Posts in Industrial Design

This is the AKAT-1, a Polish made analog computer from the 1960’s which apparently was rumored to have been used as a synth on Beatles recordings [source]. I happened upon it while reading an article about analog computing on Wikipedia. I’m not trading in my digital computers for the analog variety any time soon (as I did with my synthesizers), but if they would just make a MIDI / DAW controller that looked like this I would be set.

"An analog computer (spelled analogue in British English) is a form of computer that uses continuous physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities to model the problem being solved."
Source: Wikipedia

Olivetti Valentine Typewriter (c.1969)
"Sottsass designed the Valentine typewriter (with Perry A. King) for Olivetti in 1969 to be an "anti-machine machine," for use "anyplace but an office. Undoubtedly one of the great design classics, the Valentine expresses the mood of its time: goodbye to the bulky cast-iron housings of old typewriters, hello to the new mobility of a light, modern, plastic casing made from ABS. The Valentine typewriter is a very collectible portable in spite of the fact that it is relatively of recent vintage. "
Via mytypewriter.com

Top ad via ninonbooks, Braun + Design cover via Alphanumeric.

The man and the plan. Dieter Rams + Braun. Via Alphanumeric Flickr.

Some more perfection from Dieter Rams via his very own flickr pool.

Unless you are way into audio production (read: geek) you don’t have any good reason to care what the EMI TG console was (it was essentially a giant mixer for recording music and several were installed at Abbey Road Studios and used on the Beatles album of the same name). Regardless, I’ve posted these images since these consoles have always intrigued me from an aesthetic point of view as well. I really enjoy the industrial design they put into this old equipment, such functional design and usually built to military spec. 

It has always been a dream to have a Neve, API, EMI, or SSL console in my studio but they run around $50,000 – $100,000+ so it’s going to keep being a dream until I find a bag of money at the park like in that one after-school special about being honest minus the honesty part. A company called Chandler now makes clones of these things and they look almost as good. My friend who does the post production work on my music uses a couple Chandler pre-amps and swears by them, but they’re pretty damned expensive too. I currently use a set of Neve clones, but it’s only 2 channels so still not coming anywhere near these massive old consoles.

My last computer just wasn’t cutting it anymore performance-wise so I’ve spent the weekend building a new one. As a result, not much bloggery going down, but I’ll be back on it tomorrow. So for now, here’s a random picture of some sort of bad-ass record player. I’ll do a post on Photoshop / Media Production performance as it relates to hardware configurations once I’m done with the new machine.

Here’s a shot of the full Bang & Olufsen Beo System from 1974. I posted the Beogram a while back but had yet to find a decent shot of the full system. This one appears to have been resized, so the qulality isn’t the best. If anyone knows of a press archive for 70’s B&O stuff let me know.

Some vintage Braun goodness from the Dieter Rams Flickr Pool. Rams was the head of design at Braun A.G. during the heyday of industrial design. I think his philosophy is one we can all look to for inspiration:

Rams once explained his design approach in the phrase "Weniger, aber besser" which freely translates as "Less, but better." – Wikipedia

Elea 9003, calcolatore elettronico, developed in the Borgolombardo research laboratory headed by Mario Tchou – design: Ettore Sottsass, 1959. Detail of the console. Via Olivetti SPA History.
I think the calculator on most cell phones would blow this thing away.

Some great shots of the Carl Zeiss  Universarium IX from the Griffith Observatory in LA from Metroblogging LA via FFFFOUND. Someone needs to start producing scale replicas of this thing, I’d be first in line.