Industrial Design

In this week’s Original Post, I would like to focus on the visual changes in industrial design over the years and their effectiveness. Just about everything around us has been thoroughly mapped out and digitally designed before being manufactured. For example, the revolutionary media device known as the iPod has undergone “design surgery” numerous times. Many take for granted the amount of work and thought put into the next generation consumer goods. The iPod started out as a thicker version of last generation’s model with the only major visual change being the switch from the casual button functions to the iconic click wheel. Even so, the design has undergone an additional facelift in order to mix better with advancing technology which has created the popular iPod Touch series with a touch screen design. This design does carry over much of the original design layouts from its predecessors. The change in design has been a major success and has benefited owners by creating a much more user friendly interface and sleeker style. Another visual change in industrial design that I have come across is in the form of shoes, in particular, soccer cleats. The Nike Mercurial 1998 R9’s were a top of the line soccer boot during the time of the 1998 World Cup. The design appears to be fairly basic compared to today’s standards. A few streaks of colors and stitching that create a fairly unique pattern on the surface of the shoe. Today, the top of the line boots include the Nike Mercurial Vapor V. The designs styles between the two show a dramatic visual difference. Numerous current boots have a design layout that eliminates or hides shoe laces. This design, as seen on the Mercurial Vapors, allows for a centered strike on the ball at all times eliminating any offset placed on the strike of the ball by shoelaces. So between the two, technology has advanced dramatically to allow for a better experience. Now not all designs are for the better. Let’s take desktop graphics cards for example. The nVidia GeForce MX 440 was a midrange graphics car produced early in the century. It was rather small and featured no over the top design. Now, we have cards such as the nVidia GeForce 9800 series which is extremely bulky and rather unconventional in regards to its design. Basically, this post is meant to observe the many industrial changes to a line of consumer goods and their changes to help better the experience of the consumer and appeal visually. In looking back just a few years, it’s amazing to see the level of design advancements that the industry makes with their products. We went from a cubic lunch box designed GameCube in 2001 to a rather sleek looking rectangle known as the Wii in 2007. The current design has been praised for its ability to fit just about anywhere size wise and visually.