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What's your design point?

Toys for Boys.

"When the Lights go down in the City, and the Sunshine's on the Bay..." I love Lights, and I love to design lights. But my son, he's just crazy about lights. One of the first things he did as a baby was find out what the lightswitch was and did. Pure Magic. While at first the character "l" ("...amp") was hard for him to pronounce, only a little later he became a young master with language and words. We're really proud of him. Of course he never gave up his fascination with lights and every oportunity to find new lights ended up in knowing every shop that sells lights in the region.
One of the most fantastic however, we found in a toystore. It plays with rhytms, patterns and pleasant surprise. A real Journey.

Retro Sucks

I guess that most people won't ever see this, but what today's retro design does, is forming a suggestive, false sense of comfort. It triggers a memory of good times in times of fear. It leans more towards conservatism than towards progression, and yet it is fashionable and sometimes even trendy...

Coffee-machines looking as if they're right out of sixties italian cafes and cars with soft curves and sparkling memories of revolutionary new design. The story of automobile design however, has it's very own merits. The original Fiat 500, being placed in it's original time of introduction, was a symbol of freedom, liberation, joy and happy feelings. The same story of course goes for the Morris Mini.
The projected image of comfort, style and happiness was originally related to that particular period in time, whereas in modern times comfortzones are called in because of "general fear" in society. Soft, gentle curves, warm motherly design. Where the Porsche 911 has a reputation of evolutionary design, Porsche made a sidestep being called "model 996". In fact the 996 was "marketing design" where the design of the Boxster concept car was abused. While the Boxster felt as an evolution to the Speedster, the prominent headlight design was strong, but being put both on the 996 AND the Boxster made it feel as a big mistake. Then, to the relief of most 911 enthusiasts the introduction of 997 felt as if everything was OK again. In fact the 997 was retro, but it also felt as if a sidestep was being corrected.

What then is wrong with the FIAT 500? It looks good doesn't it? Well, that's it: it looks good. It just looks good. It refers to the image of old times. But it feels fake, it feels schizophrenic: it wants to be oldfashioned and modern at the same time. It's not about natural growth, natural evolution. It's only about marketing, marketing design. And that's cold.

Learn from your history, don't copy it.