Why is the save icon in your software a floppy disk that no one has used for over 20 years? And that phone icon looks nothing like your mobile phone when making a call. These are both skeuomorphs.

A skeuomorph is when a new design borrows practical elements from a former design and repurposes them in a functional or ornamental way.

Skeuomorphs are practical because they make new systems more intuitive. Their comfort and familiarity can help bridge old and new ways. For example, some electric cars are designed to look like they have air intake vents like traditional combustion cars.

More poetically, a skeuomorph can offset the loss of physical reality when interacting with our digital devices.

The save icon is a floppy disk from the 1980s and '90s

The shopping cart in an online shopping site

Sliders and knobs, or even connecting wires, are made to look like analogue mixing desks and gear in music software (music software is awash with skeuomorphs)

A link icon represented by a link of a physical chain

Dials and levers or a funnel representing filters

Shadows under boxes on a webpage simulate light falling on a surface to show depth

Grab bars are indications of friction points where you can change the order of a list

I once read that when designing, if you can't think of an icon for your feature in about five seconds, you probably need to write the word, as not everyone will understand it.

Not all digital icons are skeuomorphs: the printer as the print icon and the folded page for a page layout still map to their physical counterparts.

Slot machine levers that change the state of a circuit rather than spin any wheels.

Fake wood grain is used on floors or interiors.

Haptic feedback—a simulated click when pressing on a touchscreen.

Speed camera signs in the UK use a stylised visual of a classic Kodak Brownie camera.

Rivets on jeans are from when fixing denim together required more than just stitching.

Electric cars sometimes include imitation air vents at the front that cool traditional combustion engines.

Car hub caps with spoke designs from early wheels.

Textured wallpaper, such as Anaglypta, echoes leather wall hangings with scored patterns.

There's even a design for an early car with a fake horse head on the front—though the inventor designed it to avoid scaring other horses on the road.

A smartwatch isn't just a watch; it's a computer you wear on your wrist.

The imitation shutter sound of taking a photo on your phone

Simulated engine noise on an electric car

Skeumorphs in Software and User Interfaces

Software and the digital domain are ripe places for spotting skeuomorphs, as they don't have physical characteristics—it's all 1s and 0s that we can't see or interact with.

Apple's early iPhone interfaces were famous for skeuomorphic elements, such as a Contacts app that resembled a contacts book complete with tabs—tabs are also skeuomorphic— and fake leather or paper effects in note apps.

Skeuomorphs, like metaphors in design, are helpful. In a magic box that can do anything—a mobile phone—a visual connection to a physical object with a defined purpose helps immediately tell you what something might be or do.

As the digital world gradually becomes the first interaction for so many uses, skeuomorphs may become less common. But we'll see them around for decades yet.

Skeuomorph is not a recent term. It was coined by archaeologist Henry Colley March by combining the Greek skeuos (σκεῦος) for container or tool and morphe (μορφή) for shape.

Skeuomorphs have been used in art and architecture since ancient times. For example, they are decorative features of stone buildings that mimic structural elements from older wooden ones, such as protruding rafters. Ancient pottery sometimes includes decorative rope patterns on the surface.

The BBC has a lovely radio piece on Skeuomorphs, Design, and Modern Craft with novelist Will Self. The piece discusses their subtler side and some great examples, some of which I've included here. In the same episode, they also mention the zombie walk with faces lit by the glowing screen from a phone.

"The content is the interface"—Sam Moreau

Skeuomorph

The Three Bricklayers’ story illustrates the power of purpose.

A simple version goes that a person walked past a building project and asked three workers the same question: “What are you doing?”

The first replied, “I’m laying bricks.”

The second replied, “I’m building a wall.”

And the third replied, “I’m creating a cathedral.”

The story highlights how we can view our work differently depending on whether we focus on the immediate task, the short-term goal, or the larger vision. The first worker focuses on the task at hand, the second sees the outcome of their work, and the third connects to the broader purpose of the project.

Various tellings have the first worker hunched over or working slowly. The second and third workers take increasing pride in their work, often achieving more.

There’s value in all three perspectives. There can be a lot of pride and skill in laying bricks—or whatever your equivalent task is—as well as it can be done. Setting clear, intermediate goals keeps progress on track. And someone who spends all their time looking at plans or daydreaming about what the building will become may not lay bricks as well as they need to.

To do something well, we probably need a balance of all three aspects:

Progress through clear intermediate goals

Understanding what I’m working towards and believing it’s worthwhile is a powerful motivator for me when the going gets tough.

This post isn’t really about cathedrals, but I studied the brilliant Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí in my teens. As a real-life cathedral metaphor, his incredible Basílica de la Sagrada Família in Barcelona is a striking example. Gaudí’s vision for the basilica has inspired generations of artisans and workers since he took over the project in 1882. Execution, however, has been a challenge, with construction ongoing today. But that hasn’t stopped it from inspiring and drawing in visitors for decades.

