[HN Gopher] The death of industrial design and the era of dull e...
___________________________________________________________________
The death of industrial design and the era of dull electronics
Author : CharlesW
Score : 40 points
Date : 2025-10-05 20:55 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hackaday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hackaday.com)
| techblueberry wrote:
| 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"
|
| https://a.co/d/hJyBsyw
|
| 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.
| cryzinger wrote:
| 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.
| mcphage wrote:
| > 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.
| msla wrote:
| > 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.
| userbinator wrote:
| 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.
| reaperducer wrote:
| 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.
| pedalpete wrote:
| 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.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > 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.
| eps wrote:
| 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 :)
| detourdog wrote:
| 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.
| dangus wrote:
| 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.
| jakubmazanec wrote:
| I don't care about mobile phone design. I want just a rectangle
| with a screen. Like Star Trek's PADDs and LCARS.
| tcdent wrote:
| 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.
| dalmo3 wrote:
| No results for ctrl-f kitsch.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-10-05 23:00 UTC)