The Wood Age

April 21st, 2010 by Hugo

You know, the Stone Age, the Copper Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age… and now, the Wood Age. I bet if you turn on your iPhone (or iPad if you are a lucky one) you will find traces of wood in many of your favourite Apps.

YouTube icon

YouTube icon on iPhone

Well, it is a small detail, but you have wood in the TV case.

iBooks

Main library in iBooks

Wood everywhere, like a real piece of furniture.

Classics

Classics screen

Awesome Note

Awesome Note screen

NewsRack

NewsRack screen

Articles

Articles for iPad screen

Tipulator

Tipulator screen

Flashcard touch

Flashcard touch screen

Rhema

Rhema screen

Dunnit!

Dunnit! screen

FlipRate

Main screen of FlipRate

Yeah, our last (and first) creation, pretty wood table for all the iPad screen glory.

I.D. Wood

I.D. Wood screen

Even a complete wood guide app!

Maybe this Wood Age will be only a temporary craze, and becomes old fashioned soon (like rounded corners and gradients) but I think it makes lot of sense because, in the deep of our heart, we desire to get back to this…

Image of the first Apple computer, the Apple I

2 Comments

2 Responses to “The Wood Age”

  1. Geordi says:
    28/04/2010 at 02:13

    To be honest, I think the presence of wood in most app icons or interfaces is over-stated by this blog post. It appears often, and is an important and natural element, but there’s no distinct “age” present. Just my opinion

  2. Joni says:
    29/04/2010 at 01:08

    I think Hugo has a valid point, the Apple Human Interface Guidelines for the iPad do recommend simulating natural materials. This was also noted by a poignant article by iA
    on designing for the iPad:

    Everything 3D! Make a newspaper look like a newspaper! Make that word processor look like a type writer! Use wooden backgrounds! And why? Because Apple said so.

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