Dieter Rams's Ten principles of good design state:
5. Good design is unobtrusive. Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user's self-expression.
6. Good design is honest. It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It doesn't attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.
If you read these principles and reverse them, you get your typical "product art" — a product form of clickbait titles — an attention-grabbing product that's intended to shock and generate PR, not sell the actual thing.
Such products are usually shallow: stylized to some theme without deeply understanding it, like user interfaces from movies, or like Lcroium's* own website (https://acrnm.com), which is stylized with useless _underscores and [brackets] without understanding why they are used in computing.
*) that's how you read ACRONYM's logo if you know Cyrillic.
> Good design is unobtrusive. Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user's self-expression.
Excuse my French, but fuck Dieter Rams. I certainly understand this viewpoint, and I have no problem with folks that adhere to it, but my problem is with stating as some sort of axiom, with no evidence or reason, that "Products fulfilling a purpose are neither decorative objects nor works of art."
Humans have built things that are both functional and beautiful since culture first existed, and there is nothing wrong with designing products with a strong visual aesthetic viewpoint. If we all followed Dieter Rams' silly advice, all of our computers would still be boring beige boxes, maybe covered in stickers "for the user's self-expression."
Note I say this while agreeing with the latter part of your post. I'm not a fan of this particular design - it feels kitschy and shallow in the same way that Hollywood "hacker" movies show terminals that look like 3D game worlds. But that's just my personal opinion, and I don't fault people for feeling the exact opposite. I do fault people for saying that you shouldn't be allowed to try, and if you do that you are "not following principles of good design."
Rams' functionalism is itself a reaction to the ornateness for its own sake that characterized a lot of design in decades prior. But these days functionalism itself seems to be the hegemonic school of thought - consider Apple, for example, which hews closely to functionalist precepts by deliberate intent, and provides a lot of cues for other companies. So a reaction to what was itself once the challenger and is now the incumbent seems reasonable.
That said, I agree the aesthetic here under discussion is pretty miserable. Ostentatious CNC tool marks might impress some, but to me it just says they couldn't be bothered to finish manufacturing the thing before they shipped it, and it shares with brutalism the trait of being deliberately unwelcoming to the senses as a way of demanding attention be paid to itself.
> So a reaction to what was itself once the challenger and is now the incumbent seems reasonable.
I agree with everything you've said, but would just point out that the pendulum has perhaps started swinging in the other direction: a lot of folks in the design world are starting to push back against the associated minimalist/functionalist aesthetic that has taken over much of the world: it can make our built environments feel sterile, boring, and robotic.
Yeah, I get that, although I'm not sure if functionalistic design is only to blame; I'd look also to a culture of disposability that inculcates the idea that if something isn't or ceases to be fully satisfactory as received from the factory, the way to address that is by throwing it out and buying something else, rather than fixing or modifying it to better suit the need.
Design is meant to exist in conversation with culture, and after such a long time developing a society that revolves around consumption I think that meaning has been lost. "Right to repair" is a partial reaction to this also, and valuable as such, but what I really want to see is a swing back in the direction of the idea that made things can and should be made to last - not as perfect, impenetrable monoliths of capital-D Design, but as longstanding participants in the lives of the people with whom they're surrounded, and which can be and are changed by those people to better meet the needs of the day and year and decade.
That isn't something the money power has any incentive to want these days, of course; every thing that need not be replaced today is a thing for which no replacement will be bought or sold today. But this is not a novel problem, and it has been solved before.
This product isn't any less sterile, boring and robotic.
Just the opposite. It's ostentatiously sterile, boring and robotic.
While also being retro, and trying very hard to look like something that might have appeared in the original Matrix movie - which was 24 years ago.
Visually, it's unoriginal, which is an unforgivable design sin - literally a stock laplet with pointless metal bits stuck on which will get in the way if you're trying to use it seriously.
It fails as fashion because it looks like a mess, neither cool, exotic, nor aspirational.
And it fails as design because while it's - perhaps - trying to be ironic, it takes itself too seriously to be funny. And it's just not very functional.
> it shares with brutalism the trait of being deliberately unwelcoming to the senses as a way of demanding attention be paid to itself.
Interesting, is that what you take away from brutalism? To me brutalist design and art is deliberately unwelcoming to critique the blandness and safeness of our modern cushioned existence, not a puerile drawing of attention. I actually enjoy the aesthetic.
