I think this article really misses the root cause. Take cellphones, for example. In the early 2000s there was a "Cambrian explosion" of cellphone designs as makers tried to figure out what would work best. It's easy to wax nostalgic for all the various flip phones/slide-out phones/"twist" phones, etc., but the fact is the "glass slab" really ended up working best - it has a lot fewer components to wear, and the lack of physical controls means that apps have lots of freedom to make full use of the screen. The glass slab design won out over all the others.
If anything, so much design (and not just industrial) seems boring today because everything seems to converge to the "optimal" design much faster. Cars had all these wacky designs in the 50s and 60s because we hadn't yet optimized for things like aerodynamics. When I first saw the "modern farmhouse" housing design in my city, I thought "that looks nice" - now it makes me gag because I see them everywhere, with insane prices to boot.
The Internet has caused, in many ways, a reduction of individual markets and "winner take all" economics, and that includes design. Much has already been written about how many logos all look the same now, e.g. https://www.sublimio.com/why-are-all-fashion-logos-becoming-...
With cell phones it is also about moving the physical device out of your consciousness so you can better utilize the actual application. And because each app does a different and unknown thing, you can’t design your hardware around your software.
However, with cars I think that doesn’t hold. Cars don't need to disappears into the background. Yet every car is converging on an unholy child of a minivan and a small crossover SUV. They are all the same and they are all equally ugly. Sacrificing a bit of aerodynamics for any level of personality would be a welcome shakeup.
So Cybertruck.
The general term for what you're describing here is a Dominant Design, and it has a lot of the characteristics of what you intuited. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_design
It's easy to romanticize a past where electronics were designed to be statements in your home or office, but I think that the reduction of glamour is more so a dialogue on the utility of these devices in a modern world.
Previously, personal computers in the home were something of a novelty that didn't necessarily have a ton of value or that value was still being discovered. And now we see that the content that is displayed on the digital screen is most of the value, and so akin to many Hollywood sci-fi takes, where the screen becomes just a piece of glass, modern technology is moving in that direction.
The device itself is not the point, but the content that the device enables access to is.
Part of me agrees with the design takeaways here, and part of me admittedly prefers when my devices are as slim and unobtrusive as possible (no amount of lost desk space is worth the aesthetics of a zany computer monitor for me), but either way I'm always a little wary of these "remember the good old days of tech?" comparisons. Sometimes it feels like they're creating a false dichotomy where yesterday's devices were more pleasant to look at because they weren't tainted by corporate greed, and that today's devices are somehow uglier because all companies care about now is profit.
But these have always been mass-produced consumer devices. Even if you prefer the aesthetics of the original iMac to today's iMac, and even to the extent that corporate greed has arguably gotten worse, your relationship to Apple is the same either way--when you buy their products, you make them a lot of money.
> your relationship to Apple is the same either way--when you buy their products, you make them a lot of money.
I don’t object to making companies a lot of money, so long as what I get is worthwhile.
I'm really torn by this.
As a hardware founder, who takes great pride in our industrial design and how we've made the thinnest, and most sleek EEG ever, we wanted the device to basically disappear. Nobody wants to wear an EEG headband, it isn't what they are buying. They are buying the neurostimulation that provides better sleep.
On the other hand, our industrial engineer wanted our headband to look just like a headband. It would be completely enclosed in fabric.
I wanted it to be appealing visually, not look "weird" but also, remind the user that there was magic inside. This is one of the reasons we left a bit of the electronics poking out the back and that element has a bit of ornamentation to it. (https://affectablesleep.com).
I have a folding phone. It isn't devoid of design. The design makes it function.
I think the article is confusing ornamentation with industrial design.
My laptop (Asus something) has a ceramic something finish with some etching on it. That's ornamentation. It's feel. Same with the speaker grill holes, they have some design to them.
Is it dull? It certainly isn't ground breaking. But it's pleasing, and it gets out of the way. But how much ornamentation do I want?
Most people just want the apple logo to show status. I want the non-Apple logo.
The TV example in the post doesn't really explain that we needed to have these plastic gray cases for TVs with speakers and buttons. But why was that a better look than just a screen?
To my eyes, those old TVs are ugly. But I remember when Sony brought out an interface where the channel showed up on the screen and had faded away after displaying the number, and I was blown away at how beautiful the interface was.
Additionally, my Kindle Scribe is a pretty boring slab, but I've tried buying nice pens to go with it. I don't think the Lamy (which I currently have) is a beautiful design, but it is better than the pen that comes with the device, which is devoid of any emotion.
