We’ve both been busy for the past month or so.
A few things to note:
The blog has been moved to http://blog.hypeless.net
(http://hypeless.net will still work for now… but any links will bring you back to the blog subdomain)
New posts to follow soon.
I bought a new toothbrush the other day. It came with two extra detachable bristle heads, which could be interchanged when the brushes get old. Of course, they also sold packs of just these brush heads.
It got me thinking about packaging and product optimization. Here was a very simple product that was nonetheless optimized to get the maximum performance out of each part and while reducing packaging and weight in shipping. It’s not as if the toothbrush handle ever breaks, so why get a new one each time?
Of course, not many people are thinking about optimizing toothbrushes, but this company, GABA, has reduced its use of greenhouse gases and raw materials by just this simple design change.
What if this line of thinking was extended to all products?
These days, there’s a lot of planned obsolescence in products, plastic containers that are never meant to be refilled because of how they degrade, and wasteful packaging. What if there was a shift? Drink bottles that were returned like in yesteryear. Appliances that were built to last. Products that could be fixed or have easily damaged parts replaced.
I hope those days come back. More optimization!
The lack of fresh meaning on the site is my fault entirely. I’ve been MIA for the past couple weeks. Along with timeless design, I’d like to consider timeless need, so far as we can think about the needs of people, groups, and societies since our emergence.
My problem specifically, was with dental pain. In the throes of pain, I found myself wondering what people did to deal with these things just 50, or 100 years ago. I was able to procure some OTC pain killers that helped me get through the duration of my problems. What did people do 100 years ago? I was suddenly interested in this narrow scope of history.
Thinking about the question of whether MP3 players can be considered timeless - I’d want to bucket them into the general class of audio playback devices (or even restrict it down to mobile audio playback). The Sony Walkman is at least timeless until and up to today, if nothing else. Using Google, I searched for possible symptoms and do-it-yourself solutions to my pain. The quest to search and access a wealth of human knowledge can date back as far as the Great Library. We’re simply implementing new interfaces on old problems.
The other scope of design to consider is trans-global, or trans-cultural. In my use of Google, I found that in many cases, questions and answers were being provided by people, presumably in the West, who lacked adequate resources or dental insurance to seek proper treatment. And furthermore, I wondered about first, my relatives in Asia, and second, the poor in Asia - in awe of their necessitated superhuman tolerance for pain. Advances (in design, or otherwise) are often considered in the narrow scope of prosperity. Indirectly, advances in the search and access of human knowledge can help people face their own problems.
Something to think about.
Maybe we need a better word than “timeless.” Keyboards might have good design, but what of the age before or after keyboards? It might be nitpicking, but something that is timeless has value in any age, which is something a good chair, but perhaps not an mp3 player can posses. Of course, we cannot know if something is timeless without the test of time, so maybe it’s a bit early to put any mp3 player in that category, regardless of how ready we might be anoint the iPod as such.
What other words can we use and what criteria are we talking about? Certainly, I think, Ryan, that you and I are referring to just about the same thing: some sense of a design classic. The Greatest Hits of Design, yes? What criteria do these things meet, or is it that, like pornography, of which Justice Potter Stewart once said, we know it when we see it?
What qualifications do we use and should we have new ones in the sustainability category?
Functionality, certainly. Aesthetics, yes. Ergonomics, yes. Durability? Recyclability?
A couple objects from the beginning of the book that I remember are the Windsor chair, fine china dining plates, and a traditional cast iron teapot of Asian origin that you’ve likely seen in a restaurant if not in someone’s home.
A couple things struck me about the objects:
First, they looked strikingly similar to modern counterparts (if they weren’t already perfectly identical, like in the case of the teapot). It’s incredible to think that we were able to produce tools or objects so long ago that still remain in use today.
Secondly, it reminded me of how different it was to live and work in those days. Hand tools that we take for granted were changing the way life and business were run just a couple hundred years ago.
Like most of my musing, it just makes me think more about what can be designed today that is taken for granted in a couple hundred years. Or maybe just in 5 years.
To what examples of “timeless design” are you referring? Maybe more importantly, how are we defining “timeless?” An x-generation iPod is not a timeless device since its technology has become or will become obsolete, but is the design, nevertheless, “timeless?”
I’m hoping that this blog picks up in the coming days. My friend Steve and I intend to host a conversation on here about various topics including design.
I picked up the set of Phaidon design classics, expecting to study the most recent designs. Instead I’ve found out that really the most timeless design began in the 17th and 18th centuries.
So if you take a quick look around, it’s clear that I rarely blog here. Combined with the amount of comment spam floating around these days - and that’s why it took me 2 and a half months to see Jack Brewster’s comment on my previous post:
http://www.hypeless.net/?p=53#comments
I’ll reproduce it here for you, just to make it clear, I was griping about interface annoyances:
“* The fact that Feeddemon (by Newsgator) gives the external browser the focus when i click on a link from within the app”
And within a couple days, Jack replied:
Jack Brewster Says:
November 6th, 2006 at 5:05 pm e
I work for NewsGator in technical support.
Regarding browser focus and FeedDemon, my understanding is that the focus isn’t actually being given to the browser, rather that the browser is taking it.
I spoke to the dev about this and he’s going to see if he can add something in FeedDemon 2.1, currently in beta, to address this. It may turn up as a registry modification rather than an option within the program, so feel free to ping us at support@newsgator.com if you don’t see the change in the final 2.1 release or if there is anything else we can help you with.
Jack Brewster
Technical Support
NewsGator Technologies
Amazing. Simply amazing. I apologize Jack, and to the rest of NewsGator for not seeing your reply a few months ago. Anyone else who reads this - check them out: Newsgator, makers of simply the best client RSS reader on PC (and they own NetNewsWire now too by the way - excellent on Mac).
Try (and Buy!) their software.
I was a satisfied customer before this - but now I’m ecstatic 
In no particular order:
* Intrusive, dissonant sound alerts
* Applications / system alerts that steal the focus
* The fact that Feeddemon (by Newsgator) gives the external browser the focus when i click on a link from within the app
* The Start Menu (pre-Vista)
* The over-use of My Documents by apps, even when they don’t have anything to store yet.
* Abundance of icons in the System Tray
While I’ll admit that the Nintendo Revolution sounded pretty badass - and yes, at first glance, the name Nintendo wii threw me off guard - it’s all starting to make sense.
The discrepancy lies in the fact that I had been following the hype behind the wii since before we knew what it was. That is to say that I had been briefed on the notion that the system was indeed going to be a revolution in gaming. What we now fail to take into account that all great revolutions happen without being explicit. That is to say, when they happen, they just happen. You talk about a revolution, and it’s nothing.
So why wii? If their marketing shpeal has people convinced that this is a bad brand campaign, I somehow wonder if we aren’t getting the point. The name isn’t being explained to their target market - it’s being explained to the internet. What they’re doing is telling us - in advance - what their marketing is going to look like as they ramp up to launch.
“wii” (pronounced “we”)
I can’t even begin to imagine the marketing opportunities.
If you don’t agree with what I say - look back at the kinds of ads they ran for the DS launch.
“Touching is good” it stuck. The ads they could run with the concept were some of the best I’ve seen in years (maybe only surpassed by the new Toyota Camry commercials, and the vee-dub unpimp your autos of recent)
wii play
wii come together
come, wii play
I don’t know - it just seems so very versatile. With a console aimed like this - it’s all about the marketing. You need to convince parents that this is THE gift for Christmas. No question. They might even convince parents to pick one up, even if little johnson wants a PS3 or a 360.
Yesterday I was skeptical, but today I buy it.
