Making something that leaves the screen

I have spent decades working with software, and I still find it extraordinary. A good piece of software can make a difficult task manageable, give someone a capability they did not have, or remove an irritation so thoroughly that they forget it was ever there. There is a particular pleasure in making something complicated work clearly. I have no wish to leave that behind.

But I have become increasingly interested in a different kind of work, and a different kind of result. Something with a weight. Something that catches light. Something that is still in the room after the computer has been switched off.

Picturing Places began partly with that desire. I wanted to use what I know about software to make something you can touch, and I wanted the subject of that object to have a physical meaning too. A map offered both: a print that occupies a place in your home, representing a place somewhere in the world.

What the hand understands

There are objects that explain themselves through use. The resistance of a dial on a camera. A lamp switch you can find without looking. The way two pieces of a wooden toy fit together. None of these needs to be expensive or unusual. What interests me is the attention paid to the encounter between a person and a thing.

You can feel some of that attention before you can describe it. An edge has been considered. A control stops where you expect it to stop. Something feels balanced when you pick it up. The construction gives you information through your hand, rather than asking your eyes to do all the work.

Paper has its own version of this. An image on paper has a surface and a boundary. You can bring it closer, turn it towards the light or put it down beside something else. A frame adds depth. Wood has a grain that continues around an edge. These are modest observations, but they account for a surprising amount of the pleasure of living with objects.

I do not think physical things are automatically better designed than digital ones. Plenty are awkward, wasteful or unpleasant to use. The distinction that matters to me is whether someone has paid attention to what the medium can do.

When everything becomes a screen

Touchscreens are remarkable. They let one surface become many different tools, and they make unfamiliar functions accessible without requiring a panel full of controls. In many situations, that flexibility is exactly what we need.

Still, I sometimes miss the thought that used to go into a dedicated physical control. A familiar action can become slower when it is hidden in a menu. Something you once adjusted by feel now asks you to look away from what you were doing. The screen may be more adaptable, while that particular interaction becomes less satisfying.

My frustration is with that trade-off being treated as inevitable. There is engineering in a good hinge, a dial or a switch, just as there is engineering in an interface. Replacing one with the other should be a considered choice. The ability to put something on a screen does not, by itself, tell us that it belongs there.

The same question applies more quietly to images. We can keep thousands of them, carry them everywhere and share them instantly. I value that enormously. But storing an image and living with it are different experiences. One asks you to open an application and find it. The other can be there when you walk into the room.

An object shares the room

A screen has a way of making very different things occupy the same rectangle. A map, a message, a photograph and a spreadsheet take turns in one illuminated space. Their surroundings stay largely the same, even when their contents could not be more different.

A physical print has to find its own relationship with its surroundings. Its scale matters. So does the space around it, the height at which it hangs, the neighbouring furniture and the changing light. You see it from the doorway, from a chair, close enough to notice a small line. It can become familiar without demanding an action from you each time.

This is part of what I wanted Picturing Places to do. The work begins with a place, but it ends in another place: someone’s room. Choosing the view of a city and choosing where its print will hang are connected decisions. Both are ways of deciding what deserves your attention.

There is no need for the result to dominate the room or announce its significance. A small print beside a desk can be enough. The person who chose it knows why it is there.

Things acquire a history

Physical objects also have a relationship with time that I find interesting. They get handled and moved. A frame might live in one flat and then another. The light around it changes. The room changes. Even when the object itself remains much the same, its place in your life can shift.

Some materials show use. Wood can change in appearance; a frame may collect a small mark. This is not an argument for damage, poor durability or careless construction. I want things to be well made and looked after. It is simply an acknowledgement that an object participates in life rather than remaining separate from it.

Software has a history too, of course. Anyone who has returned to an old project knows how much a file or an interface can recall. But its usual direction is towards the next update, the replacement, the restored state. A physical object can acquire a history that is visible in the object itself, as well as in the memory of its owner.

I cannot promise what a print will mean to someone in twenty years. That would be an odd claim to make for a product. What I can hope is that it becomes something they choose to keep, move and find a place for again.

Why a map

A map gives this idea a second physical connection. The paper is real, and so is the place it represents. The streets have distances. The coast has a shape. There is somewhere you could stand within that arrangement of lines.

That place does not need to be famous. It might be the town where you grew up, a village you return to, or the part of a city where you first lived together. A visitor might see an interesting composition. You might recognise the route to someone’s house. Both readings can belong to the same image.

I like that a map can carry this meaning without spelling it out. It does not have to illustrate an event or explain a relationship. The outline of a bay can be enough. So can a bend in a road, even if nobody else in the room knows why you chose that particular view.

A personalised map poster is therefore more than a choice of colours, but it does not need an elaborate story attached to it either. You decide how much to say. The important part is the connection between an actual place and the person bringing its image home.

Made with software, finished elsewhere

None of this happens without technology. The map creator, the handling of geographic data, the rendering of an image, the steps between a design and a print: software runs through the whole project. That work matters, and I enjoy it.

The difference is where I want the process to end. The editor should help you find a view and make decisions, then let the result leave it. The tools serve the print. They are successful when the object makes sense away from the interface that produced it.

That is the idea behind Picturing Places. I want to make considered physical wall art using the digital tools I know, without pretending the technology is absent or that the object has been made by my own hands. The care can be in the design, in the choices offered and in how the whole process fits together.

The result can be simple. A sheet of paper, perhaps a frame or wooden hanger, and a view of somewhere you know. You put it in a room. The screen can turn off.

Choose a place for your print.