But then, disclaimer, I'm a sucker for histrionics and theatrical gimmicks.
That's a reading of brutalism I haven't encountered before. It's not one with which I find myself at all favorably impressed, not least because a phrase like "the blandness and safeness of our modern cushioned existence" suggests a level of engagement with history that, speaking charitably, could stand to be much further developed. But maybe there's a more detailed treatment of this analysis that you could point me to.
I'm sorry, I'm being vague. I didn't mean it like that, I'm not talking about why le corbusier's had a love affair with concrete. I was thinking about how I hate corporate memphis and the design of 95% of UIs, and how I wish there was more "nu-brutalist" web/app design to give all those bland pastels the finger.
Ah, I think I see what you might be driving at. Would it be fair to summarize the view as holding that, beyond valuable affordances for safety equivalent to handrails and warning signs, etc., it does no one any favors to attempt to conceal the essential complexity of the technology underpinning much of contemporary society?
I went to high school in what was essentially an old castle-looking building- when they converted it to have electricity and stuff, they put in conduit and the like, but then painted it to match the walls.
One of my friends did a bit of photoshop to see what it would look like if the conduit was instead a dull gray and it looked so much better and so distinctive that it felt like I had been robbed.
I think there's a reason everybody seems to love the star trek engine room
The irony being of course, that huge flat slabs are not somehow inherently more "functional" than something with a handle, or a screen that doesn't break, or a back that doesn't scratch etc.
We just kind of hand-wavy announce that anything boring, sleek, or rectangular is "functional". It's not.
I didn't say "functional"; I said "functionalist" and "functionalism". The latter terms refer to a school of industrial design that aspires to its particular definition of the former.
I can respect the motivation behind this; I favor midcentury modern furniture not least precisely because it doesn't insist on itself with an excess of ornament, as Rams also inveighs against. But there's a seasonality in any new idea; after the first generation for whom it's revolutionary comes a second for whom it's the status quo ante, and most of those raised with any norm will defend and uphold it for its own sake just because it's what they know to be "normal", whether or not the idea itself or its application still makes sense. Hence the canonization of an aesthetic based originally around the idea that no aesthetic deserves to be canonized.
> If we all followed Dieter Rams' silly advice, all of our computers would still be boring beige boxes, maybe covered in stickers "for the user's self-expression."
Parent should have quoted the entire set, in which good design...
- is innovative
- makes a product useful
- is aesthetic
- makes a product understandable
- is unobtrusive
- is honest
- is long-lasting
- is thorough down to the last detail
- is environmentally friendly
- is minimal
Dieter Rams and the Ulm functionalist school of thought differed from the immediately preceding minimalists ("less is more") by accepting that design exists and needs to be great on multiple planes: e.g. function, aesthetic, psychological, etc. (many of which are human and subjective!)
To chisel functionalism in industrial design down to something I can fit in a HN comment, my takeaway was that their central tenant was 'Have a specific useful vision, that values your user above yourself, and optimize everything in service to that vision.'
With the understanding that designed objects aren't paintings and must have a utility component.
PS: I would also have a long disagreement about fanciful graphical representations of computing in visual media as a metaphor intended to convey an experience to a computer-illiterate audience, versus a kitschy misunderstanding of reality. ;-)
Technical advisors and directors aren't idiots. You think it's a coincidence that the primary method of interacting with a computer in the Star Trek universe is voice-first?
I am responding to the author that, at least in my take, appears to be stating that these are "anointed" "good design principles", and that if you don't adhere to Rams' singular viewpoint, you are by definition engaging in bad design.
The exact words I typed are "If you read these principles and reverse them...".
These are Dieter's principles — a product design approach that he believes leads to good design. I pointed out that if you apply the opposite of them, you get this product.
It seems like they're a fashion company. I don't see how one can "leave room for the user's self-expression" if one doesn't permit and even encourage the user to buy pieces of fashion or artwork to go along with utilitarian sensibility.
Also, the website proper that you linked is amazingly utilitarian, especially in contrast to your introduction. It loads fast, and shows a list of images of various products right on the front page. I have seldom seen a product company with such a practical website as this. I had to look around to find the misuse of special characters that you're criticizing them for. This hardly ruins an otherwise good website
This is a very bad take, and serves only to highlight the joylessness of the person writing it (and the original "design principles")
I would instantly dispute pretty much any word of the first 3 sentences in your post. (except maybe the name)
If you want to live in a world without choice, where everyone and everything looks the same (the inevitable endpoint of form follows function), be my guest, but at the end of your sad life you will remember all the times you looked back over the fence at all the people enjoying life in all its diverse forms, shapes, textures, activities and regret some choices you made along the way.
