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I was really inspired by what you shared about what Esslinger and his team claimed about the inspiration for the original Mac design. I wasn't able to find a source for Esslinger's inspiration coming from Navajo sand paintings though, can you point me to where you read/heard about it from?
I think it was the essence of 'why not add this?' to 80s design that makes it so appealing. Stuff like silver trims, colorful plastics, wood grain, and neat displays/interfaces wasnt necessary at all to make the products work. They thought to add some class, even if it cost a bit extra. Some products, like my old pioneer laserdisc player have a sleek futuristic black and silver design to give it a 'high class' feeling. Even if it looks a bit cheesy, its cool to see that they tried to add some flair to get someone to buy it. These days its minimum viable product with the looks to boot. Minimum viable looks, one could say.
Totally agree. Even if the vibrant colors and design sensibilities are kinda garish, and very dated by today's standards I think I prefer the character they have over the modern trend towards minimalism. It's fun and I appreciate attempts at style, embellishments on products are practically becoming a lost art (unless you're like, decking out your gaming PC with RGBs, lol).
Yeah and "minimum viable looks" means every product ends up looking the same, every company looks like it's holding back its creativity and individualism as much as the workers in the company are made to.
Yes, but do realize the fake wood grain was a 1970's thing, but the modern future we would see more in the mid 1990's (I dub the new millennium trend) to now was the silver on stuff in the modern space age look that a number of computers have used since the 2000's and other tech like the Cell phones having since early 2000's, the way the modern trains from mid 2000's on up look after the optic white Apple and Honda trend, the way the Prius since they came out have had this sort of silver sparkle for most or similar tan/platinum sparkle tones next most common with that modern futuristic shape. Even something as simple as a pen there are some with the modern futuristic designs in promotional giveaway pens even if they used matt colors to them, not sure the brand but looking at a pen from a local bank the more premium pen they have not the cheaper basic plastic tube they give away more often and the white/off white gray has the sparkle to it and below the logo there is a modern swooshing line with the whole pen having a nice gray rubber grip with a slow swoop down to the skinny middle before getting wider again at other end. Yes, the modern Future design with the use of silver or in older stuff grays and the swooping lines are what brought people to design we see now with the black and silver look on almost all tech.
Grew up with the design of the 80s, hated it, fell in love with minimalism for its clarity and cleanliness, started to hate it, wanna have the excitement, playfulness and soul of the 80s back. I’m so excited to see how digital product design will change over the next 5 years. It feels like we are in the late 70s now. With design systems we start to be able to produce more products faster. But every other product starts to feel the same. The technology (frameworks and cross platform compatibility) adds some constraints on how we can design in the digital domain. Accessibility adds even more constraints. Can’t wait to see where it will lead. Great video! Loved it!
ב''ה, living then would be a mix of 1970s and mid-century pieces with the newer designs, outside of heavily curated/redesigned retail environments. I think the 80s designers generally took that into account and planned for the kitschiness.
@@trance9158 about 50 percent of the internet (I assume) is Gen Zs like me, the other half is Millennials (edit) guys I wrote this comment a year ago, I was either tired and not thinking straight, or I was just younger and dumber
You have to consider how media works it's way. Series like stranger things for example had a big impact for this in the mainstream, while music genres like vaporwave fe had its first peak around 2010ish.
I'm an engineer that firmly believes that form follows function, but you need a proper definition of that function. For consumer items, emotional engagement is an important goal that should be accommodated, where possible. I'm very interested to see how machine learning based design can refine that engagement, evoking subtle reactions that are difficult for us to identify.
Had the chance to be on a zoom call at my university with Patrick Lequement, the designer behind the twingo. Prior to this interaction, I had no idea that design as we know it was so different. Having a designer who worked in that Era (1950's to 80's) was really informative and interesting
80s Deign is Idolized today because of Vaporwave and Nostalgia. And the fact that it looks better than the ones today. Clothing today is super bland, and Cars look super bland, so the best way to break the cycle is to dress as Fashionably and out there as you can. I love all those patterns because they look wonderful and out there, I'm glad there's a reason why.
As stated, part of the 80's design sense was an interplay between culture, manufacturing and economics. The 80's were not only a response to the earlier cultural turbulence, but also made possible by the economics of the Reagan-Thacher revolution and the newly commercialized industrial technologies. The middle class felt richer as manufacturing moved to low wage countries overseas, while the designer was liberated from form by miniaturized electronics. The blandness of shirt and car design today is partially caused by pressure from consumers for efficiency as the economic systems started in the 1980's fail and collapse. If the 80's design wave was global because of communication and technology, this next one may be very local as economies are regionalized and world trade becomes less necessary.
80s design nostalgia isn't around because of vaporwave. Vaporwave exists because of 80s design nostalgia. And I think you're confusing "fashionable" with "stylish". You'd have to dress apart from fashion to be "out there".
