The Save icon is a ghost.
An extinct object that somehow outlived itself through familiarity, trust, and the inertia of good-enough design.

Maybe we’ll finally replace it.
But maybe, in some quiet corner of the screen, it’ll just keep saving.

Icons aren’t just about recognition, they’re about ritual.
Clicking the floppy isn’t just saving, it feels like saving.
Like locking a drawer or tucking something away.

It gives closure. A visual sigh of relief.

There have been attempts to modernize it.
Some software moved to cloud symbols. Others use vague circles or downward arrows.

But none of them feel as “solid” as the floppy.
There’s something reassuring about its boxy little body. Like it’ll actually hold your work.

Ironically, many younger users today have never seen a floppy disk in real life.
There are viral stories of kids thinking it’s a vending machine. Or a 3D-printed “Save button.”

So the icon isn’t just outdated. It’s misleading.
Yet it remains.

There’s a name for this: skeuomorphism.
It means keeping visual elements from the old world, even if they no longer serve a practical purpose.

The Save icon is a skeuomorphic fossil. Like a shutter sound on your digital camera. Or a phone app shaped like a landline.

Why didn’t it change?

Because design doesn’t just signal function, it builds trust.
When users associate an icon with safety, progress, or completion, changing it becomes risky. Even if it’s outdated.

People learned that the floppy = save.

First, the basics:
That little square with a corner cut off? That’s a 3.5” floppy disk, a storage device that could hold a whopping 1.44 MB. That’s about one high-res photo.

Today, your phone holds over 10,000x that.
But the icon stuck around.

So the next time something stops you in your tracks—a song, a garden, a logo—ask yourself:
Why did that work on me?
And what does it say about how I see the world?
Full post: curiousbydesign.org/what-is-aest...

And it’s not just about art.
Aesthetics shapes how we choose furniture, design apps, build cities, and judge what “feels right.”
It influences politics, culture, branding, and even morality—often without us realizing it.

Philosophers like Kant and Hume didn’t just ask what is beautiful?
They asked why beauty moves us.
Is it purely subjective? Or do we share some instinct about what feels elegant, harmonious, or sublime?
Aesthetics lives in that tension between personal taste and shared experience.