Consider how joyless the designer of the unreadable keycaps must be, their sad life as they remember all the times they willfully damaged their even more clueless customers in pursuit of pseudo-style, looking at life in all its diverse forms, shapes, textures, activities and choosing bad ones for the lulz.
Technical constraints do exist, and if you shit on them you are a pretentious bad designer of products that cannot be taken seriously.
I don't know how y'all type, but typically looking at a keyboard is only something you do for your first year after encountering a computer for the first time. After that, the keyboard takes up your desk, but isn't something you look at in order to use. Thus, keycaps optimized for looking nice while not in use makes more sense than keycaps optimized for being readable. You shouldn't be reading keycaps while you type, because you have a limited field of view and what's showing up on the screen is more relevant than what keys are being pressed.
So the designer doing "I can just focus on art" is probably experiencing more joy than the designer doing "this has to be as cheap as possible" or "this is a keyboard for children learning to touch type", simply because the scope of work is so much more unconstrained. Art could be anything! A keyboard for people learning to use computers is going to mostly be letters.
Maybe not every keyboard has to be designed for hunt-and-peckers. It's not even particularly original, Das Keyboard has sold blank keyboards for a decade, and many mobile keyboards have supported hiding the key labels for ages too (I've used it in Fleksy and MessagEase, but I'm sure many others have it too).
Maybe it's not for you. That's okay. If it's been a niche for this long then I doubt it's gonna be the default anytime soon.
I had a das keyboard blank face for a few years and really liked it.
I ended up getting rid of it because my org’s password rules were annoying and I struggled to touch type symbols and numbers that weren’t in a word. And whenever I had “guests” it was uncomfortable to them and me so I would have to keep a guest keyboard anyway.
> If you want to live in a world without choice, where everyone and everything looks the same (the inevitable endpoint of form follows function), be my guest, but at the end of your sad life you will remember all the times you looked back over the fence at all the people enjoying life in all its diverse forms, shapes, textures, activities and regret some choices you made along the way.
Are you implying that the same gray macbook, paired with the same iPhone, that everyone else at your company, in your social circle and every coffee shop of your town is not the PINNACLE of social existence?
Almost every iPhone user I know has a distinct unique case. Some cases are designed specifically for wireless charging, some have pop sockets which make it easier to hold, some have clear cases with a photograph inserted between the phone and the back of the case.
I don't see how buying something that is mass produced is a form of self-expression outside of the idea that you're an adherent of basic capitalism. Expression is what happens AFTER you buy it.
Personally speaking after growing up in the 80s and having to be a slave to multiple brands from year to year lest I be labeled a lesser child for not having whatever was chic, I'm happy if everyone wears non-descript but functional items that they then modify how they want. Most children in 1987 were walking Coca-cola billboards who wouldn't be caught dead without Guess, Girbaud, or Z Cavaricci jeans. It's one of the outlying reasons that most public schools have dress codes nowadays.
There is certainly a grey zone, here. I personally think a more long lasting enjoyment and satisfaction comes from the possibility of putting some work in e.g. modifying (self-expression)/modularity and not some highly polished "finished" product which barely holds itself:
>Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user's self-expression.
But I also have nothing against highly volatile treats from time to time reminding myself that in the end one must be also able to let go and enjoy the moment.
In keeping with the golden mean (μεσότης) these two things pushed too far are of course ugly, indeed, but the beauty of it very much depends from which side you need a steering direction.
For me for example the tension between the aesthetic choice (ornament) camouflaged by caricaturing multi-functionality (usefulness) of the packaging of an ordinary product is an artistic expression of the state of affair we find ourselves: instant technical obsolescence the moment you have the product in your hands becoming an artifact in its own right. Is art ever useful? Is its value ultimately not just based on a fundamental impotency? I guess nowadays the most talented pool of artists express themselves through marketing. /s
"Λ" = "A" is the most annoying faux-futuristic typesetting/logo trend I've ever come across. It's a lambda, "L", the ancient symbol of the Lacedaemonians.