That's so stupid. "Things were better in the past" is basically what you said lol. Duh, status qou gets boring, but I can't take anyone seriously who acts like a couple decades ago was better and we're at an all time low as if such opinion has anything to do with where we are on the timeline and isn't just pretentiousness.
I think its largely due to who is currently making decisions in industry in relation to the decade in question. Often leadership roles are filled by people in their 40s and 50s. So you have a lot of people in positions to make decisions who spent their youth and adolescence in the 80s. And even some people in their 30s who might hold leadership roles already have memories from the 80s. So of course nostalgia for the 80s is going to be high in design and pop culture. Many of the people designing things or making media spent some or most of their youth during the decade. And we've seen this with the previous decades before. There was quite a bit of 70s nostalgia throughout the early 2000s, 60s nostalgia in the 90s, 50s nostalgia in the late 70s and 80s, etc. I think most people feel at least some degree of nostalgia for their youth as they get older and hit middle age. And since they're often the ones making the decisions in industry and media, that nostalgia gets passed on to the current times culture. I've already seen some shows and movies referencing 90s culture and I suspect that will only be more frequent as we move further along into the 20s (boy it feels really weird for me to say "the 20s" and not think about the 1920s)
You know, I love videos like these. Where the content creator goes to stupid lengths to make a high-quality, educative (and informed), great video. Thank you for putting this out into the world!! And for interviewing folks who have lived experience in the era!
I still think functionality is king. In the end, it all comes down to bringing value to people's lives. Perhaps the best approach is to make the product as functional as possible and add some artistic details in a way that improves the aesthetics but doesn't impact the functionality.
@@DanielDimov358 The more you and your competitors are maximizing design functionality with newest technologies, the more product stands out by artistic details. Look at smartphone market. It's free marketing.
@@Wittgenstein. That is true. But I think what matters the most is how valuable the product is. Of course, this could be different for everyone and is not something that can be measured. How much the product stands out is just a marketing strategy to get the people's attention. This is a byproduct of our modern-day achievement-focused society. They just want your money. They don't care how this thing would improve your life. I'm not saying this is always the case, nor that aesthetics can't add value. I'm only saying that for me the usefulness of the product is most important. The rest is just art. If you have a knife that cuts well and looks good you will develop a deeper emotional attachment to it.
I'm surprised how many times this video talks about individual designers, while also explaining that the designs were much more group based and how designers distanced themselves from being leaders or lead designers instead asking us to focus on the group.
This video is making me really miss the era of the flip, slider, and swivel cell phones. There was a satisfaction in the interaction of opening those phones that I haven't felt since buying my first "candy bar" phone. (That satisfaction is the same as what I feel when turning a key to start my car.)
As a non-designer, the context for the exuberance and success of 80's design was fascinating. When looking at the potential for future design trends, there might be fertile ground in the unexplored vector of economics. A large part of how a design philosophy spreads is the ability of the average person to intact with it or own it. The years from 1890 to 1950 produced all kinds of design movements that never really had a chance because of wars and The Depression. The 80's were not just a period post social upheaval and technology, but also a huge shift economically from the wartime policies of FDR to the new policies of the Reagan-Thatcher revolution. This was an era of inexpensive internationally made goods supported by what appeared to be good wages in the US and Europe (history would show that from 1980 to 2018 pay in real terms only increased by 15%). With globalization receding into regional economies and the harsh reality of the current system sinking in, the next design trends may be more local responding to the new cultural and economic realities.
Yes absolutely, and the technology helped to enable that shift (although it wasn't the only factor). This didn't make the final cut, but Raffi was saying that overseas manufacturing really accelerated in the 1980s. He also mentioned that economic factors definitely played into. He specifically mentioned that the crazy colors and fun forms kinda came to a screerching halt shortly after Black Monday in late 1987. He was saying real "80s aesthetic" that we think of was realistically only mainstream from 1982 to 1988. It faded out after that.
Had to shout out Matt Bird. He was my favorite professor while I was at RISD. He made some of the most mundane concepts so insanely enjoyable and I miss him dearly!
I was in art school (Pratt Institute) in the late 80s. I cannot overestimate how influential this movement was at the time. Memphis' bold primary colors and geometric shapes were diametrically opposed to the amorphous shapes and earth tones of the 70s.
I think people mistake "Form follows function" as if that is the only thing taken into consideration. It's rather "form follows function first" so you don't end up with a chair that just a nice looking scoliosis machine or a gaming console that doesn't fit next to the tv (i get that some consoles do have non-square designs so you don't use them as a table or block the airflow tho). My point is those Yeezys are ugly AF, like alien crocs with an alergic reaction.
