Gijs de Boer

Department: Contextual Design
Website: www.gladeboer.nl

Probably an ATM

What: A search for a more honest aesthetic for technological devices we commonly trust blindly, such as an ATM.
Why: We tend to have complete faith in products that look neutral and simple. Yet modernist design can be misleading, since functional appearance is a designed aesthetic too. Can we still have confidence in designed objects, Gijs de Boer asks, when we can detect that their neutrality is a mask?
How: Inspired by sampling and citing methods from pop culture, Gijs copies a seemingly neutral ATM incompletely, leaving clues to reveal its modernist mask. ‘Probably an ATM’ tests if you can trust an honest façade.

"I'm suspicious of things that look undesigned"