It should be possible to make an avantgarde font without confusing or oversimplifying letters.
As an aside, I wonder how many graphic t-shirts those guys sell at $200.
Yes, designers are nuts for wanting to make logos that stand out. The design trend I'm sick and tired of is spacing common words with underscores and using capitals to achieve the exact same effect.
Most people that come across this logo have never seen Λ before. They might mistake it for an elongated '^' or an upside down 'V' but the bulk will just see an 'A' with a missing '-'.
There is also 'V' as 'U' which is quite confusing and some others. Creative people will be creative, that's what they get paid for. It's low hanging fruit, obviously but it works because you are talking about it. And that was their goal: to get you to notice it. Mission accomplished.
Looking at new camera bags, I stumbled across the WANDRD (sure, okay) PRVKE (what? Pruke? Took me far longer than it should to realize it was meant to be 'provoke')...
There are smart people who like things you hate. You know what kind of person isn't empathetic and compassionate towards their fellow humans? They're idiots! Stupid idiots! MOOOOORONS.
Hackernews actually throws out many Unicode characters, such as emoji. But it renders the ones I used, in order U+2283 SUPERSET OF, U+222A UNION, U+2229 INTERSECTION, and U+2208 ELEMENT OF.
Who are you to say that your interpretation of that character is any more valid than anyone else's? One might see a "turned v"[0] or any other manner of meanings.[1] However most English-speaking people are going to immediately realize that it's meant as a stylized "A".
Who said they thought theirs was better? They just stated their opinion.
That being said, who are you to say their interpretation of interpreting things is wrong? Etc etc.
Personally, I think it’s stupid too. Of course people recognize it as “A.” My dislike isn’t because it’s confusing, it’s because I think it’s pretentious and ugly.
If we're being pedantic about the lamba, it's worth noting that a word mark logo is not a font, it's almost always a one-off. It doesn't even have to be readable, it just has to be memorable — and hey, it is!
I swap the N and M keycaps on my keyboard because I think they should be in alphabetical order. It turns out that the labels on the keys have absolutely no bearing on which scancodes they produce!
I didn't know about this manufacturer, but I'm glad I do now, because I've been wondering since 2015 where Ubisoft got the design cues for "WATCH_DOGS".
I don't understand what you mean. There are two Cyrillic letters (ok, the first one is more Greek with the same meaning) in their logo: Л and И, the rest are Latin (apart from "C" which is pronounced "s", and "Y" which looks like У and reads as "u"/"oo"). I provided an attempt of latinization of how I read it at on first attempt.
I know some Russian and worked with people native from Russia, so I would use the opportunity to train my Russian language skills chating with them.
Using a latin keyboard as Russian input is incredibly easy in my opinion. But this keyboard is not cyrilic. It is just a mix of symbols for no purpose beyond visual appeal.
That's the thing — normally at first sight you might recognize "И" as mirrored "N". However when you're used to reading Cyrillic alphabet, you see it as "И" at first and only later realize that it's mangled Latin. Given enough similar looking characters, it becomes hard to read. This doesn't work all the time, e.g. if a word has a single "Я" ("ya") in place of "R", it's usually easy to read. Your milage may vary.
Speaking of keyboards, how the hell do they think this product would be sold in countries where there are two sets of alphabets on keyboards if it already comes prefilled with nonsense characters? :)
Personally, I have a few languages mapped to my keyboard. First language is Icelandic, second is a Cyrillic, the other is Czech. I assume it would work similarly to keyboards with no characters on the keycaps (popular with mech keyboard users). When I type I'm not looking for the specific character, but rather going off touch typing.
Λ, although not standard in most Cyrillic typography, is a valid Cyrillic form of Л — it's how you write Л by hand, and also how it appears in some typefaces. It's also used in Bulgarian Cyrillic.
My point more here is that л in typeface means something very different. That character has a specific meaning, the logo is clearly just picking and choosing random symbols to look good. That said, my point about C still stands.
It is good to know that symbol is acceptable for handwritten forms though, I've been struggling to differentiate л and п in my handwriting.
I said nothing about their clothing. I didn't come to their fashion field with my knowledge and taste. They came to computing, a field I'm passionate about, and produced shallow cargo-culted design presented as an actual product.
Wow, the absolute joyless responses here remind me of exactly why this place, and perhaps the tech world in general, is so VERY far from the wonderfully creative weird (virtual?) space that fostered my love of technology.
