solid color

We were all relieved when the new computer lab opened in my undergraduate graphic design program. The old computer lab was, well, old. And crowded, the size of the program having long since outgrown it. The old lab was hot and noisy, filled with (by then) inefficient Mac G3s, with whirring fans and loudly spinning hard drives, with big, bulky monitors. The desks were packed so close together that you had to do a bit of a ballet/yoga combo to move down the aisles, bringing particular body parts a bit too close for comfort to those already seated at their stations.

Not so with the new computer lab. It was roomy, with flat screen monitors and a whole army of new, sparkling G4 computers. The design of those computers promised to be new, fast, and flashy, and hurtle us into a future of bold, new design.

The second day the lab was open, we came in to discover that all the desktops had been set to a solid color gray – about 80 percent gray – and had been done so by the admin, following orders from the chair of our department. We protested. We were, in fact, designers, but not only designers, but young creatives… surely we could pick our own super-cool, super-trendy backgrounds ourselves? "No," our professor argued. "You need a clean slate to work on. You need a neutral surface so it doesn't influence your design."

Well, we all thought that was perfectly old-fashioned and codgy. "He's a Swiss designer," we grumbled, "all tradition, no imagination."

Five years later, having my own laptop and an almost magical access to the Internet, I have had a million super-cool and trendy desktop backgrounds. I have recently changed to a solid color, 80 percent gray. Of my own volition, in fact.

Why?

Information overload, actually. I have a facebook account which now has a news feed that updates in real time. I subscribe to several blogs by RSS feed, check others routinely, get the New York Times delivered to my inbox, subscribe to several hours worth of podcasts every week, get e-mail newsletters (professional and of personal interest), and god knows what else. I am assaulted with images, words, headlines, tag lines, funny cat videos, T.V. shows, and anything else the Internet can throw at me. I even downloaded a Firefox add-on called Read It Later, were I can bookmark certain web-pages that interest me in order to, as you guessed, read later. There are probably 20 articles in my list.

So at least when the desktop is showing, I have a clear, zen-like image of emptiness staring back at me. I find it calming. I have cleared a space for myself. It is a reminder to do that more in real life. When I was a hot-headed young undergrad, I thought the imposed gray desktops in the new computer lab were a sign of the closed-mindedness and authoritarianism of my school. But now, I guess I'm just as old and codgy.