I like the three bricklayers parable as a reminder that when I’m grinding on something, it helps to reconnect with the why behind my effort.

Like many parables, this story has been told in different forms. An early version appears in Bruce Barton’s 1927 book What Can a Man Believe (p252), featuring Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St Paul’s Cathedral in London after the Great Fire of 1666.

“One morning he passed among the workmen, most of whom did not know him, and of three different men engaged in the same kind of work he asked the same question: ‘What are you doing?’

From the first he received the answer: ‘I am cutting this stone.’

From the second the answer was: ‘I am earning three shillings and six pence a day.’

But the third man straightened up, squared his shoulders, and holding his mallet in one hand and chisel in the other, proudly replied: ‘I am helping Sir Christopher Wren to build this great cathedral.’”

It’s hard to believe it happened, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be helpful.

The Three Bricklayers Story

Isometric projection is a simple way to draw 3D shapes. The meaning of isometric is "equal measure," from the Greek words iso- for equal and metric for measure. So, in an isometric drawing, all three axes, x, y, and z, are scaled equally, giving a clear, undistorted view of an object in three dimensions.

Except that isometric drawings can look a little odd and oversimplified. This is because of the lack of perspective, a visual distortion of 3D shapes we experience in the real world. In a perspective drawing, parallel lines converge in the distance towards a vanishing point, but in an isometric drawing, parallel lines stay parallel, and sizes don't get smaller in the distance.

The lack of perspective in an isometric view can make it look artificial, but it always looks clear.

I learned isometric drawing when studying engineering. Armed with a stack of isometric paper with a printed isometric grid, we had to reel off exercises involving drawing isometric views of 3D objects. And isometric projection is really handy for this. It can take a long time to build the skills to sketch a realistic 3D-looking object, perspective and all, but with isometric paper, you can quite quickly produce something that communicates to you or others what's in your head or on the workbench.

Isometric projection is handy for boxy shapes—I chose an approximation of the Bauhaus Dessau building by Walter Gropius to show it. If you need curves and angles, just like with perspective drawings, it can help to draw more boxes around these areas and use them to align your curves and meeting points for your lines.

Isometric views and their variations have had somewhat of a resurgence of late in video and board games. It turns out they're pretty helpful in map-based or city-building games such as Zynga's Farmville, Civilisation, or Sim City as the isometric view allows all parts of a scene to be viewed equally—in the distance or up close—while still seeing every detail in, say, a building, wherever it is.

If you want to try some isometric drawings, making your own isometric grid paper is easy. Just draw equally-spaced vertical stripes and then a criss-cross of lines in both directions at 30 degrees from the horizontal. This gives a host of equilateral triangles and an easy base to start drawing your 3D objects. Or just download some templates online. You'll find that building up more complex shapes out of cubes is dead simple if you keep to the lines on the isometric grid.

Just as in the drawing here, sometimes shapes drawn in isometric view lend themselves to curious optical effects. The lack of perspective can make the difference between heights and depths ambiguous. So, you can't always tell if two surfaces are at very different heights or if one is in the distance. The brilliant puzzle game Monument Valley uses this quirk of isometric projection to create mind-bending puzzles that are well worth a try. For instance, rotating a high surface can suddenly make a platform that extends far into the distance 🤯.

Isometric-like projection can also help make impossible shapes, such as the Impossible Staircase, or Penrose stairs. Another type of projection, anamorphosis, creates a drawing that only looks correct from a particular viewpoint. Anamorphosis leads to some remarkable street art.

2.5D objects, including an old video of me drawing a sketchplanation

The Impossible Staircase, or Penrose stairs

When drawn nice and faint, the isometric grid is an example of a ghost grid

Isometric projection is quite the opposite of "draw what you see, not what you think." Foreshortening can be hard to get the hang of.

Isometric projection

"Pillars of Hope" is a tongue-in-cheek name for steel starter bars, also known as starter rods or rebar extensions, that protrude from the roofs of houses after construction. Leaving starter bars sticking out is a pragmatic approach, saving time and money when adding the next floor, as the structure is already partially prepared for the expansion. The "hope" in the name reflects the anticipation and optimism of adding to their homes in the future when the family grows or their financial situation improves.

Growing up in the UK, I never encountered the practice of leaving exposed starter bars on houses. However, while travelling through Central America and Asia, I was surprised to see these exposed rods in many towns and cities. At first, I couldn't understand why so many buildings seemed unfinished, making the skyline somewhat messy. Only when someone explained their purpose to me did it make complete sense.