Yeah the comments admonishing a high-fashion techwear brand for “odd choice of lettering” and “trying to be futuristic” are strange.
I want to see more wacky and boundary shamelessly “techno” designs like this, it’s like someone brought something from a Gibson novel to life and I dig it. I’ll take this over the current crop of bland device/tech design.
You can love creativity in tech and at the same time reject fakery.
Maybe like someone who's into watches enjoys fun diversity of Swatch and G-SHOCK or artfulness and craft of more expensive brands and rejects blingy stylized pretentious watches from fashion brands.
Also, please don't judge the community by their response to this design, because this design was specifically created to be polarizing. It's intended to generate debates, just like many pieces art.
Oh, I'm absolutely judging. That's the point of being here. Probably because the people here don't feel like they're saying "This is ugly and I don't like it."
It feels like they're saying "Because this is so ugly and objectively bad, it should not exist at all. It must be stamped out and everything should look like Apple."
This is the exact comment you are decrying. You have no idea about the historic context and what acronym is and what kind of impact they have in the fashion world, especially techwear.
Next you'll be telling us that we just "don't get" Demna Gvasalia and Vetements trying to "subvert the high fashion status quo" with $800 white t-shirts and $1,700 "destroyed jeans"...
Demna Gvasalia, attempting to subvert the high fashion status quo, while starting his career at Maison Martin Margiela and LV, working under Marc Jacobs...
Demna Gvasalia, whose current position is ... checks notes ... creative director of Balenciaga. Ahh, yes, very ... subversive.
The fashion world, even the high end, is not immune from criticism or outright mockery.
I don't judge their clothes, I judge this attempt at computer design. If Lange & Söhne collaborated with Honda on a set of fake spoilers and spiky lug nuts for Accord, I would similarly judge the result as a separate product.
For some countervibes..: I fucking love the aesthetic. Come on dude/persons here at HN, it's fucking Henry Dorsett Case's cyberdeck. It's outrageously priced, and noone is forcing you to give up your macbook. It just looks interesting.
It's hard to find optimistic places on the Internet these days. I'm not sure why, but there's definitely a switch in the pattern of how people interact with technology. I thought perhaps it was because they don't interact with its creation, but on HN I've had fellow people who write software rail against easter eggs as unprofessional.
Perhaps makerspaces are better. Traditional tech spaces are now dominated by oppressor/oppressed mindset and incessant indulgence in outrage/anger.
Still, I can't tell if this change is a change in me or a change in the world. It could well be that I just occupy different spaces against my better wishes. The other day I got some notification from ubuntuforums.org and found my posts from 2005. Haha, that was a riot! But very earnest attempts at stuff.
Perhaps the only solution to this is to start one.
The most fun I had in my life was on the crossroads between art and computing. It also didn't pay enough to live of but super interesting work and super interesting people.
I'm with you in spirit. People like different things though, it's okay. It's a drag how hostile and hateful some of the comments about this have been though.
I happen to like it. It looks rather durable. The sling attachment points are really cool. If I found some indication it was water resistant I'd add it to the short list of acquisitions.
The aversion to high frequency detail is a fad that well go away some day.
I don't mind the design thing or the designer price, but I don't think much of the pretentious writer's voice boasting about his fancy clothing collection. If that's your aesthetic great, I see why he liked it. But please skip all the earnest talk about how Important it is, it's just an expensive LARPing outfit.
> Acronym’s clothing is designed to be an interface between the wearer and the world. Typically, wearing technical clothing and wearing regular clothing are really two separate experiences.
Clearly the author has never set foot in the Alps (or any other mountain range). People wear technicals all day every day
I understand not being able to understand different opinions on certain (or all) matters, its something that happens to everyone. Announcing it in a nonconstructive way instead of avoiding the topic, however, feels extremely off to me.
OP might be the perfect stereotypical HN user while criticizing the same stereotype.
Anyone criticizing this has simply never needed to stand in the rain on the roof of a parking garage typing something into a terminal prompt. That’s okay, it’s not for everyone.
I have and I'm really glad I didn't have this thing on me so I didn't have to waste time looking for a flat-ish surface to awkwardly balance the screen kickstand on. I do wish my laptop had mounts for carrying straps tho...
There is almost general consensus (in the techwear/streetwear/fashion scene) that Acronym is functional, but more in the sense of "functional for the sake of aesthetics".