As we move to glasses interfaces, I think we'll see a new heyday of electronics design.
> Most people just want the apple logo to show status. I want the non-Apple logo.
Everyone up and down the socioeconomic ladder in the US uses Apple devices, and you can buy them at Walmart and Costco for less than $1,000. If someone is assuming “status” from seeing an Apple product, that seems to be a mistake by the observer.
I think you're making the assumption that socio-economic status is the only variable.
There is also the "I have Apple, I'm creative". "I have Apple, I'm cooler than Android".
I don't know if the blue/green bubble thing is about socioeconomic differences, or if it's just about "you're not as good as I am".
If you're so sure Apple doesn't have a status feature, then what's the whole green/blue bubble about?
$1000 is more than the monthly wage of many people around the world, including many in USA (where the minimum daily wage has stagnated for decades).
e.g., in most Asian and African countries, Apple is considered as a luxury brand.
Of course, the Apple fanboys will be quick to compare it to Samsung and other companies who also sell $1000+ premium phones.
But all those companies also sell budget phones that are very affordable. It's only Apple that refuses to sell budget phones. In fact, even Apple's cheapest phones (SE models) are unaffordable for daily wage earners in many nations of the world.
So yeah, when most people look at Apple products, they do assume their buyer to be "prestige status" (one who prefers luxury good/product).
It is also why Apple refuses to bundle chargers and cables (or at least, it tried to do so, until EU forced it to bundle them; but Apple does such cheapskate shenanigans in the other continents, where pro-consumer watchdogs/laws are lax), because it knows its fans will buy whatever it sells at whatever price points it sells even if basic accessories are not bundled. Unfortunately, Samsung and other companies are also following suit on such evil (anti-consumer) tactics.
Apple is also notorious for making it very hard for customers/third-parties to repair its products. This is why EU had to enforce its Right to Repair law on Apple stringently, and EU also forced Apple to give USB Type-C charging port (instead of Lighting port) on its devices which other manufacturers were doing so since years.
TLDR: Companies can act evil only if we let them get away with their evil ways.
As much as I like to reminisce about the good old days, I'm not sure the thesis is entirely true. In the 1990s, home computers were more conspicuous, but we didn't really have such a variety of designs. Almost every PC-compatible computer looked the same: a beige plastic monolith. Most corded phones looked the same, most TVs looked the same, most film cameras looked the same, etc.
Now that we look at the designs from 20-30 years ago, they stand out simply because they're outdated. In another 20-30 years, someone will write an article about the beauty of "glass slab" phones of the 2020s.
We also tend to cherry-pick outliers. You can find some beautiful designs in every decade, but they're not necessarily representative of everyday life. There's a modern-day company making portable cassette players that look like this:
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/MfFjHvcZjFzZLRPa4p7QZm-970...
Striking and prize-worthy, but not how we roll.
Counterpoint for the 2000s era https://www.google.com/search?q=frutiger+aero+pc+1990s+2000s...
This is why companies like teenageengineering.com has a niche slice of the market. We need similar companies out there, albeit with much lower prices.
Just today I came across Home Tech Co: https://www.hometechco.com/
Their take on monitors that aren't just the typical black plastic office-aesthetic slabs. I like what they've done with it, and personally would have been interested but this is 27" 4k and I can't downgrade from 5k (converted an old imac to work as an external display and I love it!)
I think the trend of removing "artistic" elements from products has been continuing for literally centuries; e.g. if you look at industrial machinery, 18th and 19th century designs are extraordinarily ornate even compared to early 20th, which are themselves far more artistic than late 20th and 21st century machines.
Don't hold up for furniture, though.
You pay a premium for mid-century furniture. Even reproductions. Some furniture of that era never stopped production because the design keeps it in demand.
There will always be a market for bland IKEA/Target/whatever. But not everyone wants to sit on a log like a caveman.
There are some exceptions to that, like for example the Nothing Phone 3: https://www.wired.com/review/nothing-phone-3/ But yes, I’d like to see more diversity along those lines.
Hardware is now a blank canvas for the software to flourish. Not really a bad thing.
Plus there's still Teenage Engineering if you want things that look nice when powered off :)
I eye the TE TP7 on my desk. I use it most days. Its design speaks to my millennial taste like candy. Sometimes I just hold it in my hand like I did with my Walkman or discmans of my youth. I admit some of the yarning is for nostalgia. Yet, surely task specific devices can offer better utility than single screen slabs in certain cases.
