Apples from Braun or Bathubs?
January 17, 2008
Interesting article by Gizmodo claiming a major design influence of Apple. There are some striking similarities between Dieter Rams’ work in the 60′s for Braun and some of the work coming from Jonathan Ive. However earlier assertions by Frog Design’s Luke Williams have been that the Apple influences were from bathroom fixtures and materials. These are nifty visual comparison games to play, and I’m not comfortable with saying that no ideas are new. Instead I see this as inspiration for designers to realize that great design ideas may come from outside of your industry and instead from things like a 1960′s speaker or a 1990′s toilet.
Stumble it!
Tags: , Apple, bathroom, Branding, Braun, design language, iMac, inspiration, iPod
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January 18th, 2008 at 7:06 am
Interesting that every designer I talk so says that the comparison is weak and influence is not the same as stealing or directly copying design. I guess the more interesting note is that Jobs takes complete credit for everything Apple from the OS (originally from Xero and now fundamentally BSD), the design (well lets credit Braun with ‘influence’ here) and the hardware (well that’s primarily down to Intel’s power efficiency for the form factor and performance for sheer welly). Maybe designers are more willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt because of their brand loyalty within the industry rather than a rational assessment of what is or isn’t invested by the company.