This is really interesting. Although our communication tools may have evolved since writing boxes, the way we treat them sure hasn't. It could be argued that a person's smartphone today says a lot...
Like smartphone cases today, writing boxes were often designed to be gendered accessories. A “lady’s traveling box,” designed by Thomas Sheraton (and believed to be the general template for Jane Austen’s writing box) featured both writing and dressing accessories like brooches, buttons, and sewing kits. Travelers’ writing boxes for young men included space for shaving materials as well as “journals in which they recorded their impressions and some made drawings of historic landmarks and objects.”
This is really interesting. Although our communication tools may have evolved since writing boxes, the way we treat them sure hasn't. It could be argued that a person's smartphone today says a lot about them, not the least of which how important they consider being able to communicate with others is.
It's an earlier form of illustrating how cultural technology is. An iPhone with a busted screen says just as much about a person, from their possible demographic and socioeconomic status to who they are as a person, from an Android with a protective case. It shows that the technology a person carries around with them and how they treat it can be just as much a part of their aesthetics as the clothes they wear or any tattoos they have. Our daily technology is just more expensive.
This is really interesting. Although our communication tools may have evolved since writing boxes, the way we treat them sure hasn't. It could be argued that a person's smartphone today says a lot about them, not the least of which how important they consider being able to communicate with others is.
It's an earlier form of illustrating how cultural technology is. An iPhone with a busted screen says just as much about a person, from their possible demographic and socioeconomic status to who they are as a person, from an Android with a protective case. It shows that the technology a person carries around with them and how they treat it can be just as much a part of their aesthetics as the clothes they wear or any tattoos they have. Our daily technology is just more expensive.