The relationship between form and content preoccupies both writers and designers, though we approach this tension through different media. This thought has been circling in my mind since yesterday’s visit to La Triennale di Milano, where the current exhibition “Communicating Objects: Design as Narrative” explores how designed objects tell stories, shape experiences, and embody cultural values beyond their functional purposes.
Milan itself seems the perfect setting for considering these questions—a city where aesthetic considerations infuse everyday life, where the boundary between art and commerce has always been productively porous. Walking through the exhibition spaces housed in the modernist Palazzo dell’Arte, I found myself consistently drawing parallels between design processes and literary creation, noting how both disciplines navigate similar fundamental challenges despite their different materials and methods.
One installation particularly captivated me: an interactive exhibit tracing the evolution of a chair design from initial concept sketches through prototyping, manufacturing constraints, marketing considerations, and eventual production. What fascinated me wasn’t just the chair itself—though its elegant resolution of competing demands was impressive—but the documentation of the designer’s thought process, the series of problems encountered and solved, the gradual refinement of intention through physical iteration.
Is this not remarkably similar to the writer’s journey from initial concept through drafting, revision, editorial feedback, and publication? The difference lies primarily in visibility—the designer’s process results in a physical object that maintains its connection to its origins, while the published text typically conceals the messy evolution that produced it. Readers encounter the polished final version with little awareness of abandoned drafts, editorial interventions, or the author’s struggles with recalcitrant material.
My background in marketing makes me particularly attuned to how design communicates beyond its literal functionality. Before committing fully to writing, I spent years considering how visual elements shape consumer perception, how typefaces and color palettes evoke emotional responses, how spatial organization guides attention and creates hierarchy. These concerns might seem distant from literary creation, but I’ve found that awareness of design principles has significantly influenced my approach to narrative structure and prose rhythm.
In “Anonymous Letters,” I paid particular attention to symbolic elements within the fictional landscape—the way certain objects and environments telegraph emotional states and thematic concerns beyond their literal presence in the story. The central object—the anonymous letter that disrupts Anna’s life—functions simultaneously as plot device, character revelation, and embodiment of thematic questions about authenticity and communication:
The envelope bore no return address, no identifiable markings beyond her name and street number written in a precise, almost architectural hand. Inside, a single sheet of cream-colored paper carried just three sentences: “Something is happening in Dorimore. People disappear, but no one remembers them. You should look into it.”
The paper was substantial, the kind used for formal invitations or legal documents. Running her finger across the surface, Anna felt the slight texture of cotton rag content, the subtle tooth that caught against her skin. Someone had taken care with this communication, had chosen materials that would convey seriousness, permanence.
This attention to material qualities—the tactile experience of the paper, the visual impact of the handwriting—draws directly from design thinking, from awareness that physical properties carry communicative weight beyond literal content. The letter’s careful construction suggests intention and deliberation, creating tension with its cryptic message and anonymous delivery.
Walking through the exhibition’s section on communication design, I was struck by a display of political posters from various historical periods and cultural contexts. Despite their diverse visual styles, the most effective examples shared certain qualities: economy of elements, strategic use of contrast, clear hierarchy of information, and precise emotional targeting. These principles apply equally to effective prose—the careful management of focus, the strategic deployment of image and idea, the calibration of emotional distance and proximity.
One interactive installation invited visitors to arrange modular components into their own furniture designs, then scan them to see virtual renderings of the results. Some combinations proved structurally impossible, others aesthetically jarring, still others surprisingly harmonious despite their unconventional forms. This exercise in material constraint and creative possibility reminded me of literary experiments with formal limitations—how sonnets, sestinas, or even self-imposed restrictions like Georges Perec’s lipograms can generate unexpected creative solutions precisely because they impose productive boundaries.
As my marketing career shifted toward writing, I worried that these different modes of creative thinking might conflict. Instead, I’ve found that design principles continue to inform my literary approach in valuable ways. The designer’s attention to user experience translates to my consideration of reader experience—how a text unfolds in time, how it creates moments of revelation and recognition, how it balances familiarity and surprise. The designer’s concern with material properties finds parallel in my attention to the sonic and rhythmic qualities of language, the physical experience of reading particular sentence structures.
Tomorrow I leave Milan for Warsaw, continuing this autumn of European travel that feeds directly into my creative practice. Each city offers its own aesthetic education, its particular balance of historical weight and contemporary innovation. Milan’s lesson seems to be this productive integration of artistic and functional concerns, this refusal to separate beauty from utility or concept from execution. I’ll carry these observations into my current work, looking for new ways to ensure that form and content speak with consistent voice.
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” (Steve Jobs’s observation applies equally well to narrative design, where aesthetic qualities must serve rather than obscure function)
— Anastasia