| User interaction and industrial design are two different things. Here are some of the icons of industrial design: - The Electrolux Model 30 vacuum, 1937, by Lurelle Guild.[1] This is the iconic vacuum cleaner of the 1930s-1950s. The streamlining dates it. It was a good vacuum cleaner; many survive and parts and bags are available. The computer equivalent is Pac-Man in console form. - The Honeywell Round thermostat, 1953, by Henry Dreyfuss.[2] Still for sale, and the world's largest selling thermostat. The Nest is a clear derivative of the classic Round. - The Olivetti Lettera typewriter, 1963, by Marcello Nizzoli. This is a classic in portable typewriters. Olivetti in the 1960s produced some beautiful typewriters, calculators, and computers. They didn't keep up on the electronics side, but their machines looked great. The computer equivalent is the original Macintosh. Now, all of those were good, working products. There are other design icons that didn't. - The S1 locomotive, 1938, by Raymond Loewy.[4] This was a case mod for a steam locomotive, apparently based on spaceship designs from Buck Rogers comics. The link shows locomotives with and without the decorative sheet metal. As an add-on, it was a huge maintenance headache, making access to the working parts harder. It ushered in a whole era of "streamlined" steam locomotives, many of which lost their non-functional sheet metal during WWII. The software equivalent might be console video game user interfaces with lots of pretty but marginally functional shiny things. Loewy did better with the GG-1 electric locomotive. His main contribution was to insist on welded seams rather than rivets, providing a smooth exterior. This worked better on an electric locomotive, where all the important parts are inside, not outside. The software equivalent might be the Windows Aero theme. As it turned out, though, the future of locomotive design was to ignore aesthetics entirely. - The GP7 locomotive, 1952, by Richard Dilworth and John Markestein.[5] This is a classic for a completely different reason. It's an ugly locomotive. It was designed to be ugly. Dilworth: "I wanted to make a locomotive so ugly in appearance that no railroad would want it on its main line or anywhere near their headquarters. But they would want it out as far as possible in the back country, where it could really do useful work." The GP7 is a long narrow box with walkways on both sides and a bigger box for the cab. Everything important is easily accessible from doors all along those walkways. No need for ladders, no need for lifts, easy access for maintenance. The GP7 looked like no locomotive before it. Every Diesel freight locomotive since looks a lot like a GP7. Like Craigslist, it's brutally functional and works. [1] http://www.theelectroluxman.com/
[2] http://yourhome.honeywell.com/home/Products/Thermostats/Manu...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivetti_Lettera_32
[4] http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2013/nov/05/...
[5] http://www.american-rails.com/gp7.html |