Topic
Industrial Design
Dieter Rams joined Braun in 1955 and stayed for about four decades, and his ten principles of good design still circulate in design schools. Industrial Design is about products like his, where engineering decisions and taste are hard to pull apart. The Sony Walkman TPS-L2 of 1979 put a cassette player in a jacket pocket. Apple's iPod did the same for an entire music library in 2001. Bang and Olufsen worked with Jacob Jensen on the Beogram 4000 turntable of 1972, a slab of brushed metal with a tangential arm. Teenage Engineering's OP-1 packed a synthesizer into a flat aluminum case in 2011. The Casio G-Shock began as a brief for a watch that could survive a fall. Sneakers belong here too, since the Air Max 1's window was a product idea as much as a style. Each story explains the problem the product solved and the choices its designers made. The Polaroid SX-70 of 1972, a single-lens reflex camera that folded flat into a pocket-sized slab, still makes the case better than any essay.
Stories
Watches4 min read
Casio G-Shock DW-5000C and the Watch That Wouldn't Break
A Casio designer threw prototypes out a bathroom window for two years. The answer came from a rubber ball in a Tokyo park.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Design4 min read
The Wassily Chair Was Never Kandinsky's
A bicycle, a Bauhaus workshop and an Italian who needed a better name than B3. How Breuer's steel tube club chair got a painter's first name.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Design4 min read
The Egg Chair Was Built for a Hotel Lobby
Arne Jacobsen designed a Copenhagen tower down to the ashtrays. The chair he put in its lobby outlived almost everything else in the building.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Sneakers4 min read
Nike Air Max 95, Sergio Lozano's Anatomy Lesson in Neon
Sergio Lozano built a running shoe out of a spine, a rib cage and muscle. London named it after its price tag. Tokyo started robbing people for it.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Tech4 min read
Sony Walkman and the Birth of Personal Audio
How a blue and silver cassette player from Tokyo turned music into something you carry, and why the TPS-L2 still shapes the way we listen.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Design4 min read
Dieter Rams and the Ten Principles of Good Design
The Braun design chief who made less feel like more. What his ten principles actually ask of an object, and why they still shape the gear you buy.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Tech4 min read
The iPod: How Apple Put a Wheel in Every Pocket
A $399 Mac accessory with a monochrome screen turned into 450 million units and the white earbuds that marked a decade. The wheel did most of the work.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Tech4 min read
Nothing Phone (1): Carl Pei's See-Through Comeback
After leaving OnePlus, Carl Pei set up shop in London and sold a phone you could see into. The lights on the back did most of the marketing.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Design4 min read
The Panton Chair Has No Legs and No Seams
One sweep of plastic, held up by nothing but its own curve. It took Verner Panton a decade to find a factory and Vitra five materials to get it right.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Sneakers4 min read
Nike Air Max 1 and the Window That Changed Sneakers
In 1987 Tinker Hatfield cut a hole in a midsole and let everyone see the cushioning inside. The Air Max 1 made engineering the main event.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Tech3 min read
Teenage Engineering OP-1: The Synth That Looks Like a Toy
A Stockholm startup's first product was a synth, sampler and four-track tape deck in one aluminum slab. It still sets the look of desirable music gear.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Tech4 min read
Analogue Pocket: The Game Boy, Rebuilt in Silicon
Analogue's handheld doesn't emulate the Game Boy. It rebuilds one in programmable silicon, then gives it a screen with ten times the resolution.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Design4 min read
Memphis, Sottsass and the Laminate That Broke Good Taste
A Dylan record on repeat, a gallery in Milan and furniture surfaced like a diner counter. Memphis lasted seven years and still hasn't gone away.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Design4 min read
The Eames Lounge Chair, 1956 to Now
Molded plywood, soft leather and a TV debut in 1956. How Charles and Ray Eames reinvented the club chair, and how to spot the real thing today.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Design4 min read
Ligne Roset's Togo, the Sofa That Is Nothing but Foam
No frame and no legs, only foam. Michel Ducaroy's crumpled 1973 seat sold slowly at first, then turned into a social media fixture with a counterfeit problem.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Watches4 min read
Audemars Piguet Royal Oak: Gerald Genta's Steel Gamble
In 1972 a small Swiss house priced a steel watch above gold ones and bet its future on an octagon full of exposed screws.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Tech5 min read
Leica M6 and the Film Camera Revival
A metered rangefinder from 1984 became the camera of the analog comeback. Why the Leica M6 matters, and what changed when Leica brought it back.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Design5 min read
The Bauhaus Lasted 14 Years and Rewired Design
A school that changed cities twice, lost three directors and was shut down by the Nazis still decides what your furniture looks like.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Watches4 min read
Patek Philippe Nautilus: How a Porthole Became a Grail
Gerald Genta drew it in 1974, Patek launched it in steel in 1976, and in 2021 the company killed its most wanted watch on purpose.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Tech4 min read
PlayStation Design History: Gray Box to Black Monolith
A broken deal with Nintendo gave Sony a reason to build a console. A designer who fought for handles gave it a shape people still recognize.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Design4 min read
USM Haller, the Office Furniture That Became a Flex
A Swiss locksmith's grandson, an architect obsessed with systems and a Paris bank order for 600 workstations. The chrome grid is still being bolted together.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Travel4 min read
Milan Design Week: How Salone and Fuorisalone Actually Work
One trade fair in Rho, a few thousand events across the city and six days to see them. A field guide to April in Milan.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Tech4 min read
Polaroid SX-70: Edwin Land's Folding Miracle
In 1972 Polaroid sold a single-lens reflex camera that folded flat and spat out pictures that developed in daylight. Nothing else has matched it since.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Watches4 min read
Grand Seiko Spring Drive and the Art of Zaratsu Polish
One engineer spent decades trying to make a mainspring obey a quartz crystal. He died a year before the first one went on sale.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Tech4 min read
Bang & Olufsen: A Century of Sound as Furniture
A Danish radio maker from a small town in Jutland turned stereo gear into objects that museums collect. The story runs through two designers.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Watches4 min read
Swatch and the Quartz Crisis: How Plastic Saved the Swiss Watch
Between 1970 and 1984 the Swiss watch industry lost about 60,000 jobs. The fix was a 51-part plastic watch launched in Zurich in 1983.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
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