The stuff is really expensive, it is delicate and you have an ultra-narrow range of weather conditions where you can actually wear it. The laptop in this article is kind of the same.
I don't feel that Acronym pieces are that delicate, at least the jackets and shells I have can take a beating as being worn day-over-day. Also don't really agree with ultra-narrow range of weather conditions, I wear them during most seasons (from mid-fall all the way to late-spring), the exception is summer. I also have a Nike ACG jacket that was a collaboration between Nike and Acronym, and even that has been really durable, 8 years going strong and has saved me during a lot of rainy days while biking.
I've got very similar thoughts, I have some ACG & Acronym trousers which I rotate through and I don't have any concerns about delicacy. The biggest problem is I wear the ACG trousers so often the black dye has started to fade, the main Acronym ones I think I'll be wearing in a decade still.
Huh? Delicate? Where are you getting that “consensus” from?
Their most delicate stuff is the Goretex, and that’s delicate only in the sense that you need to wash it regularly to avoid delamination. Same as any Arcteryx or Tilak or whatever jacket, because that’s just how goretex is. All their other stuff is even tougher, the stotz, the encapsulated nylon, the dryskin, whatever CH is, except maybe like, the knit beanies?
Now if you mean delicate in a more psychological sense, I can see it. Sure, a J1A-GT may be just as tough as arceryx beta AR, but it’s hard to avoid worrying about the condition of a raincoat you spent $1500 on. :)
It has some Matrix looking visuals going on in parts of the page.
And there is a weird video of a guy who demonstrates wearing the computer, without saying anything. The vibe reminds me of that video game from a few years ago where you play a hacker in a cyberpunk future.
I really appreciate the hard work of the design team managing to get something so daring looking to ship and the using of machine marks as a design feature is a lovely touch.
I am always looking for the interesting in computer design as most of what we work with is bland. The reviewer is a fanboy. Okay, that happens. He is the one claiming it to be functional. He calls it brutalist. Frankly I completely fail to see that with its mock engraving on the aluminum case and the stylized keyboard. Great design is art, but not all art is great design. It does not have to be. Whatever it thinks it is, it should not be boring. Unfortunately it is just that.
> He calls it brutalist. Frankly I completely fail to see that with its mock engraving on the aluminum case and the stylized keyboard.
I get the brutalism thing. There are a bunch of exposed bits that would normally have some trim over them. Brutalism literally meant showing the raw (brut) structural concrete rather than hiding it behind a facade. The back of the laptop does have a little much in the way of ornate greebling, but the sides of the top show just the structural bits, right?
It's too weird for me, and yet I keep considering it as it's one of the only tablet PCs currently out with 32GB ram and can run Linux without too many headaches.
I think this is super cool and I hope it’s the start of a time when laptops look nicer and more distinctive. There’s really no reason for every computer to either be a macbook or look like one.
The idea of fashion designers making cool/new/different laptops makes a lot of sense. I want one & I hope this sticks!
Edit: hahahh the space bar has the word “VOID” on it in a sleazy serif font. Love it
Looks really cool, the kind of tech fashion that doesn't scream "nerd!".
I am a bit torn by they keyboard though - the primary labels are certainly not functional, and secondary english labels look like last-minute addition with a mismatched font. I wish they went either with complete nonsense print, or with a more functional one.
My personal take is that I find the Framework laptops to be more in line with the cyberpunk vision, than this. Yes, this one looks kinda cool, but is it as moddable and modular as the framework?
I really dislike kickstand style laptop/tablet designs, a proper hinge is stable even on oddly shaped surfaces, doesn't collapse when picked up, can be used while sitting on the palm of your hand etc.
Is there a name for the aesthetic where you simulate something being rough, unfinished?
In this case, they simulate a haphazard laptop where the creator ran out of same color keys and used whatever they had or they simulate not having time to finish the machining of the aluminum and leaving it in the roughing stage.
Put another name, what's the name of the very intentional and studied "I don't care about looks" aesthetic, where you "don't care" in a very precise and fashionable way.
> what's the name of the very intentional and studied "I don't care about looks" aesthetic
I've noticed this approach and attitude in various arts, but it's hard to put a single word to it. As another commenter mentioned, I think wabi-sabi is related, and punk too.
> The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of appreciating beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" in nature. It is prevalent in many forms of Japanese art.