I had the pleasure of meeting Peter Shire in 95 or 96, he came and visited the ceramics program I was the TA for at the time, for California Summer School for the Arts. He sat and spoke with teens for over an hour, very sweet and humble. I have a lot of nostalgia for Memphis, I was definitely an MTV era kid. Did you ever get a chance to make a video about 90s design? I think that would also be interesting
I have no interest in design, but your channel has really got me hooked. All your videos are so informative and extremely well made. Plus I love how you are simultaneously the strangest person in front of the camera, but also the coolest! Don't change anything about your channel, it's in my top 3!
Just discovered your channel, as for the ex-design grad/ ID-er turned brand marketer your content remind me why I fell in love with it and spent 5 good years in the design school in the first place. It also remind me that the magnitude of design thinking extend beyond the tangible thing that we touch but also touch the culture as well. Keep up the good work!
Memphis Milano Group furniture is based on Bauhaus art, which was inspired by a mix of Cubism, Orphism, De Stijl, influence from architecture in Tiruvannamalai India, & 1920s painter Wassily Kandinsky. The entire first half of the 80s was still very much stuck in the 70s, but more pastel, floral print, modest, & very "grandma's house" with a very heavy emphasis mid 1950s-mid 60s design influence in architecture, music covers & jackets. The bold colors & abstract avant garde shapes were mid 80s to mid 90s.
Boy I tell you, this made me go through my junk drawer and find my old floppy drive disc set. Seeing how all the old adhesive so worn out on the all the old labels really was a trip back in time for me. I remember paying $0.50 for those things at the high school library.
Thank you for bringing a light to this decade in design. So many previous paradigms in culture, design, technology, life, music, were broken in the 80's directly influencing just about everything that is around us today. There is book called High-Tech by Joan Kron and Suzane Slesin. The aesthetics shown there are now ubiquitous everywhere.
Well done John - Great job encapsulating an entire decade of transformation and energy both in the movement and professional practice of 1980s design. The video really shows that it's not just a nostalgic trip back to a different time, rather it's a provocative comparative study on what's happening today in the same contexts as new technology emerges in the wake of radical world changes. Design should challenge how we think, how we advance technology, and how we emerge through tomorrow.
Nicely done. As a industrial designer during late 70s to the present, I felt that the Memphis Movement was an experiment that eventually was able to be trickled down to everyday concepts and products. We still see today many products, graphics and images based on that movement, not overt but more subtle. I loved it at the time and still do. The design world is again is coming to another milestone with future technologies with it's possible advantages and what does that mean to designing a product, environment and images. Hoping I can be there to see the changes. Thanks for the video.
Hey Roland, thank you very much for the thoughtful comment. It certainly seemed like an interesting and tense time, not too different from today (although totally different in many ways, to be fair)
11:33 "But you have to remember what other computers before it looked like." _shows a computer that was released after the Macintosh was released_ Also, for some reason, people keep presenting the Macintosh as a symbol of the 80's or some genius design. The original Macintosh is instead an example of when to not put form over function, since it was marred by performance issues and instability competing 16-bit machines didn't experience. The design didn't even include a cooling fan; thanks for all the fried components, Jobs. The design also embodies another staple of Apple's design that persists to the modern times: take away features and raise the price. The Apple IIGS released later had much better specs, most notably full color and wavetable audio (compared to the Macintosh 128k/512k's monochrome screen and beeper), and it was expandable and user friendly, unlike the Macintosh. Additionally, the Macintosh was more expensive than the IIGS and its competitors; the Commodore Amiga, the Atari ST, and the IBM PC and its clones. Despite this, Apple continued to develop the Macintosh and deserted the IIGS.
Noted! Yeah I actually really wanted to mention Japan in this video because they were so important to the 80s design movements. But there just wasn't enough time and the video was already getting too long
Memphis style design in architecture was a fail for me. They struck me as garish and ugly, poorly executed and would of course age bad in European weather conditions. I think the ideas work better for whimsical consumers objects.
I think it was more about the message behind the design rather than look of the objects. The initial visual impact was simply a starting point. Also, it’s easy to look back and judge from a time now where literally nothing is new. This was a shakeup and it didn’t matter exactly what it looked like…the shakeup was the point.
I'm all for expressing yourself, but these objects just look like a bunch of ugly shapes and colors smashed together lazily in attempt to have meaning. You can be meaningful and expressive without the things you're making look like shit. I have a bit more outlandish taste, and I don't want everything to be super reformed, but that chair for example was just ugly and uncomfortable looking. How could you make a home with furniture like that? In an attempt to stop being pretentious they ended up becoming more pretentious than they started.
The design choices are an expression of an burgeoning philosophical point of view and unless you understand this, its difficult to see it as anything other than a funky chair. It’s also easy to look back 40 years later and judge something as ugly or pretentious, but at the time it was revolutionary which is why derivative aesthetics infiltrated every corner of pop culture thereafter. It wasn’t necessarily about how any one design looked, it was a radical visual response to an austere modern philosophical viewpoint that had completely dominated the landscape for the previous handful of decades.