Steel bars in concrete combine the tensile strength of steel with the compressive strength of concrete, creating a remarkably effective and widely used building method. The starter bars embedded in and protruding from the existing structure provide a strong and stable connection between a new addition and the existing building. The bars transfer loads and anchor the two together.

Pillars of Hope are a conspicuous example of futureproofing. Other examples in buildings are electrics or plumbing, where you might leave capped-off pipes or electrical connection points in anticipation of future work. Laptops and desktop computers with empty expansion slots also use this approach, as does a first edition of software that includes an update manager.

In software and agile development, I like the sentiment from the book Rework: "A kick-ass half is better than a half-assed whole." Have no parts of your product not yet working or "under construction" that are visible to users. Don't leave any visible "starter bars" sticking out of your product. And try not to solve problems that you don't yet have. While it might seem worth adding something now to make a future feature easier to build, it's a tricky balance. So often, you choose to do something else in the future instead and are left with some software pillars of hope sprinkled throughout your code—technical debt you may have to pay off later.

While my first reaction to steel rods sticking out of houses seemingly willy-nilly was that it was chaotic and messy, when I think about them as Pillars of Hope I now find it kind of beautiful—looking out over a skyline and seeing the aspirations and future development of families, homes and a city sketched out on the rooftops.

Edit: Several people told me that leaving starter bars sticking out of a roof makes the building 'unfinished' and not liable to tax on the work. While this is repeated in many places, I'm not 100% sure of the truth. If you have experience with it, please get in touch!

Pillars of hope

Theatre and amphitheatre (or theater and amphitheater) have the distinction that a theatre is one-sided viewing of a central stage, and an amphitheatre has viewing all around. The word amphitheatre derives from the Greek word amphi- loosely meaning on both sides or all around.

For years, I've used amphitheatre for any large open galleried seating, but technically, as for the spectacular Minack theatre in Cornwall, England, if it's one-sided, then it's a theatre.

You'll also see the same pattern in amphoras, which commonly have handles on both sides of the vessel, and amphibians who are at home on both land and water. Plus, related ambivalence, ambidextrous (amphi- Greek, ambi- Latin).

It's fun having an aunt who used to teach classics =)

Also see: classical columns, pyrrhic victory, the Rosetta stone

Amphitheatre and theatre

While historic buildings in an ancient city centre make tourist attractions, most people would prefer the giant distribution warehouses that power online commerce and our world of delivery-everything to remain out of sight.

Several recently constructed distribution warehouses have started using enormous blocks of colour at scale to gently lead the eye and help buildings of exceptional size blend better into their surroundings.—greens to blend into countryside or "a beautiful sky blue" (video) to blend better with the sky.

Having passed both buildings with the patterns in this sketch, I can attest that the effect, in the right angles and light, is compelling—even though I noticed them more than ever as I spent time thinking about how well it works.

Read more about buildings designed to disappear into the landscape in Rowan Moore's Guardian article ​"A shed the size of a town:​ what Britain's giant distribution centres​ tell​ us about modern life"

This effect also reminded me of dazzle camouflage.

Blending buildings

I love this concept of the study of social distance, or how humans use space. Distinct from ergonomics, which is more about how people fit into their environment, proxemics focuses on the social aspect of space. For example: At what distance are you intimate? Where does your personal space end? How far away should you be for a good conversation? Why are the big circular wedding and conference tables so bad? How close should desks be in an office to encourage collaboration without feeling jammed together?

Dev Patnaik at Jump Associates used to give the fine example of how you will whisper politely and with awe in the vaulted ceilings of a cathedral, while the confessional box — for people to share their deepest secrets — is low and close. An olde English pub that you stoop to enter under the low ceiling immediately feels friendly and intimate, whereas you’ll struggle to have a deep conversation on entering a warehouse.

Proxemics was coined by the cultural anthropologist Edward Hall. His book The Hidden Dimension has the details.

Proxemics

I love Reggio Emilia’s concept of the environment as the third teacher. This idea works just as well in early childhood education as it does in a primary school classroom—or even an office. A thoughtfully designed environment can support learning, foster good habits, and boost overall wellbeing.

• The first teacher is the parent or classroom teacher.

• The second teacher is the student’s peers.

• The third teacher is the learning environment itself.

A well-designed classroom can act as the third teacher, shaping behaviour, sparking curiosity, and encouraging exploration.

I once had a mentor who said he could tell how a project was going just by observing the state of the project room—proof that our environments influence more than we realise.

What Makes a Classroom a “Third Teacher”?

To create a classroom that truly acts as a third teacher, consider these key elements:

Intentional Layout: Arrange furniture and materials to encourage collaboration, independent learning, and creativity. Open, uncluttered spaces can inspire curiosity and reduce overwhelm.

Visibility and Accessibility: Keep tools, books, and resources at children's eye level. This will help them feel a sense of ownership over their learning.

