My Top Five Designs
Introduction
“Design” is a noun: the drawing, the plans, the pattern etc. set of drawings, a pattern, or a verb: to make, create, imagine those plans for something. There is even a less savoury meaning; the phrase “by design” can mean to get something or someone for yourself often implying dishonesty!
It is the totality of these elements which interest me, not just now but into the future.
Good design is more than the look—of course the aesthetic is important—but how does it work as an object or system, can it be made, how it will it be made, what is its intent. It is design with intent.
Great design is all of that and more — much more to be great. It must succeed and endure across at least six benchmarks.
But first there is for me one immutable hurdle for good design; no matter how beautiful, how well it the design performs:
It must aim to do good or to do no harm or if it is doing harm be prepared to change.
An example of harmful design was exposed in Ralph Nader’s 1966 seminal work “Unsafe at Any Speed” which highlighted the endemic design faults of US automobile design, the risk to, and cost to lives and the resistance of the manufacturers to change. Their reticence cost lives.
Today’s oligopoly is not cars but technology. The oligopoly power of the internet giants claiming ‘freedom’ as a defence, continually asking to be allowed self-regulation to ensure the continuation of their profits. Their focus on profits harm society, COVID misinformation is just one example, and most certainly these profits are at the expense of their consumers that is all of us—we have nowhere else to go.
Some simple examples Google’s unrestrained gathering of our search history, personal data to construct a saleable product from our personal information —I cannot deny its enormous utility —recently though Google has given us increased privacy controls. Twitter (and all platforms) allowing COVID misinformation yet banning a woman’s nipple—choosing sexual priggishness over health.
One last point Google, Meta and other technology earn massive profits from their stock which is my and your information — shouldn’t they pay us for their product? I’d love a new car.
Criteria
My five criteria of my “top ten” designs.
1. It must aim to do good or to do no harm and be prepared to change. This is binary.
2. It must be adaptable and expandable: adapts to the needs of users.
3. It must have an human interface: we can use it and its use simplifies society.
4. It is successful: it shows impact through adoption, scale, or growth.
5. It is paradigm breaking: it must transformational, changes the known.
A final and sixth criteria is:
6. It understands environmental and societal issues: it helps society grow even in a small way (in my “Top Ten”
I not taken account of this have excluded this as I simply do not possess enough insight— it’s an “admit your ignorance” moment.
I focus on the personal; how far and how we travel, how we consume, how we are entertained, and how this is best delivered for us. My categories are; 1. mass transit, 2. personal transportation, 3. product packaging, 4. system/production management, and 5. personal entertainment.
I would love to expand this post to discuss: a. communication, b. furniture, c. personal objects, d. medical, and e. graphic design but fear it would then more a thesis than a blog post.
In each category is my Top Five design and four “Honourable mentions”. When you disagree with any of my five you are right, I found it almost impossible to pick.
Let’s get started
Mass Transit: Boeing 747
In January 1970 Pan Am received delivery of the first 747. The first wide body passenger airliner seating 300-400 passengers. A first/economy class QANTAS 707 had a capacity of 88 the first QANTAS 747 flight — Sydney to Singapore via Melbourne on September 17th, 1971 — had a first/economy capacity of 294. A 234% capacity increase overnight.
Ticket prices dropped, more efficient routing allowing passengers to travel on one airline instead of two, long haul flights became more comfortable.
The 747 democratised air travel, travel, everywhere, became commonplace. A holiday in Bali is as exotic to an Australian as a holiday on the Great Barrier Reef.
Honourable mentions
1. The Skinkansen created a fast, easy to use, network of rail transport across Japan.
2. The 737 is the workhorse of the aviation world, not only did it facilitate effective high frequency routes and the hub and spoke route model it made low-cost airlines possible.
3. The London Cab is easy to enter and exit, a sensible place for luggage and highly skilled drivers guaranteed as they must have passed “The Knowledge”,
4. Uber is technology, job creator — a question of its labour conditions is yet to be fully answered — a free addition to a city’s public transport infrastructure
Personal transport: Mini
Launched (under various model names) in 1959 the Mini pushed the boundaries of automotive design; transverse engine, front wheel drive, creative use of space, driving fun, style and individualisation at its core. It entered popular culture in the 1960s with well-publicised purchases by film and music stars.
In its performance version the Cooper "S" it was winning race and rally car; the 1966 Gallahar 500 mile endurance race (Bathurst 1000) in 1966 and the Monte Carlo Rally in 1964, 1965, and 1967.
The Mini’s front-wheel-drive, transverse-engine layout of the Mini was copied for other "supermini" designs was also adapted for larger subcompact designs.
In October 2000, after 41 years and 5,387,862 cars the last mini rolled off the production line.
In 2001 under BMW ownership the Mini was reborn and continues to be one of the most desirable cars in the world, launching the Mini Electric in 2020.
It was truly ubiquitous, is, and will remain truly ubiquitous.
Honourable mentions:
Automobiles — the conundrum!