@@travkenn1019 As a kid I liked old buildings, things that looked medieval. There was more story to imagine with those buildings. They had a feel to them. My dislike for modernism or this Memphis derivation started back then while playing in modernist concrete play grounds amongst repetitive cuboid buildings. It’s architects and their pretentious ideas that don’t work out in application. I’m with Christopher Alexander on this. Instead for trying to be clever with styling, architecture should strive to create wholesome and live able places that embrace the humans living in those places instead of being self indulged with visionary concepts.
This video made me question: What even is a 'bad design'? As long as a 'product' serves my needs, and does the function that it says it will do on the box, it's fine whatever it looks like for me, as long as it looks like (and there's evidence that) the designer has put care, effort, and passion into that design. It doesn't have to look 'modern', minimal, clean, sleek, etc. like every new product nowadays, or the opposite of that, entertaining, out of the ordinary, etc. I don't think anything is 'required' to look like anything, or be a certain shape, for it to be a 'good design'. So, while I'm not exactly super attracted to those very colorful 1980's furniture, they look comfortable. I guess for some products, there's merits for it to blend in with other things in your environment, or not look too 'busy' with the parts that are visible to the eye. You reviewed the iMac 2021 design for example, for an all-in-one computer like that to have a 'succesful' design, the only thing that should attract people's eye in its front side should be the screen, otherwise any other design detail at the front would cause people to not be able to focus on the user interface and not be able to be productive with the computer. But that doesn't mean Apple shouldn't go crazy with the back design (and I'm not just talking about a slightly more vibrant color than on the front, I'm talking way crazier than that). That said though, I don't think the imac is a bad design, I'm just pointing out the fact that the iMac is very minimalistic because some people think it looks too boring and non-innovative/iterative. As I said, I do not care (care not as in not caring, but as in "I *don't mind* if it's too minimalistic OR too overwhelming with emotions), I just care about a good computer. So anyway, these are what crossed my mind after watching this video, and I wanted to share it.
I'm reminded of (GE?) designing a thermostat (the round spinning dial thingy), so they took hand measurements and made the size the average of the hands so it would be comfortable to the most people, integrated the change temperature into the housing, two analog displays, etc. In a word, ergonomic. Intuitive. Very clean design. I believe most of those lessons are lost.
yea, if you look at it the 1980s brought about some great trends in car design too. the fiat panda was an exemplary example of good packaging and functionality with a quirky look, and i think the 1980s was also the time when the MPV, the SUV, were sorta born and became popular. :)
We were just at that museum in Mount Dora, FL and had Produced a series of tv segments with Michael Graves. In any event, I think the inspiration to the entire movement is the Hipgnosis designed 1976 Black Sabbath album Technical Ecstasy. Look it up, its the design language for the 80s and 90s
The 80s was the rise of hubris so powerful that people tried to see how bad they could make their design and still get people to buy it. "Watch this," the 80s laughed, "I can make these idiots buy anything."
New subscriber !! Love this content soooo much and also jow totally obsessed with Memphis design styles, i ve always just called this stuff 80s tech haha and now I want that chair! Thank you for this knowledge bomb 💣 💕
great video! I like your editing and the interviews were really good. btw i think you should get a fill light or a reflector for your talking head shots so the contrast isn’t as stark
great video! The way you draw similarities between the 80s and today makes me think that our Memphis movement is meme design: cybertruck, yeezy, ps5, etc.
Love that! Here's a little tidbit that didn't make the final cut of the vid from Mara. She was telling me that the Memphis Designers were primed for media consumption by hiring a publicist (this was exceedingly rare to do unless you were already famous), and they also made the most of other innovations around color print. industrial design magazine was black and white on the inside (color covers) until the early 1980s.
It's funny you mention the floppy disk as a save icon. In the user interface design class I took, the professor asked if anyone had even seen a real floppy disk, and I was one of maybe 5 in the class who did, and that's because I remember those Magic Schoolbus games that came in cereal boxes that were using those instead of CDs. I've noticed some programs switching to a down arrow like the download icon, that will change colour based on if you saved it or not. I don't remember the name, but one of the Ubuntu icon packs has the LibreOffice save icon be an orange arrow, and then it turns blue when you save. I liked it, as with computer design, knowing what something is and real-world parallels are very important. It can be seen as restrictive, but like you mentioned with the game systems, there's a lot people can do to both be intuitive (to know what something is and how to use it) while also being creative and adding something unique and fun into it. I found Nintendo did that well with the DS systems, but very poorly with the Wii U, where a lot of people didn't know how to use the Wii U, and if it was just a Wii add on, or what games needed what controllers. Where the DS systems, we already knew what flip phones were, and how most game controllers looked, so putting those together with some fun shapes and colours was a good way to make something simple, yet versatile, fun and welcoming.
