Welcome to 2034: The Year the Book Disappears.

I proudly present my bachelor's final project, completed in June 2024, commissioned by the National Library. Our assignment was to explore ways to convey the feeling of a book in the digital age.

In this future vision, we have transitioned from the traditional codex (a book with two sides) to the e-reader, and now to a new digital book. I wondered: How can we critically examine this future of the National Library? And how do we prepare for these profound changes?

I have designed this new digital book as a speculative design project. The goal is to spark discussion and debate about future developments in technology and society. How do we feel about a future so dominated by screens? Why do we fear digitalization, and why do we hold on to the 'old-fashioned' tangible book?

For more details about my project and to watch the video, I invite you to refer to my full report and the accompanying video.

A speculative approach

Speculative design is a practice that explores future scenarios by asking "what if?" questions, independent of commercial goals. With this project, I aim to contribute to a critical conversation about the role of books and reading in our increasingly digital world.

For more details about my project I want to invite you to watch my video below.

Discussion

Imagine if we were to move towards a fully digital future, and by that time, I was called by the KB (National Library of the Netherlands) to realize my coverstones, what would that look like? As a designer, you know exactly what's wrong with your designs and I partly also see the consequences of my design. Suppose every Dutch person will start using the coverstones in 10 years, then in fact, nobody would need to understand letters anymore. That sounds bad, but is it?

The increasing decline in reading is a fact in our society, here too we can keep fighting for the letters; but what if we were to surrender to it? Nobody reading books anymore, everyone illiterate. Then we might as well be the first with a good audiobook.

I think I'm trying to point out that there are many future possibilities that we fear, such as declining literacy, digitalization, and robotization, but are there also futures in which we can surrender to these changes? Fighting against declining literacy might no longer make sense, the numbers are still rising significantly. Could we, at the KB, also advocate for the illiterate among us, assuming that this applies to the majority of our society?

Maybe this isn't the image that the KB had in mind, which is so beautifully announced in its mission. I, as a speculative designer, also remain fearful of possible futures that could happen. After all, we can plan everything and think we know everything, but life has a funny way of showing us that we are in fact not in control of what is to come, we can only speculate..."