I think the slabness of form that inhabits current design is a great opportunity. I see it as way to embed sophisticated technology that a small firm could never develop on our own. I’m optimistic that very unique form factors catering too hyper specific tasks is right around the corner. I’m 1991 BSID graduate from the now defunct University of the Arts. I feel technology is finally achieving the promise of the 1990’s promise.
There is no software to make the design beautiful if the device is on standby on a desk. It’s just a blank rectangle.
The real question is why don’t more mainstream electronics look as creative as teenage engineering?
The kind of designs that (e.g.) Sony was selling on the scale of millions in the early 2000s were incredibly unique and eye-catching.
Sony S2 Sports WM-FS566
Sony Sports Walkman D-SJ01 Portable CD Player
Just to name a couple.
I don't care about mobile phone design. I want just a rectangle with a screen. Like Star Trek's PADDs and LCARS.
> The peak here was arguably achieved during the 1990s and early 2000s
Interesting coincidence how the peak was achieved right when most of the audience would have been children or young adults, and therefore a time they're likely to be nostalgic for.
Talking about TVs the article goes all the way back to 2007, and not the console TVs which were actual wooden pieces of furniture with scope for artistry in the enclosure, not just "industrial design" or "Frutiger Aero" or some other buzzword.
So, I was curious because I have this pretty cool like vintage looking popcorn maker, and I was wondering, is industrial design really dead? So I searched Amazon for "vintage mp3 player" and found this, "MECHEN M30 HiFi MP3 Player"
So, like most things, It seems like Industrial Design is alive and well, just not from the big dominant players; and isn't that what you would expect? Wouldn't you expect you'd be celebrating smaller indy shops than the big monopolies?
But, for some reason these small shops have become so anonymized that they're out of our collective consciousness, and I think there's truth to this, the problem in a sense isn't that industrial design is dead, or there are no interesting electronics, but there are in fact too many players making interesting electronics, and there's no "middle class" anymore.
TV's and smartphones are an interesting place to start though, I'd generally say that TV's and Smart Phones have improved by just being a big screen. Cars seem to me like a better example, where it feels like even companies that used to pride themselves as being different (Volkswagen) now basically all cars look the same.
No results for ctrl-f kitsch.
I wonder if this motivates the recent interest in "cyberdecks", computers cobbled together out of bits and bobs designed to resemble futuristic computers cobbled together out of bits and bobs, replete with offset displays, displays with unusual aspect ratios, nonstandard ergonomics and form factors, etc. The design of these devices is definitely intended to inject style and pizzazz into a field largely dominated by gray rectangular slabs.
Upon reading (or rather, listening to) Neuromancer again, I get the feeling that the original "cyberspace deck" envisioned by Gibson was a plain, rectilinear device not at all like the greeble-encrusted gadgets you find on r/cyberdeck. It's very sparsely described, but we do know it has a built-in keyboard, "trodes" for the brain-computer interface to serve as a display, and with all this talk of "ROM constructs" and "slotting in" it accepts software via cartridge. In short—it probably resembled a 1980s home computer, like a TI-99/4A or an Atari 800XL. Gibson's technological world in his early cyberpunk works is very much informed by a cursory examination of the tech of the day, combined with a lot of imagination and guesswork.
Modern cyberdecks draw much more inspiration from all the cyberpunk stuff that emerged after Neuromancer: movies like Strange Days and The Matrix; video games like Cyberpunk 2077, Shin Megami Tensei, and even Wipeout; and anime like Ghost in the Shell or Serial Experiments Lain, all of which provide glimpses into a world in which technology might have evolved, visually and ergonomically, in a different direction from what it did. I find this sort of technofetishism fascinating for its role as a sort of roleplay of an imaginative alternate universe where modern-era tech was still cool and fun. A specific subgenre of this is the Amiga enthusiast community, where people soup up old Amiga hardware with modern, very expensive FPGA-based addons (the nearest a solo hobbyist can get to modern "custom chips") in an effort to show what computing might be like had Commodore not failed.
I always through the aesthetic was meant to evoke the sense that this was a bespoke, personalized device - i.e. it has been modified and customized to work for exactly one user.
I don't think you can have a world where mass-market technology looks like that, because why would it? Engineers with time, resources and technology would do what they do now - design for manufacturability and mass-market appeal.
I for one, like the commoditization of the mobile phones.
BS. Everyone is trying to make interesting designs - See Nothing and Teenage Engineering as just two examples.