Having lived through both I can’t imagine two decades more different than the ‘80s and the 2020s. The ‘80s were the last time mainstream society celebrated the new and avant garde. It was an extremely fun, experimental and confident decade, full of both nuclear apprehension and futuristic hope. Every design asked why. Why does a window have to look like that? I literally remember people asking that question verbatim and it was years before I could buy a lamp that looked like a lamp. I(f you ever saw Conran’s, you’d understand.) The exchange of ideas couldn’t be stopped. There was no internet but there were ‘zines and alternative newsletters and coffee shops and bookstores and pop up nightclubs where you’d encounter the strangest assortment of people and ideas. Here I sit in the year of safetyism, cancellation and conformity, mass corporate and government censorship, looming tyranny and mob enforcers, and design that’s reduced to a Cuisinart of decades, with the same crap whirled around again and again until it becomes bland slop, watching the collapse of the empire of lies, looking at my Alessi coffee pot and having no idea how we got here from there.
I think Mr. Esslinger must have been referring to later computers when he talked about the sand painting inspiration, as the original Macintosh was designed before his time with Apple, primarily by Terry Oyama and Jerry Manock with guidance from Jobs. One source of inspiration that is definitely known for that Mac was a Cuisinart food processor, likely the model designed by Marc Harrison who was a pioneer of accessible design. Jobs was known to haunt department stores for inspiration, and it would be quite something if this early example of accessibility ended up inspiring the friendly ol' Mac.
I might add that in the 80s we dreamed of electric cars, powerful portable computers and robots. We also thought we'd be to mars by now... and robot butlers are sadly not here... yet!
I guess it does sound more like a repeating cycle at this point where people would make basic, utilitarian designs -> get sick of the standard, let's make something new -> makes wacky designs -> "ok this is too much, let's go back to minimalistic" and so on. Almost like politics at this rate, too. One generation got sick of what was popular among their parents, so they tried to be different as a counter-culture.
Well done. Also mentioning CAD based manufacturing. I had in mind that 3D printing really started around 2004/2005 when it became open source (hard- and software, FDM). Laser 3D, that must have been around 2012 when patents expired. well, there were companies like EOS and some in the US before.
I've got a love-hate relationship with Memphis design. I love the colour, as it reminds me of the prevalence of colour in medieval and Renaissance architecture (think stuccos, tapestries, marble, and paintings); however, I despise the child-like impractical design of Memphis design. The shapes are too simple, yet almost overwhelming; like a visual tinnitus. By contrast, classical design is complex for individual items, yet simple in its sum. Every item is an unassuming treasure.
Really interesting video. I'll have to watch more! That said, I seem to recall both the new Xbox and Playstation have cooling as a major demand of their designs. I think digital foundry has gone in depth with them, and it's really neat.
If Ai really does start influencing designers the position will end up being someone who just feeds parameters into a black box and sifts through the output until it looks good.
Funny you say that. I watched a video of dalle 2 yesterday with my gf. We spoke about how it will dominate, but that it won’t create anything truly new. Reason being, artists are embodied mortal beings existing in a cultural environment, who live, struggle, love, hate, and die. The AI designers while incredibly, can’t create anything truly new, in the sense that a human artist alive in a specific time and place can.
I disagree Max/Mithrax. But you'll have to wait for the AI video to come out to find out why (sorry to be such a tease, but honestly it would take way too long to type out)
@@Mithraxium exactly, but most people and business won’t see that. They’ll think it is doing what the artist is instantly and with no cost. Artists will go out of work, and we will all be impoverished.
Really good book worth reading on this subject is The Creativity Code. Really good. Just like computers are a "bicycle for the mind", I think first generation "AI" (neural networks) will be similar.
To many the Memphis movement was also know as 80's Deco, impart because many of the Memphis Movement items had lines very close or indentcal to that of Art Deco/Decorative Arts. Also in the late 70's a Art Deco revival was being done in Architecture, which lasted into the 90's - but is better known as 80's Deco. in fact when you do an image search for 80's Deco it will reveal a lot of interesting images from the 1980's. With 80's Deco/Memphis furnishing etc. it was fun in style and also a fun mix of bright neon colors. I have seen a lot more interesting elements from the 80's being used in design today; with in sneaker design I have seen new shoes that looked like they browed from the mid to late 80s. I have also noticed some Architects are recreating 80's Deco homes; though some Interior Designers don't fully know how to grasp designing kitchens and bathrooms that look like they belong in the home. The 80's was definitely a fun and exploration period for design.