For example in ceramics, they value the crooked, asymmetrical, coarse, and cracked. In calligraphy, it's the splash and drip, the way the brush runs out of ink and how the line fades out near the tail end.
In singing, it's the smokey aged voice that breaks perfectly when pushed by emotion. Or other musical instruments, when the sound gets dirty because of the physical material being pushed to its limits, like an over-driven guitar amp, or a violin bowing a string too hard but actually perfectly hitting that point intentionally, to get that stank, that nasty, it makes you grimace with pleasure.
In theatre they say, "You need to throw it away." Apparently, acting can get stiff and unnatural when you try too hard, so you need to let go a bit, as if you don't care, to give it room to breathe.
I suppose it can be seen in literture too, like "stream of consciousness" style, or certain narrative voice that tastefully breaks the rules of grammar.
> where you "don't care" in a very precise and fashionable way
That's the trick it seems, that this "don't care" attitude is actually very polished, studied, carefully done, paying attention down to the details, and then letting it go. It's an artful use of "mistakes" and imperfections. Jazz is like that, they value the richness of "off" harmonies, dissonance, polyrhythms which can sound "wrong" to the unfamiliar but which is exactly what the connoiseurs appreciate and enjoy.
Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers, by Leonard Koren
> It is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble.
And a discussion around how it might relate to software:
>> A related term in literature and the arts is "clinamen", the act of deliberately breaking a stylistic rule to enhance the beauty of an otherwise perfect whole.
I guess cyberpunk is the closest. Nasa-punk also has similar features, proffering functional edges over a supposed plastic cover which would add weight, making it unsuitable for sending it to space.
24-year-old me would have been Googling where to buy this by the time I was halfway through the article. It's not for me any more, but Acronym definitely hit what they were going for with this. Laptop and phone design used to be a lot less homogeneous than it is now, and though our devices are vastly more powerful and functional these days they definitely lack a sense of fun. I applaud anyone working to bring that back.
Anyone else notice a startling similarity between these products and midjourney renderings? It's like the designer intentionally finds people with odd proportions and then places clothing on them at strange jaunty angles and sizing which leaves people looking out of proportion to the clothing. Just like a lot of AI creation.
Not my cup of tea, but it's cool that it exists - the way evry laptop just looks like a bootleg macbook these days is getting kind of old.
What isn't getting old is having a functional keyboard and not needing an extra 50% of flat surface behind the screen to precariously balance the screen kickstand on. Why are so many "convertibles" going down this stupid path? You could easily put a real keyboard with a real hinge on it at roughly the same thickness and very little added weight. Bonus points for going with the 2013-era XPS 12 flipping design for maximum cyberpunk feel.
Panasonic Toughbook has more appealing design. That acronym thing looks terrible, they could have made something cyberpunkish https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/cyberpunk-laptop-concept-des... but no instead they created something as boring that even a design student wouldn't model
There's some sort of Asian soul (not sure of a good word) in these "repurposing" trends. There's noticeable "versions" of "camping" in Japan and Korea (also Instagram trends). Anecdotally, Japanese have fostered a sort of homeless-aesthetic with camping products. Koreans have fostered a sort of retro-nostalgia-diorama-and-cooking with camping.
Those "mounting points" look rather painful and probably annoying. I can already see them catching on various things and might even slightly hurt user in certain situations.
My first thought was "damn those grooves gonna be PITA to clean".
> You’d better know how to touch type. The Cyrillic-ish alphabet designed for Acronym by Rudnick is all part of the theme — this is a computer from another dimension slightly off axis from yours, where people stand in the rain on the roof of a parking garage typing something into a terminal prompt.
looks at qwerty letters clear, if a bit dim, on the keys
Did author sniffed glue before reviewing it or something ?
As someone who turned into a bit of a gadget-fashion-victim over the last 15 years, I'm not really digging this. It has a 16-year-old, cyberpunk-wannabe, gamer vibe. I guess '90s aesthetic is back.
I used to use the term "Lambo vents" to describe gamer-gear excrescence. The inspiration was an Asus ROG laptop I actually used on a job that had deep, oddly-shaped fan exhaust vents that looked like the intake vents on a Lamborghini.
Turns out that ROG beast was a rebadged model formerly in Asus's Lamborghini co-branded line, intended to compete with Acer's Ferrari laptops.
