all of them are bespoke UIs, they're at least something different from "here's windows 95" or "here's NeXTStep"
-
I was just looking at Scala on Amiga and look how beautiful!
(Source + kudos to Stone Tools: https://stonetools.ghost.io/scala-amiga)
In my head, I can see a beautiful 17"x11" spread with a hypothetical Windows 3.11 CRT that’s 3000x2000 and it has a lot of windows, icons, Minesweeper, the goods. Especially the later “platinum” Windows 3.11 appearance.
You know? Stuff like that.
Early skeuomorphic iOS, early webOS, various Mac things of course, BeOS, the later Norton Utilities aesthetic, XCopy on the Amiga! TOS was always so elegant. And some lesser-known things. Newton?
-
In my head, I can see a beautiful 17"x11" spread with a hypothetical Windows 3.11 CRT that’s 3000x2000 and it has a lot of windows, icons, Minesweeper, the goods. Especially the later “platinum” Windows 3.11 appearance.
You know? Stuff like that.
Early skeuomorphic iOS, early webOS, various Mac things of course, BeOS, the later Norton Utilities aesthetic, XCopy on the Amiga! TOS was always so elegant. And some lesser-known things. Newton?
@mwichary PC GEOS, the best Motif implementation that wasn't Motif.
-
@mwichary PC GEOS, the best Motif implementation that wasn't Motif.
@kickingvegas I resurrected some PC/GEOS pixel fonts and use them on my site! https://aresluna.org
-
@kickingvegas I resurrected some PC/GEOS pixel fonts and use them on my site! https://aresluna.org
@kickingvegas GEOS on C64 was also very elegant!
-
In my head, I can see a beautiful 17"x11" spread with a hypothetical Windows 3.11 CRT that’s 3000x2000 and it has a lot of windows, icons, Minesweeper, the goods. Especially the later “platinum” Windows 3.11 appearance.
You know? Stuff like that.
Early skeuomorphic iOS, early webOS, various Mac things of course, BeOS, the later Norton Utilities aesthetic, XCopy on the Amiga! TOS was always so elegant. And some lesser-known things. Newton?
@mwichary with a forward written by Susan Kare. Please make this happen!
Looking forward to the companion CD-ROM that is included on the sleeve, featuring a Macromedia Director interactive tour that has to be run in an emulator. Just make sure the Palm V companion app supports hotsync!
-
So there are coffee table books with beautiful photos of Braun equipment, Apple computers, collections of corporate brand standards, typeface specimens etc.
But outside of some nostalgic video game coffee table books, have their ever been coffee table books showing primarily software? Graphical user interfaces or apps?
The closest I can think of is the macOS/iOS app icon book (by Michael Flarup), but that’s specific to icons.
@mwichary Not exactly what you imagined, it's video games again, but I can mention that my son has a rather attractive art book, a little smaller than coffee table size, called “Credit 00: I Love Game Graphics.” Software screens and logotypes adjoin promotional and hardware materials throughout.
IA owns a copy: https://archive.org/details/credit00ilovegam0000unse/page/n3/mode/2up
-
In my head, I can see a beautiful 17"x11" spread with a hypothetical Windows 3.11 CRT that’s 3000x2000 and it has a lot of windows, icons, Minesweeper, the goods. Especially the later “platinum” Windows 3.11 appearance.
You know? Stuff like that.
Early skeuomorphic iOS, early webOS, various Mac things of course, BeOS, the later Norton Utilities aesthetic, XCopy on the Amiga! TOS was always so elegant. And some lesser-known things. Newton?
@mwichary I’m just saying: GUIdebook Book
-
In my head, I can see a beautiful 17"x11" spread with a hypothetical Windows 3.11 CRT that’s 3000x2000 and it has a lot of windows, icons, Minesweeper, the goods. Especially the later “platinum” Windows 3.11 appearance.
You know? Stuff like that.
Early skeuomorphic iOS, early webOS, various Mac things of course, BeOS, the later Norton Utilities aesthetic, XCopy on the Amiga! TOS was always so elegant. And some lesser-known things. Newton?
Early NeXT, obviously (a bit Unixy, but has some elegance)! Magic Cap?
There are probably some more strange and beautiful text-only DOS apps. Some particularly memorable semigraphics.
-
Early NeXT, obviously (a bit Unixy, but has some elegance)! Magic Cap?
There are probably some more strange and beautiful text-only DOS apps. Some particularly memorable semigraphics.
@mwichary palm
-
@mwichary I’m just saying: GUIdebook Book
@dokas Seems like it!
-
@Screwtapello Yeah, @nina_kali_nina was just exploring one of them. That’d be a goldmine!
-
Early NeXT, obviously (a bit Unixy, but has some elegance)! Magic Cap?
There are probably some more strange and beautiful text-only DOS apps. Some particularly memorable semigraphics.
I think Psion was very nice, too.
-
I was just looking at Scala on Amiga and look how beautiful!
(Source + kudos to Stone Tools: https://stonetools.ghost.io/scala-amiga)
@mwichary I remember using MM200 on PC, for song words at a church of all things
-
Early NeXT, obviously (a bit Unixy, but has some elegance)! Magic Cap?
There are probably some more strange and beautiful text-only DOS apps. Some particularly memorable semigraphics.
