Designs on inspired brands from Sekforde.

There is always a question of permanence where design is concerned, especially online where transitory is the default position. While architects may have to answer to the ages, the web designer can expect their work to be supplanted in the blink of an eye, or the click of a mouse.

On the one hand this provides a unique flexibility, inspiring the designer to think of their work as a permanent evolution of a concept. The design can react to changes in content, and reflect shifts in aesthetics and technology. On the other hand there is a question of how to archive this work, and how a history of online design can be preserved.

Given the fleeting nature of design on the World Wide Web, the question of how to create a design which is guaranteed to last for at least one million years provides a refreshingly striking contrast. At Yucca Mountain in Nevada a panel of experts with backgrounds in everything from engineering, to political science, to risk analysis, to future studies, have been brought together to design the warning markers at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) nuclear waste storage facilities.

The panel are tasked with creating a design system that can universally warn away would-be intruders, regardless of their language, culture or technology. They are looking to convey a number of important messages to any future civilisation, explaingin the dangers of what exists at that location:

• This place is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it!
• Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
• This place is not a place of honour... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.
• What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
• The danger is in a particular location... it increases toward a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us.
• The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.
• The danger is to the body, and it can kill. The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.
• The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

Both the level of creative thinking and the responsibility involved are fascinating. It can be difficult enough to design for a known audience, with a shared language and agreed semiotic system. To design for an unknown individual one million years in the future, and consider all of the elements involved - visual design, longevity of materials, geographic disturbances - is a rare challenge indeed.

More details on how the project is progressing are at BLDG BLOG: http://tinyurl.com/ybv5opj