The Seductive Package

Is it all about packaging these days? Aesthetics seem to be taking on a more and more prominent role in the packaging of content. A recent article entitled How Steve Jobs put the seduction into technology talked about how 'Apple reshaped the personal computer from a wobbly, Professor Branestawm-like contraption into a kind of digital jewellery.' Jewellery. The domination of the Apple product in the marketplace is very much an aesthetic concept. Although the products are amazing at what they do, their initial pull is very much in the seductive nature of the package: sleek, sophisticated, sexy. Yes that's right, sexy. Sex sells, so put that into product development and you're onto a winner. Mashable recently documented the release of the world's most beautiful thermostat:

'Tony Fadell, the man who oversaw 18 generations of the iPod, announced the first product of his stealth startup Nest Labs Tuesday: a sexy, world-saving … thermostat.'

Turn up the heat on this one (or turn it down - I was trying to be clever with my words there).

So reverting back to the publishing industry and the world of books, how does this concept translate? Does it translate? The Kindle, the iPad - making reading sexy? To be quite honest, I think reading should just be reading, it doesn't have to be sexy, well depending on the content perhaps. But it seems that the juxtaposition of a print book and a digital reader does cause conflict to many a reader and how comfortable they feel reading content off a digital screen. What has to happen to make this more mainstream? Although the popularity of the e-book is continuously growing, I can't help but think that there is a better way to showcase an e-book. The sexy sleek iPad may suit a trendy digital magazine reader, but I feel that the Kindle falls short. This could just be a personal distaste for the eReader, but there is something missing. The move from a print book to an eReader is a big jump, skipping out the smell of a book, the feel of a book and the sentimentality of an artefact. So is there a mid point that we could go back to? Maybe something with the look and feel of a print book, but with an inset of digital 'pages' - a somewhat paradoxical instrument, but something I would find more aesthetically pleasing and intriguing than a simple eReader. Hmm.. I'll give it some thought and get back to you.