User:Marlon/Graduate Research Seminar/thesis/skeleton

Template

Title

3 Free and Beautiful Essays on Template Culture

Abstract

Three essays concerning template culture; from the templates we encounter on the World Wide Web (essay one), via the themes we customise and the similar user content we generate (essay two) to the shift from consumer to prosumer with the template as our tool (essay three).

Introduction

A template is the "pattern or gauge for shaping a piece of work", the 'modelvorm' that guarantees two pieces of work (a brick, an image, a letter) are identical, created from the same mold. And if they're not completely similar in looks, they are at least based on the same structure or framework. In 2014, the first template that comes to mind (and appears in a Google search) is the web template, that arranges elements of a website into a layout. Choose a design, insert your content, generate a website!

But the template exists everywhere: IKEA furniture, phone apps that promise to be tools that help you 'design your life' or the white walls of a gallery space. I'm especially interested in templates that are prominent in (graphic) design, web and lifestyle: from design tools to photo-sharing websites. And from decorative 'sjablonen' to Instagram filters.

I'm using a very broad interpretation of the word template, both literal and metaphorical. In some cases the term will be used to describe a situation where there exists a much imitated, conventional model: the template as a trope or trend.

We're surrounded with templates because:

a. They follow the same pattern we're familiar with, we're used to them

b. They require little work (or coding knowledge), because of their limitations they make decisions for you

c. They are for everyone! Easy to understand, quick to generate

d. You can customise them to your liking!

Tumblr

Popular micro-blogging service Tumblr, is quick and easy to use. Offers its users (free and pay-to-play) themes for the layout of their blogs. Its use is quite varied: from making friends and maintaining personal blogs and fan sites to professional design portfolios. There is a lot of repetitive –symbolised by the never-ending scrolling layout– content, partly due to its 'reblogging' feature. Blogs are often dedicated to one topic, phenomena or file type (see: "selfies at funerals"). Multiple blogs with the same purpose, name, style ("fuckyeah1990s", "fuckyeahdykes", "fuckyeahmiyazaki", etc).

Tumblr will be used as a main example. Not only does it use templates, but it has repetitive content, promotes a new visual language and has a "trend-setting" community.

Key questions

Are templates presets that generate not just similar design, but also similar content?

Do they liberate or limit their users?

Do these templates signify a graphic design crisis?

Essays

1. The Theme

This chapter will try to answer questions about templates by focusing on those in the web environment and uses the Tumblr layout templates called 'Themes' to do so. Why do templates exist, what do they promise?

1. What are they, but more importantly: why do we use templates? Discussing the template as a general framework that makes a website behave the way we want in a very wide range of different devices and browsers, monitors and screen resolutions, and bandwidth capacities. Their restrictions are a necessity. A website need to be moulded into an average shape that works well for everyone. Easy to access, navigate, understand. They're based on the same code and stem from the same databases, which also restricts and defines the way they look.

Code and image are separated. Form from function, source from output, coder from designer. Link to graphic design issue: what are the limitations and boundaries for designers?

2. Who makes templates? Tumblr themes are created by professionals and by "amateurs": who gets paid and who does not? And are those professionals the designers or the coders?

3. What do templates 'promise'? And how are they promoted? Here I'll be looking into what makes templates so popular (or inescapable), possibly the attraction of customisation and personification.

Templates are easy and effortless. It takes three simple steps to sign up for Tumblr and only "one click" to add content.

4. Customise! But only limited options and no structural changes. Unless you know code.

Broader context: Offering a 'custom selection or packages' of modules, options, steps and upgrades attracts users/clients. Covering up the basic, core product. When buying a web domain, selecting health insurance, putting together a sandwich at Subway.

Aside: The editing, changing, modding of games and other type of software. Possibilities both in how they look (skins) and how they behave (mods, hacks). And also, case studies of users taking the framework and its limitations and using it as a sort of palette to create new works.

2. The Dashboard

The Tumblr dashboard, the customisation options and different widgets form the basis of this chapter. Do seemingly superficial add-ons and changes to the template really make you(r website) more custom, different, personal?

1. Personalise! You're in control. "Design your life!" using drop down menues and on/off buttons.

Add ons and widgets that are created for, but not by, Tumblr (and possibly go against its 'less is more' routine). Add a Facebook widget on your Tumblr and put a Twitter widget on your Facebook wall.

2. The users. The Tumblr community has often been seen as one entity, "I am waiting for Tumblr to post (...) about (...)". Do templates make people more similar and more predictable?

Advertisement: Using the template to create the perfect customer, predictable and easy to influence.

Templates versus personal autonomy. Is it also a tool for empowerment?

Cultural context: Arts and Crafts movement. (DIY, Maker Movement?)

3. User-generated content. Another definition of template is, "something that establishes or serves as a pattern". Do (web) templates generate the same (type of) content? See the repetitive material on Tumblr, infinite scrolling, reblogging.

Related: Trends, hypes and memes.

Who profits from this content? In the case of Tumblr, fandom as free labour?

3. Design crisis

The last chapter focused on the 'the user', but where does the designer come in? Is there a crisis in (commercial) graphic design - or professionalism in general? Is a designer now designated to create the tools, the templates, "the user-friendly environment"?

If it exists, what does this crisis in (graphic) design mean? Is there no more need for a professional, can everyone really be a designer? Have there been comparable situations or similar crises in recent history?

1. Downloadable Design

Open and Downloadable design, co-creation or individualised production and it's relation to free software, DIY, the maker movement and the Arts and Crafts movement. Redesigning Design. If everyone can be a designer, what does the designer create?

Designers creating the tools, the templates and the environment.

2. Producer and consumer

3. The original