Good design you love to have

There was a thread a while ago on the subject, something along the lines off “what did you buy solely based on its design”.
I think you can identify good design if you answer “yes” to the question “If I lost/broke this thing, would I consider getting exactly the same thing tomorrow?”

But this is a board for designers, unless I’m mistaken. Isn’t it our job to notice it, and understand why it is good? :slight_smile:

Good reply. Raymond, I’m not buying what you are selling there.

I’ll let the lively discussion of good design in this thread speak for itself…

Although, I spent some time considering good design that I have this weekend. I realized that most of the objects I kept thinking about I would describe as good craftsmanship, not design. Maybe that’s just because as a working designer for 10 years, I am just hyper-critical. I think I do have a problem appreciating design, because I’m always looking for ways to improve it.

Here is an example of craftsmanship. This is a tailored jacket that I had made 3 years ago. The design is now out of date, but I still love it because I have a connection to the designer and craftsman that sewed it for me.


Here is my favorite product design ever. Mind you, I rarely use it today. It’s scratched and (inevitably) there were some poorly designed plastic details that broke off. Still, this scanner is as fresh and usable today as it was new.

Last are my favorite designs in general. I love books and these three design books are gorgeous. Sometimes, I’ll flip through them just to enjoy the page layouts!
BOOKS.jpg

Ray your jacket reminded me of my classmate at Purdue, John Thompson. Our Junior year design final projects were to be presented in the auditorium of Coulter Hall at Purdue. For weeks everyone was working in the design lab on their projects at a furious rate, except John. He didn’t seem to care one way or the other.

The day of the presentation John drew “last” as his position to make his presentation. The thing was, he didn’t have an “industrial design” project to present; no chair, no consumer product, no vehicle concept, nuthin’. What he did present, in true run way style, was a beautiful three-piece wool suit and car coat, immaculately tailored, and sewn, by himself. He accompanied his presentation with concept and detail sketches, sample boards and descriptions of the materials, why he selected them, the types of stitches in the various places in the garment, why they were used, etc.

A total blow away moment for me. I later learned that he had worked in the garment district in Chicago from the age of sixteen.

Seconding that HP Scanner!

That was the most useful thing I’ve ever had. Perfect for scanning large documents/sketches/whatever. Pull it off the mount and do what you need to.

So great.

Why isn’t there some Chinese company knocking that HP scanner off? I would buy an updated version tomorrow. Only thing that I’d like is maybe a bigger scanning area for larger format magazines.

Yes! If they made a Tabloid version… Oh, man.

OK, this might seem like an odd one, but one of my favorite things I own because of its design is the Rösle Apple Slicer. I used to have an OXO one and after a few years the plastic handle snapped. Something that seemed like a pretty serious flaw. So I started looking into a more robust solution. This Rösle example integrated the blade frames and handles into a single sculptural piece of metal. So it is super strong, will never break, reduces the amount of nooks and crannies you have to clean and is beautiful. For me, it is a very successful design and I love using it 2-4 times a week.

Sometimes it is the small things.
img4b.jpg
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I likey!

Another product from Rösle, but maybe it’s in the wrong topic… . … :wink:

I thought, we were clear enough about “hubless wheels” here, Lew!?

mo-i

P.S: Or is this the first sensible application, ever???

Those are both cool designs. Weird that their website is pretty average and a lot of the other products seem fairly commodity, imported from China in feel.

In my eyes this wide array of design qualities or the lack thereof is
typical for producers of household goods (at least in Germany).

Whereas I have not worked for Rösle, yet, I did a lot of work within
the tabletop category. Typically those companies evolved out of a production
outfit with tight capabities that fits one category of products, like knifes
or pots, but they want to present a full assortement to get store shelf meters
(most important). So they all have to source a growing proportion of their
product elsewhere. Responsible are category and product managers. The
goal of presenting a coherent design language, that is visible for all of those
items, is simply not theirs. Instead it is tried to wash everything over with
branding and CI measures that graphics design is catering for.

And it is successful to an extend. As the consumer focus is not on the design
details of those products. The Pizzawheel stands out, but trying to seperate
your forks and saladspoons from the competions is near hopeless, if you do
not choose to deviate too much from the traditional forms that are inherited
and expected by the public.

You could always do an Alessi, but this is a different brand concept.

Whatsoever, if you are interested in learning more about Roesles Design Process
visit their website at:

http://www.roesle.de/epages/Roesle.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/Roesle/Categories/Unternehmen/Auszeichnungen/Designpreise

or the Red dot file on them:

http://de.red-dot.org/index.php?id=2878&tx_smtdbsearch_pi1[swords]=R%C3%B6sle&tx_smtdbsearch_pi1[submit_button]=go!

As it shows they are working with agencies all over the world and the hubless
pizza wheel was actually done in the USA. (A pizza nation, who’d doubt that!)

mo-i

mo-i: that is what I figured. Same story for most lighting companies.

That pizza wheel is starting to fascinate me now. I have to buy one if I can find it. I want to know how the blade moves smoothly without seeming to have bearings…

moi - great rant

Having freshly ground salt and pepper is awesome, and I love that I can spin this thing in my hands and switch from one to the other. The knobs are cheap and flimsy but I’m pretty gentle with my stuff so I’m not worried.

mo-i your Red Dott link seems to be scrambled; here’s another one.

http://de.red-dot.org/3195.html?&cHash=c0a6ed02ce9c6fd13abd33fd13efca2e&detail=9345&no_cache=1

So, are we seeing a plastic “carrier” that the stainless blade fits onto (held in place by the cover)? I was wondering how you were supposed to clean it safely. An issue I have with sharp things…

like the Joseph Joseph “rotary” vegetable peeler I was given for Christmas last year. Not really that comfortable to hold onto (because it’s hard to hold onto when it’s wet), exposed cutting edges when disassembled to clean (which is a PITA to begin with), and lots of nooks and crannies to harbor crud. (yeah, I know, this should go in Bad Design You Are Forced To Have (but no one forced me to have this thing))

josephjoseph-rotary-peeler-.jpg

Here is another that I keep forgetting I own, because I use it at work. Herman-Miller Mirra.

Looking back over what I seem to be drawn to, it’s all things that have a strong physical element (even the scanner requires something to be scanned!). Maybe this is why I can’t get as excited about electronics. I have no problem paying 2-3 more for a great chair or book. 2 x more for a phone or a PC. I just can’t pull the trigger.

It also reminded me of people’s reaction to when I got my chair. At least 3 iPhone and iPad owners were shocked that I would pay $700-$800 for a chair. I am shocked they would pay $500-$700 for a phone.

I can’t quite “own” this design, but every designer and engineer should have at least some experience buying random hardware from McMaster Carr. The efficiency of their site is astounding compared to other retailers. I had a discussion with a firmware engineer trying to explain to him how to mount a bracket to his concrete basement wall. I tried for a good 10 minutes to find the proper hardware from one of the 2 bigbox home improvement sites and was given huge linear lists of irrelevant crap, even keyword searches failed. It took seconds to find it on McMaster’s site. Newegg is similar in site efficiency for electronics shopping.

No product plugs just honest opinion.

Mcmaster-Carr rules! :wink:

Nice! That thing is straight out of Bill and Teds…