Reading a very interesting article by Matt Webb on Macroscopes:
Some very insightful excerpts, valuable learning for me -
Macroscopes give us a kind of superpower: an ability to feel the human scale and the grand view all at once.
(On double views) This double view of a flower doesn’t fixate on its beauty. When you see two scales simultaneously — the flower in your hand; the atoms and processes of nature at a global scale — your consciousness ricochets between them, producing awe and enlightenment both.
Astronomers and peeping toms have telescopes. The instruments we have here, to use the designer John Thackera’s term, are macroscopes. Thackara gives a definition: “A macro scope is some thing that helps us see what the aggregation of many small actions looks like when added together.”
A macroscope will focus ideas as a microscope focuses light. A designer’s job is not only to fulfil their craft, in graphics, or furniture, or silver or what ever it may be. And it’s not only to understand all kinds of context and produce objects that are aesthetically and functionally pleasing. A designer’s job is also to invent culture.