So I’ve been a fan of this channel and Atomic Heart (the video game) and I have always wondered what have been the direct inspirations for such outlandish designs in the game and I think it is Luigi Colani. Thank you for mentioning him and helping me explore his designs better
Form follows function is far older than apple. It goes back to the 30's functionalism in at least Scandinavian design. Sigvaard Bernadotte comes to mind when talking of functionalism. Same goes years later with the designs of Torun. (My background has to do with studying Scandinavian design for work.) The 80's were interesting, with it's more brutalist interpretations, everything was very harsh and geometric.
I'm not sure if I said that it was an Apple thing. Louis Sullivan was the first person to write about it in the late 1800s I think? And I'm sure similar ideas were communicated even before that.
As a 90s kids who lived in post-sanctioned Iraq, the 80s mish mash, neon, angular aesthetic was ubiquitous in lots of government constructions. I always thought it looked ugly. Not kidding, I must’ve been like 6 and I still remember just absolutely hating that aesthetic whenever I saw it. Now, at the age of 34, I kinda like it. It has its own charm. I probably still wouldn’t decorate my own space like that, but I’m somehow now growing to appreciate it for what it is.
Hey I’m a 15yr old extremely interested in design specifically clothing but other things too I’ve fully drawn out shoes shirts shorts jackets pants sunglasses and was wondering what steps are necessary to actually see them created
@13:26 Ya kno... I wonder if there'll ever be a change to that with Generations of the past 10y+ being unaware of its roots - Not that there is any _necessity_ to change it though... 🤔 I think the only - not quite - _Successor_ to the Floppy Disk Icon would be the Cloud Icon as it kinda serves the same purpose _but_ in a different way.
Fun video to watch, but 80s designs are vomit inducing. Having lived through the decade, it seems to me that things weren't so much designed, but rather over-designed in the 80s, which led to the (sometimes) much cleaner and more organic designs of the 90s. The 80s were the "greed is good" decade and that attitude, I feel, was reflected in designs which didn't know when to quit. Just like an endless thirst for material goods, also meant let's use all the shapes in one product whether it needed it or not. Bah.
having to see some of this still in TV and some older stuff in buildings in the early 1990's as a kid yeah I hated it as all of it looked like Nickelodeon had its TV shows intros, just look into a 1990's Chuk-E-Cheeze or a defunct Fun Zone. However the earliest of the modern silver space age look that lots of tech has now including the Acer I am typing on , was created in the 1980's with things like Sony Record players, the model that had the all silver body for main part of the machine with the decibel view in three lines on it, or the small portable players like an old early 1980's GM single speker radio and tape player I had as a kid that was plug in but also had a spot for batteries to go. This moved into the 1990's when a second revival at NASA with Hubble Space Telescope and the 1998 Mars rover brought in more of the modern silver space look borrowed over from the 1980's. Design was going this way anyhow thanks to the new millennium of 2000 coming closer.
There is a band similar to The Smiths called Bauhaus, and I'm just imaging a Bauhaus cover band performing songs by The Wiggles, whenever he said Bauhaus meets Fisher Price. But minus the sharp corners, the Memphis style looks kind neat! And that answering machine looks like a Wii/SNES hybrid!
god honestly idg why so many people took the piss irt memphis design because every piece i see from this movement is so colorful and bold and gorgeous and i want my house to look like this Now
I love rewatching this video in 2024 as we can explicitly see the pendulum swinging back. Online cultures shows and perceives Gen Z as being into maximalism. Bright, kitschy clothing, furniture, accessories, you name it. And it's in DIRECT response to the notorious 'millennial' gray and minimalist design preferences of that generation. Just like with the memphis design movement emerging as counter culture to the design philosophy prior to it.
Memphis Group is my favorite style that I love to hate and hate to love. Postmodernism on steroids and immediately dates something to the late 80s - early 90s. If I had lottery jackpot money, I would have a guest bedroom designed in Memphis Group just to make my guests go "um... what?!"
Lol that sponsor transition had me thinking you had ads on your vid…. On another note, I’m not sure I see how the intersection between design and AI catalyzes the iterative design process… I’m a CS major and I have studied ML and AI as well as courses in design, architecture, and the arts. With my background I have partaken in honors courses and seminars about the cross roads of design and technology. However, these discussions were mostly about form and function not the process of creation/design itself. For instance, parent company Alphabet and it’s initiative to transform the various landscapes of Toronto into those which may be considered “smart” - technology, data aggregation, automation, and functionality all intersecting; and more. Anyway, I’d love to know what you see for the future you mentioned. A future where AI and the iterative design process are married. Great video all around. Thanks
Ok, intersting. But in the 1980's I was studying in Industrial Design. The main teacher was the department director and was advocating what he called "waste design": "there is no such thing as disposable razor because you can create a new one every year". That was another era, around 1985-1986, long before environmental concerns. I was at the time more interested in Bauhaus, so i had good grades, but the spirit in the 80's was to create more fashionable items to sell more.
thanks for making me feel old with the floppy disk thing... still have a PC case with a slot for a floppy disk drive... i use the slot for extra USB ports though. would be cool if i could find a sata floppy drive though but it may break my drive lettering a little since i lettered one of my HDDs A:\
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I disagree with the ps5 looking like an alien piece of technology as it really looks like seto kaiba
I was really inspired by what you shared about what Esslinger and his team claimed about the inspiration for the original Mac design. I wasn't able to find a source for Esslinger's inspiration coming from Navajo sand paintings though, can you point me to where you read/heard about it from?
