Different kinds of Skeuomorphs

There's a blog post in this; I just haven't got around to posting it yet.

So many different kinds of skeuomorphs; need to have deeper criticism than 'all skeuomorphs are crap'

Visual kitsch

the crap on Dribbble that throws in random textures for the hell of it, no match-up to a real-life object. I guess Find My Friends kinda goes here?

Visual kitsch, broken interaction

iCal, iBooks, Address Book etc - visual kitsch and an interaction skeuomorph (pages not swiping properly in Contacts/Address Book [and having scrollable UITableViews on a piece of 'paper'], full stack of pages left at the end of an iBook, iCal 'tearing pages off' but then they're still there when you swipe back etc)

No visual skeuomorph, just interaction skeuomorph (not so bad)

Google Calendar - one month per page rather than an infinite scroll (ala Calvetica). Not hugely damaging, and doesn't make my eyes bleed, but still a skeuomorph.

Visual kitsch, non-broken interaction skeuomorph

Remember that hyper-realistic eBook reader a couple of months ago? Can't find a link right now. Didn't have broken interaction skeuomorphs like iBooks. Still a steaming pile of backwards shit.

Moving forward

The more I think about it, the more I'm not convinced that die-hard modernism is the way forward. It's just posturing (like anything else); JAN TSCHICHOLD said that typography should bear the hallmark of it's age after all. This does mean that skeuomorphism and as-is modernism are both wrong, but I think we knew that anyway. What we need is an appropriate visual- and interaction-design language for the times. One rooted in tactility; one that learns from the past but doesn't replicate it.

We'll get there but we're not there yet.