Natural Elements: Incorporate light, plants, and natural materials. Studies show these elements can improve focus, reduce stress, and create a warm atmosphere.

Documentation: Display students’ work on walls to celebrate progress and reinforce learning. This practice, central to Reggio Emilia, makes learning visible and creates pride.

Zones for Exploration: Create different areas for reading, experimenting, building, or relaxing. Giving children clear zones encourages diverse learning experiences.

Tips for Teachers to Maximise the “Third Teacher”

Observe and Adapt: Watch how students interact with the environment. Are they using spaces as intended? What sparks their interest? Adjust based on their behaviour.

Involve Students: Let children help design the space by suggesting ideas or creating artwork. This builds a sense of belonging and ownership.

Simplify and Rotate Materials: Too much clutter can overwhelm students. Keep materials fresh by rotating resources and ensuring every item has a purpose.

Focus on Flow: Think about how students move through the room. Avoid bottlenecks or cramped spaces, and make sure there’s room for both quiet reflection and active collaboration.

Technology as an Extension: In today’s digital world, some aspects of the “environment” live online. Design digital learning spaces with the same care as physical ones—easy navigation, engaging visuals, and clarity of purpose.

Too often today, our “environments” are hidden in software. Whether you’re designing a physical classroom, an early childhood learning space, or a workspace, consider how your environment could become a third teacher and how you could make the most of it.

This sketch features in my book Big Ideas Little Pictures

I originally made an animated third teacher version

The Environment as the Third Teacher in Early Childhood and Beyond

Orthographic projection is a handy technique for communicating much of what you need about something. In an orthographic drawing, you draw a face-on, side-on, and top-down view of an object, allowing you to see the same shape from different perspectives in a single drawing.

The neat thing I found about an orthographic drawing is how, when laid out as in the sketch, the dimensions of one view can be extended into the adjacent views, helping to keep the drawing accurate. I definitely felt some satisfaction and enjoyment working on an orthographic projection drawing on a large drawing board with a built-in ruler.

While orthographic projections can be helpful for accurately representing an object, they struggle a bit with hollows and some other features that can make them start to look a bit fiddly.

Perhaps combine an orthographic view with an isometric projection.

Orthographic projection

A 2.5D shape is three-dimensional, but the use of the third dimension, usually height, is limited to simple top-down operations. I learned about 2.5D, or two and a half dimensions, from my engineering days.

It turns out it’s really quite common to make 2.5D things because, for example, it’s easy to drill or mill down into something, and it's a pain to turn something on its side and drill from the other side. Or, as with vacuum forming, it’s easy to suck plastic onto a mold but a pain to get it off if you’ve got any overhangs as you can’t lift it straight up again. Hence, the plastic sandpit in our garden is a 2.5D object rather than true 3D.

As we become more sophisticated at making things, more objects will be true 3D rather than 2.5D. But the simple two-and-a-half-dimensional option is still generally cheaper and easier and will not disappear soon.

Civilization, in general, looks rather 2.5D from the air as we tend to build upwards, but we don’t find overhangs that easy or practical, thanks also to gravity, e.g., the Pyramids.

I recorded a video of the drawing of this sketch. Watch making a sketchplanation—2.5D

2.5D

Desire paths: created by desire and use. Sometimes I find myself walking on the traces of one as a statement that ‘there ought to be a path here’ - voting with my feet.

There’s the classic, perhaps apocryphal, story of the architect who didn’t build any paths on a campus until people had worn them in, showing where the paths should be.

The phenomena has found use in technology with the phrase 'pave the cowpaths’.

One emergent behaviour-related concept arising from architecture and planning which has also found application in human-computer interaction is the idea of desire lines, desire paths or cowpaths. The usual current use of the term (often attributed, although apparently in error, to Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space (1964)) is to describe paths worn by pedestrians across spaces such as parks, between buildings or to avoid obstacles—“the foot-worn paths that sometimes appear in a landscape over time” (Mathes, 2004) and which become self-reinforcing as subsequent generations of pedestrians follow what becomes an obvious path. Throgmorton & Eckstein (2000) also discuss Chicago transportation engineers’ use of ‘desire lines’ to describe maps of straight-line origin-to-destination journeys across the city, in the process revealing assumptions about the public’s ‘desire’ to undertake these journeys. In either sense, desire lines (along with use-marks (Burns, 2007)) could perhaps, using economic terminology, be seen as a form of revealed user preference (Beshears et al, 2008) or at least revealed choice, with a substantial normative quality.

Architecture, urbanism, design and behaviour: a brief review, Dan Lockton, Sep 2011

Or see this very concrete example from UC Berkeley at peterme.com.

Desire path

Always good to share with friends and family your knowledge of doric columns, ionic columns or corinthian style classical columns when you spot them in the wild.

Architecture sketches