The other chair look's like it was made by a three year old 😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑
what is the name of the grey 80's video game console??? at 0:58
I think it was the essence of 'why not add this?' to 80s design that makes it so appealing. Stuff like silver trims, colorful plastics, wood grain, and neat displays/interfaces wasnt necessary at all to make the products work. They thought to add some class, even if it cost a bit extra. Some products, like my old pioneer laserdisc player have a sleek futuristic black and silver design to give it a 'high class' feeling. Even if it looks a bit cheesy, its cool to see that they tried to add some flair to get someone to buy it. These days its minimum viable product with the looks to boot. Minimum viable looks, one could say.
Totally agree. Even if the vibrant colors and design sensibilities are kinda garish, and very dated by today's standards I think I prefer the character they have over the modern trend towards minimalism. It's fun and I appreciate attempts at style, embellishments on products are practically becoming a lost art (unless you're like, decking out your gaming PC with RGBs, lol).
Yeah and "minimum viable looks" means every product ends up looking the same, every company looks like it's holding back its creativity and individualism as much as the workers in the company are made to.
Exactly. This video slaps. Bauhaus meets Pokémon is probably where we're at .
Yes, but do realize the fake wood grain was a 1970's thing, but the modern future we would see more in the mid 1990's (I dub the new millennium trend) to now was the silver on stuff in the modern space age look that a number of computers have used since the 2000's and other tech like the Cell phones having since early 2000's, the way the modern trains from mid 2000's on up look after the optic white Apple and Honda trend, the way the Prius since they came out have had this sort of silver sparkle for most or similar tan/platinum sparkle tones next most common with that modern futuristic shape. Even something as simple as a pen there are some with the modern futuristic designs in promotional giveaway pens even if they used matt colors to them, not sure the brand but looking at a pen from a local bank the more premium pen they have not the cheaper basic plastic tube they give away more often and the white/off white gray has the sparkle to it and below the logo there is a modern swooshing line with the whole pen having a nice gray rubber grip with a slow swoop down to the skinny middle before getting wider again at other end. Yes, the modern Future design with the use of silver or in older stuff grays and the swooping lines are what brought people to design we see now with the black and silver look on almost all tech.
Grew up with the design of the 80s, hated it, fell in love with minimalism for its clarity and cleanliness, started to hate it, wanna have the excitement, playfulness and soul of the 80s back.
I’m so excited to see how digital product design will change over the next 5 years. It feels like we are in the late 70s now. With design systems we start to be able to produce more products faster. But every other product starts to feel the same. The technology (frameworks and cross platform compatibility) adds some constraints on how we can design in the digital domain. Accessibility adds even more constraints. Can’t wait to see where it will lead.
Great video! Loved it!
ב''ה, living then would be a mix of 1970s and mid-century pieces with the newer designs, outside of heavily curated/redesigned retail environments.
I think the 80s designers generally took that into account and planned for the kitschiness.
crazy how 80s designs make us feel nostalgia for a time most of us never experienced
Most of you?? Oh really??
@@trance9158 about 50 percent of the internet (I assume) is Gen Zs like me, the other half is Millennials
(edit) guys I wrote this comment a year ago, I was either tired and not thinking straight, or I was just younger and dumber
@@stpidstuff haha you guys really have those hard numbers huh
@@stpidstuff If you look at the actual statistics it is more like 50% under the age of 35 and 18% under the age of 24
You have to consider how media works it's way. Series like stranger things for example had a big impact for this in the mainstream, while music genres like vaporwave fe had its first peak around 2010ish.
I'm an engineer that firmly believes that form follows function, but you need a proper definition of that function. For consumer items, emotional engagement is an important goal that should be accommodated, where possible. I'm very interested to see how machine learning based design can refine that engagement, evoking subtle reactions that are difficult for us to identify.
Just look at the A.I. chair from Kartell.
Had the chance to be on a zoom call at my university with Patrick Lequement, the designer behind the twingo. Prior to this interaction, I had no idea that design as we know it was so different. Having a designer who worked in that Era (1950's to 80's) was really informative and interesting
@Boony Tooty I'm not praising his designs, I said it was informative to have a conversation with him since he worked during that Era
80s Deign is Idolized today because of Vaporwave and Nostalgia. And the fact that it looks better than the ones today. Clothing today is super bland, and Cars look super bland, so the best way to break the cycle is to dress as Fashionably and out there as you can. I love all those patterns because they look wonderful and out there, I'm glad there's a reason why.
