Suddenly it’s cool to be lo-fi. Perhaps it’s a result of living in a connected society and suffering from tech fatigue. Maybe it’s because organic and ecologically sustainable living is no longer restricted to dirty hippes. Or is it because musicians and designers have recently taken a minimalist approach to art and web design, and we’re all jumping on the trendwagon?
Always-on Tech Fatigue
Connected doesn’t always mean better. Years of on-demand personal organisation hasn’t done a great deal for the majority of us. Syncing work emails to read them at home. Fiddling with a stylus to write on a tiny screen instead of paper so your pocket PC can inaccurately translate your words to text. Sending and receiving work emails on your mobile device on the weekend, all the while encouraging premature arthritis. How did we get in the this mess?
Thankfully, Merlin Mann introduced us to the Hipster PDA. Douglas Johnston took the concept to the next level. Thousands tried it, loved it and continue to swear by it.
Ecologically Sustainable Living
Never before has it been so chic to nestle into the environment with a small footprint, minimal ecological disruption and a household driven by re-use. Ecologically sustainable living is a wonderful thing, and due to some creative architecture and common sense on the part of the consumer it’s become very uptown.
Arts
In the pocket of the uber cool Modular Records, The Presets are dictators of style. At first glance, the design theme used on thepresets.com could easily be mistaken for that of simple early 90′s text-inspried ASCII art. Rather, it’s flash made to look basic and rudimentary, and it’s a massive contrast to the flash-driven multimedia overkill of post 2000. New technology designed to look old and dated. A similar theme is found at the home of hip Swiss fashion label +41. No ASCII art there, just a plain and deliberately dated style.
Australian Trendspotting
The popularity of prefab housing will continue to increase, as will the popularity of green transport. Some execs will slowly migrate to Hipster PDAs over the next year, as they begin to realise they don’t need their schedule and to do lists replicating to 5 different locations in order to remember the milk. Minimalist themes will permeate the web, print and graphic design spheres, and may also influence music and fashion. Getting back to basics. It’s the lo-fi movement.
Gen Y will be the early adopters, the rest will follow.