Some people love science-fiction, because they watched Star Wars during their childhood.
I wonder if you would have some examples in mind about some industrial designs that triggered, or initiated your love for them ?
What made you start loving these things ?
Oh! Industrial Design, or why I'll never be "boutique"
When I say that I love Industrial Design, some people think I like beautiful products. And while that's partly true, that's not the complete answer. I love beautiful products
that can be mass produced. It is the solving of these manufacturing problems that I find most interesting, and what I love about Industrial Design. An artisan can also produce a beautiful products, but those products are unique. They're made by hand. There are not two that are exactly the same. I want to create objects that can be mass produced (even if I never mass produce them). So, I'll never be "boutique", I guess.
One example of something that triggered my attention when I was a teen is something that is very dear to this community: the
Fender Stratocaster. Even though that guitar is the most iconic electric guitar in the world (I guess it's the guitar most people think of when you ask them "think of an electric guitar"), it wasn't that what made it interesting to me, but reading how Leo Fender made decisions in its creation (and also on the Broadcaster/Telecaster). That was what made me realize how important manufacturing is in the creation of a product. Leo always had ease of manufacturing in mind, and that shaped Fender's instruments creation.
Two other objects that I owned also sparked my interest: the
Commodore 64 and the
Macintosh Plus. Both represent the "all in one" computer product of their time.
The Commodore 64 (I'm referring to the breadbin case that most people associate with it), was designed for ease of production, but there's also a tangible factor in it that it's hard to define: when you have one in your hands, there's a certain satisfaction to its construction (the shapes, the weight) that gives it a special characteristic that few other computers of the era were able to reproduce. But if you analyze it, it's nothing more than a nicely designed injection molding case. Amazing.
The Macintosh Plus was another iconic design, and again, other that its particular design characteristics, one thing that for some reason made a huge impression on me was opening it and finding the signatures of the designers inside the case. Thinking "yes, these are the people that made this product" made it more human, and made me wanna be part of that group. I knew that I wanted to create products too. Products that could be mass produced, and that gave its users joy.
Later in life, when I went to college, I was undecided between Industrial Design and Graphic Design, and for practical reasons at the time, I ended up settling on Graphic Design. But my love for Industrial Design has always been with me, and this hobby was the perfect excuse to put it to work.
I hope I can do a decent job. Cheers!
