GadgetRatty: The difference between well-designed gadgets and designer electronics

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The difference between well-designed gadgets and designer electronics

2008-06-23 14:58:33 by John Brownlee in Boing Boing Gadgets

Gadget Lab's Charlie Sorrel word perfect delineation between between design and designer crap:

Take the sleep light on a Mac: Jonathan Ive (Apple's head designer) was once challenged that this was trivial eye candy. His answer? That a soft, pulsing light perfectly represents the sleep state of the computer. That it also looks good is an intentional bonus. Lately, this design has been refined -- the light glows steadily when the display sleeps, indicating that the machine is still on. It also glows steadily while the contents of RAM are written to disk on entering hibernation.
That is design: Details sweated over so thoroughly that they look almost childishly simple. Which is why it rankles so much when some airheaded moron sprays a little glue onto a gadget, rolls it in a bag of crushed glass and calls it a "Designer Phone". It's utterly demeaning to any real designer.

Fashion Computers Just as Air-headed as their Catwalk Contemporaries [Gadget Lab]