I always found it odd that people would buy a computer how it looks over its performance as a tool. Of course, I really like cool looking stuff, but I wouldn’t want a weak computer or or one that ran an OS that was hard for me to use.
I guess there is an intersection of fashion nerd and computer nerd. And I am not the arbiter of computer nerd, but I think the 20 or so times I talked with people who said they were computer nerds and had cool looking computers that sucked as computers they didn’t seem authentically computer nerdy (for lack of a better word).
I specifically remember someone from the late 90s and early 00s who kept going on and on about how he was into computers and always had to have the best computers, the “absolute best” he would say. Then he had these really trash Sony vaios. I asked him about what he liked most and he just said how they were cool. I asked him what he ran and he didn’t really say anything.
People like collecting stuff, and I don’t want to begrudge people their joy. But I’d like to learn about the people who buy these and what they are most interested in. I think my Sony Vaio guy just bought whatever was most expensive in the store.
> I always found it odd that people would buy a computer how it looks over its performance as a tool.
If you have the interest, take a look to the book Emotional Design by Donald Norman. There is a cognitive theory on the perception of a product that goes into three levels: visceral, functional, and reflective.
Even if you only care about functionality, an unpolished product will give you the impression that it’s unfinished and adds bias to the perception of the functionality. In this case the design is oriented towards a particular audience that likes the cyberpunk aspect, the impact for that people is more reflective: I don’t use the minimalist computers like everybody else, I use something that looks imperfect but works perfectly… well that’s the idea. Personally, I’m more inclined to the minimalism of a Mac.
I imagine for your friend the computer, ultimately, was a commodity, and if you think of computers as a commodity then the looks are one of the only distinguishing factors.
Similarly, how much of people's car-buying decisions come down to looks? Sure things like "how many seats" or cargo capacity matter but I imagine looks/perceived status boost are the biggest factor for a lot of people.
Hell, I don't like admitting it but I actively dislike my cheapo phone (Nokia G22) in part because I think the colour is dumb. (Also modern Android kinda sucks, but that's a different story).
Easy peasy, Macbooks are maybe not perfect in one aspect, but they strike a well-rounded balance.
OS: Great ergonomics, unix based (WSL can shove it). The peak of Windows was win2000, with XP and 7 still usable. After that it's adware garbage that's getting worse with each release. Linux on desktop sadly never materialized into something that would work out-of-the-box. Plenty issues with wifi, audio, high dpi displays. And even if you overcome this the UI is still clunky.
Hardware: Usually solid. There were some issues with the butterfly keyboards and low amount of ports but besides that it's just nice bodies, good sound, great display.
Nowadays: ARM-based chips just blows out Intel out of water. Never heard a fan noise, battery lasts forever.
You might pay some extra. But as a professional in software engineering, you should be able to afford it.
As a professional in software engineering, nothing comes close to a linux desktop. I always found OSx to be in the uncanny valley between CLI-driven BSD and a desktop GUI. I'll give you that windows after 7 is a complete adware clusterfuck and not even worth the dvd it's printed on, but I have to say...linux on desktop may not be popular, but only because it didn't take off a decade ago and people are still sour. It's actually pretty great nowadays, and if you want to squeeze every last bit of juice out of your hardware, it's the way to go.
I get the appeal of a solid macbook for sure. But for me, the price tag is completely unjustifiable given the alternatives. It is without a doubt almost 80% about looks, acceptance, and feeling over actual specs. People buy them because other people have them and they want to be in the club. And that's fine, no judgement, but it's a waste of money.
Also the only reason they have any form of dominance at all is the fact that they lock down their shitty OS to only run on their hardware. Sure they get to control the "expeeeriennnnce" but nobody else does that.
In 00s one of my professors at uni had one of this terribly thin and terribly overpriced vaios, it looked impressive, also it was slow like shit even powerpoints was too much for it.
5. Good design is unobtrusive. Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user's self-expression.
6. Good design is honest. It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It doesn't attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.
If you read these principles and reverse them, you get your typical "product art" — a product form of clickbait titles — an attention-grabbing product that's intended to shock and generate PR, not sell the actual thing.
Such products are usually shallow: stylized to some theme without deeply understanding it, like user interfaces from movies, or like Lcroium's* own website (https://acrnm.com), which is stylized with useless _underscores and [brackets] without understanding why they are used in computing.
*) that's how you read ACRONYM's logo if you know Cyrillic.