The Art of Penguin Science Fiction
A century of sci-fi book covers.
The Future Mundane — hellofosta
As a corollary to the idea of mundane sci-fi, Nick Foster proposes some rules for realistically mundane design fiction:
- The Future Mundane is filled with background talent.
- The Future Mundane is an accretive space.
- The Future Mundane is a partly broken space.
When I encounter everyday design in science fiction cinema, I get a chill of excitement. From Korben’s cigarettes in the Fifth Element, the parole officer in Elysium, and countless examples in Blade Runner, these pieces of design help us get a much better hold on our future than any holographic interface ever could. The future we design should understand this. The characters in our future will not necessarily need to save the world at every turn—most of them will simply live in it, quietly enjoying each day.
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Cardigan Sci-fi • Robin Rendle
Cardigans are not entirely necessary for a show or a film to fit within the Cardigan sci-fi subgenre (although they certainly help). It’s the lack of polish in the world, it’s the absence of technological fetishism in the science fiction itself. The science or the tools or the spaceships do not sit at the heart of Cardigan sci-fi — it’s all about the people that wear the cardigans instead.
MD Nichrome by Mass-Driver
Marvin has some competition! Here’s another beautiful sci-fi variable font:
MD Nichrome is a display typeface based on the typography of paperback science fiction from the 70s and early 80s.
Untold AI: The Untold | Sci-fi interfaces
Prompted by his time at Clearleft’s AI gathering in Juvet, Chris has been delving deep into the stories we tell about artificial intelligence …and what stories are missing.
And here we are at the eponymous answer to the question that I first asked at Juvet around 7 months ago: What stories aren’t we telling ourselves about AI?
‘Black Mirror’ meets HGTV, and a new genre, home design horror, is born - Curbed
There was a time, circa 2009, when no home design story could do without a reference to Mad Men. There is a time, circa 2018, when no personal tech story should do without a Black Mirror reference.
Black Mirror Home. It’s all fun and games until the screaming starts.
When these products go haywire—as they inevitably do—the Black Mirror tweets won’t seem so funny, just as Mad Men curdled, eventually, from ha-ha how far we’ve come to, oh-no we haven’t come far enough.
Related posts
Star wheels
I have a bad feeling about this.
The literary operator
A beautiful machine.
Solarpunk
Put a tree on it.
Speaking about sci-fi
Please join me and Steph Troeth for our Stay Curious event on June 16th.
Living Through The Future
William Gibson, Arthur C.Clarke, Daniel Dafoe, Stephen King, Emily St. John Mandel, John Wyndham, Martin Cruz-Smith, Marina Koren and H.G. Wells.