Category: Electronics

Dieter Rams

subtitle: Under-Designed for the Ages

By Aurora Almendral | 6 Oct 11 | Designers, Electronics | 2 Comments

A television set designed by Dieter Rams

Not a knob more than what you need. A TV designed by Dieter Rams. Image via Life as an Architect.

“Weniger, aber besser” — less, but better.

Industrial designer Dieter Rams, born in Germany in 1932 (and still alive), was concerned with the chaos going on in the world around him: chaos as a result of the Wars, the Great Depression, and later, the more subtle, but also pernicious chaos of disposable design and planned obsolescence that was the purview of his trade.

2 Comments

Museum of Obsolete Objects

subtitle: An Obituary for Dead Technologies

By Aurora Almendral | 20 Sep 11 | Design, Electronics | 2 Comments

Here at Kaufmann Mercantile we can really get behind some tried and true technologies. Coffee makers that don’t need to be plugged in. Pens, pencils, paper. Wood instead of plastic; sea shells instead of plastic. Enter the Museum of Obsolete Objects to remind us of the technologies that have fallen by the wayside. Some of them are irretrievably obsolete and happily so (even if you could get into a time machine to the 1980s to pick up a floppy disk drive, would you want to?).

2 Comments

The Clock of the Long Now

subtitle: We talk to the Men Who Went from Inventing Supercomputers to Chasing Slowness

By Jennifer S. Li | 23 Jun 11 | Electronics, Materials | 2 Comments

In this ever-advancing modern era, where the mantra of the zeitgeist is “better, faster, cheaper,” Danny Hillis — inventor of the supercomputer that instigated our current fast-paced society — beseeches us to slow down, twiddle our thumbs and smell the roses. Hillis has been working since 1996 on a monument-sized clock to be sited on a limestone cliff in eastern Nevada, dubbed the Clock of the Long Now. This clock is nothing like your average wristwatch. The Clock of the Long Now will be large enough for visitors to walk around in and is designed to last 10,000 years — roughly the period in which humans enjoy a relatively constant climate and advancements in culture and technology. It will tick only once a year, bong once a century and cuckoo at the millennium, a pace Hillis hopes will inspire society to think in terms of decades, centuries and millennia, as opposed to the prevailing harried New York minute.

Danny Hillis a supercomputer engineer at a connections machine

A young Danny Hillis hard at work at his connections machine console.

2 Comments

Light Bulbs

subtitle: The Great Fluorescent Hope Flickers

By Sophie Zifcak | 17 Mar 11 | Design, Electronics, Home | 12 Comments

Picture your favorite place to sit. It is likely next to a sun-filled window or in a cozy spot next to a lamp. Think about the lamps in your living room or the antique glow of a city café. Now think about places that are unpleasant: Safeway, hospital waiting rooms, the DMV. The reason we like the sun, candlelight, and fireplaces is the same reason we like incandescent lighting. The reason we feel uneasy with institutional lighting is the same reason we resist putting compact fluorescent lights in our bedrooms and living rooms. We’ve all been inundated with “proof” that incandescent bulbs are bad for the earth, and that switching is so worth the energy and cost savings that our love of incandescence is just nostalgia-laden selfishness. But never is it that simple.

Chicken Processing Plant, China, 2005, image by Edward Burtynsky

12 Comments

Gino Sarfatti

subtitle: All About the Bulb

By Catherine Wagley | 29 Sep 10 | Design, Designers, Electronics, Office | 2 Comments

Gino Sarfatti was in awe of light, but obsessed with the light bulb. Through the designer’s long line of innovations, from the slender aluminum floor lamps of 1956 to the bowl-shaped wall sconces of 1970, this obsession holds sway. Even in his most whimsical designs, like the 1953 Lollipop Chandelier that has a palette worthy of a Calder mobile, each feature defers to the light source. “The most important element is the shape of the bulb itself,” Sarfatti told Jean-François Grunfeld in 1984, in the last interview he gave before his death.

Gino Sarfatti Design, Lamp No. 566, 1956

No. 556, 1956, Table Lamp, height 48 cm

2 Comments

George Nelson Flip Clock

subtitle: A Clear Vision of Modern Design

By David Vega | 18 Jan 10 | Designers, Electronics, Furniture | 10 Comments

What is the crowning glory of your civilization… the symbol as clear a statement as the pyramids, the Parthenon, the cathedrals? What is this symbol? What is its name?

Its name is Junk.

Junk is the rusty, lovely, brilliant symbol of the dying years of your time. Junk is your ultimate landscape. – George Nelson, 1965

George Nelson Design for Herman Miller Clock Company, Circa 1950

10 Comments

Transistor Radio

subtitle: A Close Personal Relationship between Product and Owner

By Sebastian Kaufmann | 19 Dec 09 | Electronics, Leather, Metal | 8 Comments

I was happy when I found these photos of the Telefunken Match transistor radio in the archive on the Delft University of Technology website. When transistor radios first came out in the mid 1950s, they were considered a status symbol. The very first one, the Texas Instruments Regency TR-1, cost more than 350 dollars by today’s standards.

Telefunken Match II Transistor Radio 1963

Telefunken Match Transistor Radio 1963

8 Comments

Braun Electric Shaver

subtitle: Goodbye Plastic: Is This the End of Electric Shaving?

By Sebastian Kaufmann | 8 Nov 09 | Beauty, Electronics, Plastic | 19 Comments

When buying electric products, a compromise is likely unavoidable. I feel this way with electronics more than with most other products. This is partly because you never really know what’s inside the shell, and often the shell doesn’t look or feel good to begin with. It usually doesn’t help that they are made out of one of my least favorite materials – plastic.

Braun Micron (5410), 1976

19 Comments

Category: Electronics

Dieter Rams

subtitle: Under-Designed for the Ages

Museum of Obsolete Objects

subtitle: An Obituary for Dead Technologies

The Clock of the Long Now

subtitle: We talk to the Men Who Went from Inventing Supercomputers to Chasing Slowness

Light Bulbs

subtitle: The Great Fluorescent Hope Flickers

Gino Sarfatti

subtitle: All About the Bulb

George Nelson Flip Clock

subtitle: A Clear Vision of Modern Design

Transistor Radio

subtitle: A Close Personal Relationship between Product and Owner

Braun Electric Shaver

subtitle: Goodbye Plastic: Is This the End of Electric Shaving?

Authors

Sites We Follow

Blog Topics

Archives

Kaufmann Mercantile Store