Erosion as a design material
Most design treats decay as the enemy — the thing you ship against, the entropy you hold off with maintenance. I want to use it as a material. Erosion is not what happens to the work. Erosion is the work.
The principle
Wabi-sabi got here first: the crack in the bowl, the tarnish, the wear that records use. Beauty that admits time. I want The Bissett Shore to weather while you play — the coastline literally losing pixels of itself, the almanac's ink foxing at the edges, the typography softening like a tide-worn sign. Not decoration. Argument. A surface that erodes is a surface telling the truth about where all of this is going.
Where the texture actually comes from
- Riso. Théo's prints — moss, oxblood, bone — misregister on purpose. The layers slip. The ink lands uneven, half-absorbed. That imperfection is the whole warmth of the medium, and it is the game's whole palette.
- Film grain. Grain is silver deciding, crystal by crystal, what it can and cannot hold. It is erosion visible at the emulsion level — a picture already forgetting itself a little as it forms. See Recording a disappearing thing.
The craft rule
Design the ruin, not only the object. Ask of every surface: how does this weather? what does it look like half-gone? A thing built to erode gracefully is more honest than a thing built to look permanent — because nothing is permanent, and the pretending is what ages worst of all.