Best of TOC 2012

Six Ways to Think About an “Infinite Canvas”

By Peter Meyers

This is part of an ongoing series related to Peter Meyers’ project “Breaking the Page: Transforming Books and the Reading Experience.” (Note: This post originally appeared on A New Kind of Book. It’s republished with permission.)

I’m speaking at the 2011 Books in Browsers conference on “the infinite canvas.” When I started chewing on this topic, my thoughts centered on a very literal vision: a super-ginormous sheet for authors to compose on. And while I think there’s some great creative territory to explore in this notion of space spanning endlessly up, down, left, and right, I also think there are a bunch of other ways to define what an infinite canvas is. Not simply a huge piece of virtual paper, but instead, an elastic space that does things no print surface could do, no matter how big it is. So, herewith, a quick stab at some non-literal takes on the topic. My version, if you will, of six different ways of thinking about the infinite canvas.

Continuously changeable

The idea here is simple: refreshable rather than static content. The actual dimensions of the page aren’t what’s elastic; instead, it’s what’s being presented that’s continuously changing. In some ways, the home page of a newspaper’s website serves as a good example here. Visit The Boston Globe half a dozen times over the course of a week and each time you’ll ...