| Tuesday, February 26, 2002 |
14:25 - Seems I wasn't the only one...
http://www.anchordesk.co.uk/anchordesk/commentary/columns/0,2415,7111824,00.html
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Remember those concept PCs by Intel and HP that I wrote about some weeks ago? Well, evidently columnists all over the tech world are stumbling across that page, looking through the hideous "designs" in it, and then looking over at the new iMac-- and realizing that there really is a difference.
The designs all look as though they were created by art school graduates who thought; "Hey, let's design like a fifties-looking PC, but, like really futuristic, and stick loads of cool-looking bits on." Not one has the utilitarianism or style of either the old or the new iMac. Not one gives a nod to current ergonomic thinking, or indeed to laws that cover such areas. One of the worst, courtesy of HP, I had the luck to see in the flesh recently. Clearly, little has changed over the past three years.
It's not often that you hear the words "utilitarianism" and "style" in the same sentence, applying to the same device. Used to be, the two concepts were mutually exclusive, diametrical opposites. But that's really what it's all about: the quest to design something that does all the stuff you need it to and nothing extraneous, and yet looks cool enough that everyone will want to own one. Bonus points if it looks futuristic enough to show up in sci-fi movies.
I've certainly come to like the iMac over the past couple of months, after a rickety start. It's grown on me. In fact, now when I look at it, it's hard to imagine how nobody came up with it before. It's so obvious. The Luxo connection isn't just coincidence; it's a result of the fact that the Luxo desk lamp is an ingeniously simple and versatile design in and of itself-- utilitarian and stylish. The iMac resembles it because it shares the lamp's design principles. They solve the same problems.
That's what good designers do.
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