The twentieth century is the century of the automobile. It is entirely logical that the Ford 150 and Volkswagen should be Honourable mentions in Personal Transportation.
Yet the negative effects — even ignoring the car’s non-renewable fuel usage and carbon outputs — are huge.
The concrete and bitumen needed for a car’s movement radically accelerate water run-off leading to wastage, affecting food security, the ability to reduce travel times has facilitated the urban sprawl and inner city decay [for some interesting reading to the value of property ownership and economy stability Hernando de Soto The Wealth of (Some) Nations is one place to start]. The urban sprawl has destroyed natural eco-systems, hastened extinctions, enabled the demise of local amenities replaced by malls or new suburbs with little in the way of social
In deciding my “Honourable mentions” I cannot accept the harm cars have brought to our world so what is left.
Honourable mentions
1. Dutch upright bicycle — Omafiets (Granny Bike) All modern bikes are descendants of the English “Rover Safety Bicycle” released in 1885 designed by John Kemp Starley. His design took off in the United Kingdom but exploded in The Netherlands
The bicycle has a sit-up geometry, step through frame, rear wheel guard, solid steel frame, mudguards and chain guard. This design is good for riders who carry cargo, children, or ride in more formal or rigid attire — it is the perfect commuter bike.
2. The skateboard The design, a board with four wheels / trucks was simple, take a board, screw on some roller skate trucks and viola your own skate board. To pick the point design singularity I would choose the first mass produced board designed by Alf Jensen known as the bun board and was sold through the Guild Drug store for 2,88USD.
Initially a substitute for when the surf was down, then a sub-culture [The 1965 Skater Dater movie shows how all these element come together, https://myskatespots.com/event/the-bun-board-skateboard-first-commercial-skateboard/] and now a piece of sporting equipment, a personal transport as a skater drops it on the ground to simply move from A-B, an instrument of social cohesion and now an Olympic sport.
3. The running shoe: The running shoe — as we know it, multi-density sole, specific to running is the collaborative design of two companies and two individuals: Japanese sports shoe manufacturer Onitsuka Tiger, its founder Kihachiro Onitsuka sport who believed sport had the power to transform lives and an ongoing urge to innovate and the Eugene, Oregon retailer Blue Ribbon Sports and its part owner Bill Bowerman an athletic coach fascination with optimizing his runners' shoes.
To summarise BRS was formed in 1964 to import and retail Onitsuka Tiger’s athletic and running shoes. In the late 1960’s Bill Bowerman works with Onitsuka Tiger to develop the Tiger Cortez — sold as the Corsair by BRS — which brought performance to American surfaces and body types by the use of a sandwiched dual-density wedge of foam in the sole unit provided the extra protection.
4. The 1949 Campagnolo Gran Sport rear derailleur. Derailleurs made cycling easier for so many multiplying the gears available, hills became rideable and flats faster. The 1949 Campagnolo Gran Sport mounted to a hanger on the rear dropout future derailleurs since the 1950s took their design cues from the design.
Product packaging: Coca-Cola bottle
In 1915 The Coca-Cola bottle was designed as response to competition. Coca-Cola found it difficult to differentiate and protect its product a myriad of competitors.
To address the situation and achieve as Harold Hirsch, the lead attorney for The Coca-Cola Company stated “We are not building Coca-Cola alone for today. We are building Coca-Cola forever, and it is our hope that Coca-Cola will remain the National drink to the end of time.
Eight to 10 glass companies across the U.S. subsequently received a simple creative brief — a challenge: “to develop a “bottle so distinct that you would recognize if by feel in the dark or lying broken on the ground.”.
The Root Glass Company based their design on an elongated coca bean, their curve design was patented in 1915.
The sinuous curve of the bottle was a complete break from the straight sided bottle, it has become Coke, it has been used in all Coke glass and plastic bottles. It is a shape we all know—even without a label we know it’s a Coke.
It’s simple, unique, and it’s sexy.
(Information from Coca-Cola: https://www.coca-colacompany.com/company/history/the-history-of-the-coca-cola-contour-bottle)
Honourable mentions
There is plethora of great packaging designs but these scream brilliance.
1. The FedEx brand, designed by Landor once you see the arrow it is always there,
2. Tiffany’s Blue box and it’s specific Blue tell a story of something special, care, and love.
3. The Levi’s tag solved a branding and authenticity issue in 1936 by adding “a folded cloth ribbon—the Levi’s® Tab—in the structural seam of a rear patch pocket.” In various colours to denote different product combinations it used across the Levi’s product range.
4. Nespresso — a brand, a product, a machine, a retail presence, a transformation of Italian coffee culture.
System Control: Agile Project Management technique
Managing project work is ubiquitous, it maybe a spreadsheet, scraps of paper, or hopefully somewhat more disciplined techniques to manage the trade-off between; scope, budget, and speed.
Three models dominate; Traditional (waterfall, PERT charts, etc.), Lean, and Agile. All have their place but Agile delivers speed, customer collaboration and working product. The Agile Manifesto was formalised in 2001 but its roots stretch back to WWII and TQM.
