Little Black Book

Little Black Book

I'd never deemed myself a 'little black book' sort of person, but - and this is to my credit - I concede all use of social media that adds people in a list of contacts is essentially no different, as soon as you are looking at a particular quality or aspect to those contacts, so you're defining the little black book as their containment.

I say, 'to my credit', because I've not personally used social media for that.

There is however an online competition to design a theme for a contacts element with a prerequisite for grouping contacts.

...I guess this means like a tabbed filofax or rolladex style look, but with the limitations of the website's existing contacts column and functionality.

As I read more about this, it seems they will accept entries in code, images or a working mock up, possibly even just so many words of a sales pitch - and I think I might have a shot.

I love presentation done to some extreme, attaining the definitive, where you intuitively know how the thing functions and already fits in your life, whether it's the form of some physical object or a virtual window on to the world - once you have it, you would not countenance what you would do without it.

So if I wanted a list of contacts to separate into groups, perhaps according to use so they automatically assign themselves into a little black book section, say from online interation - the whole mess of source code & algorithms being sorted leaving just the little black book to look at and appreciate for it's symbology and purpose would surely still draw upon a physical volume, a classic that you could still buy and write in if you didn't want the online rigmarole.

And there, you begin worrying about hacking and spying, something the traditionalist would only have to worry about if they lost the book, and even then - it might not be traceable to them - easier times. That alone sets the precedent for the book's appearance, discrete but important looking, small but spacious.

I checked with an online stationer and found the A6 items to be best in terms of 'little', while their pages are still ample for storing details and certainly a template upon which to base on online version.

I then wondered if it was required more for a dating site and how the image of the little black book would not be sullied by the endeavour, given that the internet it opens out on to is much more capable of serving up instant graphical content and remembering the browser activity – that book could be instrumental in people’s actions, where the entire culture of having, using and knowing a story about a little black book, so far reaching as to be iconically portrayed in Blockbuster movies by A-listers the doting viewers fawn over, doe-eyed, longing for a taste of that life…, how could a diminutive book be so much more and encapsulate all that – could it have that A-list quality?

Could anyone you put in that book be elevated to such a status, then by and by come round to the idea that it’s something to do with you and then become responsive to you using that book to reach out to them?

Could it be a force for good?

- Could there be a world where the book is almost magical and no instance of it wherever one is used in any form, physical, virtual or otherwise, sees [not even a movie about] a detective needing it for evidence…?

Could the organisation of contacts in a purposefully designed place always makes things go right? – Was that the original intention for the little black book? It’s been the mainstay of those looking to hook up for all of living memory, they all want things to go right for them – if that was forced to depend on it going right for all concerned, not just the contact, but a taxi-driver, a barperson, a person in front at an ATM queue – anything in that bubble of time from the moment of deciding to connect and the ripples those interations cause – imagine what that book would do…

I realised at that moment I had already been writing very closely along those lines and had to re-read the guidelines for submitting my idea, as I really wanted to integrate the other piece – and realised too that the other was of course her, waiting – that contact I had beheld in so much esteem for so long, and how her book would appear as just as much nonsense to me, unintelligible outside the user and their purpose for it, but the very nature of it – that nothing could go wrong for all concerned even though it was stemming from a single person’s desire until full contact was attained.

I was in turmoil.

Should I submit two pieces? Should I splice them together? Would it make enough sense to anyone trying to comprehend what I wrote and would the other angle then confound it if it did, or vice-versa?

Hah. What harm in trying?

I would prefer to introduce you to Seren’s Shadow in this way, my earlier work about a book – not a little black book, rather something as magical as you would hope your little black book could ever be – but more succinctly, about the only woman whose contact details I would keep in one.

Did I win the design competition?

Of course I did, twenty grand :)