As a qualifier to this article, let me first be frank: I am no historian. I can't help it. I see great value in understanding the mistakes and successes of the past, but I defer to others to police those streets. While this is likely never to change, I'm forcing myself to learn a bit more about the history of graphic design. While this kind of history is somewhat more compelling to me, I still get a greater thrill from plotting my influence on the future than ruminating over a past I can't change.

The Industrial Revolution

But, I found an applicable lesson in design history that sheds meaning on changes we're facing today. The Industrial Revolution was shaped by the rapid development of machinery, assembly lines and mass production. While it lowered the cost of goods and made them available to a broad array of people, the hand-crafted quality and exclusivity were lost. It was an era of appearances. The mass produced products were manufactured to look expensive with elaborate, but cheap ornamentation. Artisans and businessmen fed up with the lack of satisfaction that the Industrial Revolution provided, pushed back with what was later dubbed The Arts and Crafts Movement.

The Arts and Crafts Movement brought together the talented designers from the pre-revolution period and re-energized the community by seeking a niche as high-end craftsmen. They learned from their mistakes and put serious research into finding harmony between form and function. They sought high quality construction that served its purpose well, with only the embellishments that would contribute meaning. The cookie-cutter production of the Industrial Revolution never disappeared, but those passionate about beauty and perfection still find lucrative markets. Look at Apple.

The Digital Revolution

Copy and Paste scenario A to scenario B — 200 years later. Replace the steam engines and sweat shops with computers, and we're reading from the same book. There has been an explosion of innovation in all things digital. Universal access to the internet, and the consumerism of digital photography has turned everyone into a content creator. Blogging content management systems put publishing into the hands of the masses. It is estimated that there are now over a quarter of a billion websites online. Around 65% of those have or are blogs. That leads inevitably to a lot of lousy content. They'll embellish their posts with trendy keywords to generate traffic to sites with no substance. They take poorly composed pictures, blow out the saturation in Photoshop and call it photography. The internet is saturated with a bunch of fluff that has been decorated to appear worthwhile.

Our Arts and Crafts movement is going to come in the form of aggregation. Web users are getting tired of the noise that crowds out the truly valuable information online. Simple attempts have been made to alleviate this through syndication technologies like RSS. Once a user has found the content she wants, she can collect it into her own little basket of favorites. Google has also matured its algorithms to reward meaningful content with higher search rankings. But the biggest breakthrough in this movement is still in its infancy. We call it the Semantic Web. It is a web that learns and decides on your behalf based on your preferences and history. It will read your mind in a sense and take you where you want to go. With the automation of these decisions, content will, out of necessity, have to improve in order to gain any attention at all. Very much like the transition from the Industrial Revolution, the mass-produced, low-quality trash will always be around somewhere. But unlike the first revolution, this one will in all likelihood force the adoption of trustworthy resources, especially because the web relies so heavily on corporate superpowers for its development. Our movement will undoubtedly have more far reaching influence than the original Arts and Crafts Movement did. Theirs remained relatively small because it had a growth cap it could not breach.

Study of history will assist us in understanding our future, because our societies do tend to be cyclical. But if we're not careful, and look to the past to solve all the problems of the future, we may find that it blocks creative thinking and curbs innovation.