The Manifesto stressed: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools; working software / product over comprehensive documentation; customer collaboration over contract negotiation; responding to change over following a plan.
It is known for its success with software but the power of Agile is demonstrated by NASA's “Faster Better Cheaper Initiative”, which reduced scope and size of spacecraft using Lean/Agile Release Designs principles. It was a major initiative in the 1990’s which achieved unheard of results by reusing old spacecraft designs reducing costs to one-tenth the current cost of producing spacecraft.
Missions were achieved under budget and on schedule, returning 10X the value of traditional NASA projects.
Honourable mentions
1. Total Quality Management (TQM) developed by W. Edwards Deming, based on much earlier work, during the 1950’s in Japan. It continuous improvement, the PDCA cycle, (Plan-Do-Check-Act), quality was not in competition with cost. The power of TQM was demonstrated in the 1980s where, it was a major part of the turnaround of Ford.
2. Apollo Space program The world was in awe of space exploration in the 1960’s culminating in the Apollo program and Apollo landing on the moon on July 20th 1969—the world stopped to watch grainy black and white images beamed from the moon as On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first humans ever to land on the moon.
3. Apple’s series of OS and iOS operating systems. Its GUI interface is still the benchmark for ease of use, it’s inbuilt security unique and functional updates are huge.
System 1 was released on January 24, 1984, This operating system introduced many features that would appear for years to come, some that still exist in the current macOS. The OS series of systems were officially named “Mac OS” with version 7.6 (codenamed "Harmony") released in 1997. The 2022 version is Monterey 12.2.1.
4. HP 12C Financial Programmable Calculator. The HP12C financial calculator launched in 1981 — it is one brilliant exception to the unrelenting march of technology!
A handheld calculator may seem as a contrarian choice but this one product changed work systems across industries especially the financial, real estate, investment, and accountancy. Depreciation, per period payments, future value, net present value, internal rate of return, and more possible, its more efficient reserve polish (RPN) calculation methodology, intuitive programming — all these computer / hand calculations were literally in the palm of your hand, able to completed quickly and simply at your desk.
The unanswerable question is why its longevity?
It really does and continues to provide, just the right functions in the right form factor at the right price — but its longevity magic is unknowable.
Personal Entertainment: Sony Walkman
The original blue and silver aluminium and the metal case Walkman, designed by Norio Ohga for Sony’s co-founder Masaru Ibuka, was released in 1979. It was not much bigger than a cassette tape, but was a massive paradigm shift. Listening to music had always been in some ways out of our control, radios — DJ’s choose the music, others choose performance programming, it was not portable (transistor radio / car radio excepted). In short music was not personal.
The Walkman changed it all; you choose the music, made it portable, and its quality was just as good your hi-fi — music became personal. The Walkman shown the light on the future for iPods and MP3 players.
Music was now personal — instead of ‘elevator music’ you could listen to Puccini or Chinese Opera or The Clash. It was your choice.
The first every Walkman was designed by Sony designer Norio Ohga for Sony’s co-founder Masaru Ibuka, who wanted to be able to listen to opera music on long flights and found that even the smallest of the personal audio players was still too big to be travel friendly. A playback-only stereo version optimized for headphones., prototype was quickly made for him Sony's based on bulky TC-D5 Walkman was born.
Honourable mentions
1. Staunton Chess pieces Before the Staunton most designs then in use had pieces that were difficult to distinguish, cumbersome during play, and easily tipped.
Designed by Nathaniel Cooke, released in 1849 the Staunton design chess, and named leading English chess master Howard Staunton, who endorsed. It quickly became the standard. It is easy to use one piece cannot be mistaken for another, the pieces are weighted well, feeling solid in your hand, unlikely to fall disturbing the position on the board.
The Staunton set obtained the stamp of approval of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, when in 1924 it was selected as their choice of set, for use in all future international chess tournaments and remains so to this day.
2. iPod the Walkman on steroids don’t take a cassette or two, take your whole album collection.
3. Penguin Paperbacks Sir Allen Lane’s experience at Exeter St. Davids in 1934 inspired him to create the sixpenny paperback and launch a global paperback movement. At the time, this was revolutionary. On a mission to make good quality books affordable and accessible to all, Sir Allen Lane arguably propelled the profile of reading and made it a pastime that everyone, regardless of their background, could enjoy.
4. Netflix founded in 1997 created a a subscription-based business model to home deliver by post DVD’s with no due dates or late fees and unlimited access to content, a “Queue” that subscribers used to specify the order in which DVDs should be mailed to them, and a delivery system that automatically mailed out a DVD as soon as the previous DVD was returned. In 2010 Netflix began online streaming and 2011 began product creation.
A large element of Netflix’s success is its ability to be rapidly adjust its content, resolve issues and provide an extensive suite of features to keep subscribers watching. This flexibility is facilitated by their use of the key precepts and features of Agile Project Management.
