Designer Frank Chimero's wonderful short book, The Shape of Design<\/em>, is an enjoyable read on what design means to him, offering us deep insights along the way. Chimero believes that a marker of good design is that it moves<\/em>, from hand to hand, maker to maker, context to context. Good design moves along with time, and as it moves, it improves along the way.<\/p>\n \"We must respond and move, simply because the work moves and the space around design shifts as culture changes and the adjacent possible grows. Design is always in motion<\/a>; we either sway with it or we get thrown off the line.\"<\/span><\/p>\n Design consists of various fields that work with different processes. A fashion designer will ask different questions to those of a web designer. The problems and goals are different. It's perhaps why a goal like timelessness, which pulls into consideration sustainability, doesn't matter as much on the web as it does in fashion or architecture because the physical limitations aren't the same. The web doesn't require material resources in the same way.<\/p>\n The web is highly ephemeral, which is why it struggles to co-exist with timelessness. Millions of content is added everyday only to be eventually lost. The web isn't like a fine wine that ages well; it's like a river. And as the ancient philosopher Heraclitus stated centuries ago, \"one does not step into the same river twice\" (unless one's content is constantly on Google's top search ranking). There's nothing timeless about a field that's in a constant state of flux.<\/p>\n Companies like Snapchat and Vine are loved by millions for encouraging the ephemeral web. Snapchat, in particular, blew up because it's grounded on our reality. It simulates how we communicate face-to-face and understands that moments are temporary. We're simply just passing each other by.<\/p>\n A lot of anxieties in life comes from the boundaries we set for ourselves. As well as that, we're especially cautious of who we are online because of reputation. People generally have an impression of our digital selves first before they meet us in real life, if they ever do at all. This creates even more pressure to be a certain way, to the extent that people will start whitewalling<\/a>. This is the act of deleting past posts on Facebook in order to manage a reasonable reputation online.<\/p>\n Snapchat works because it psychologically liberates us from such anxieties and represents our desire for privacy. In temporary snaps, we can break our curated online reputation without the concern that things will stick around. Snapchat doesn't care about breaking outside of time, just boundaries.<\/p>\n Sarah Perez, in looking into the trend of the ephemeral web for Tech Crunch<\/a>, observes that:<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t
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