As stated, part of the 80's design sense was an interplay between culture, manufacturing and economics. The 80's were not only a response to the earlier cultural turbulence, but also made possible by the economics of the Reagan-Thacher revolution and the newly commercialized industrial technologies. The middle class felt richer as manufacturing moved to low wage countries overseas, while the designer was liberated from form by miniaturized electronics. The blandness of shirt and car design today is partially caused by pressure from consumers for efficiency as the economic systems started in the 1980's fail and collapse. If the 80's design wave was global because of communication and technology, this next one may be very local as economies are regionalized and world trade becomes less necessary.
80s design nostalgia isn't around because of vaporwave. Vaporwave exists because of 80s design nostalgia. And I think you're confusing "fashionable" with "stylish". You'd have to dress apart from fashion to be "out there".
Cars look super bland? Even Toyota Camry’s have sharp lines these days.
That's so stupid. "Things were better in the past" is basically what you said lol. Duh, status qou gets boring, but I can't take anyone seriously who acts like a couple decades ago was better and we're at an all time low as if such opinion has anything to do with where we are on the timeline and isn't just pretentiousness.
I think its largely due to who is currently making decisions in industry in relation to the decade in question. Often leadership roles are filled by people in their 40s and 50s. So you have a lot of people in positions to make decisions who spent their youth and adolescence in the 80s. And even some people in their 30s who might hold leadership roles already have memories from the 80s. So of course nostalgia for the 80s is going to be high in design and pop culture. Many of the people designing things or making media spent some or most of their youth during the decade. And we've seen this with the previous decades before. There was quite a bit of 70s nostalgia throughout the early 2000s, 60s nostalgia in the 90s, 50s nostalgia in the late 70s and 80s, etc. I think most people feel at least some degree of nostalgia for their youth as they get older and hit middle age. And since they're often the ones making the decisions in industry and media, that nostalgia gets passed on to the current times culture. I've already seen some shows and movies referencing 90s culture and I suspect that will only be more frequent as we move further along into the 20s (boy it feels really weird for me to say "the 20s" and not think about the 1920s)
You know, I love videos like these. Where the content creator goes to stupid lengths to make a high-quality, educative (and informed), great video. Thank you for putting this out into the world!! And for interviewing folks who have lived experience in the era!
I still think functionality is king. In the end, it all comes down to bringing value to people's lives. Perhaps the best approach is to make the product as functional as possible and add some artistic details in a way that improves the aesthetics but doesn't impact the functionality.
Amen
I agree, but if everything was a black box life gets boring and people crave nice looking devices
@@JessicaFEREM That's an extreme. Usually, the objects with the most intricate shape are very functional.
@@DanielDimov358 The more you and your competitors are maximizing design functionality with newest technologies, the more product stands out by artistic details. Look at smartphone market. It's free marketing.
@@Wittgenstein. That is true. But I think what matters the most is how valuable the product is. Of course, this could be different for everyone and is not something that can be measured. How much the product stands out is just a marketing strategy to get the people's attention. This is a byproduct of our modern-day achievement-focused society. They just want your money. They don't care how this thing would improve your life. I'm not saying this is always the case, nor that aesthetics can't add value. I'm only saying that for me the usefulness of the product is most important. The rest is just art. If you have a knife that cuts well and looks good you will develop a deeper emotional attachment to it.
I'm surprised how many times this video talks about individual designers, while also explaining that the designs were much more group based and how designers distanced themselves from being leaders or lead designers instead asking us to focus on the group.
fair point
This video is making me really miss the era of the flip, slider, and swivel cell phones. There was a satisfaction in the interaction of opening those phones that I haven't felt since buying my first "candy bar" phone. (That satisfaction is the same as what I feel when turning a key to start my car.)
As a non-designer, the context for the exuberance and success of 80's design was fascinating. When looking at the potential for future design trends, there might be fertile ground in the unexplored vector of economics. A large part of how a design philosophy spreads is the ability of the average person to intact with it or own it. The years from 1890 to 1950 produced all kinds of design movements that never really had a chance because of wars and The Depression. The 80's were not just a period post social upheaval and technology, but also a huge shift economically from the wartime policies of FDR to the new policies of the Reagan-Thatcher revolution. This was an era of inexpensive internationally made goods supported by what appeared to be good wages in the US and Europe (history would show that from 1980 to 2018 pay in real terms only increased by 15%). With globalization receding into regional economies and the harsh reality of the current system sinking in, the next design trends may be more local responding to the new cultural and economic realities.
Yes absolutely, and the technology helped to enable that shift (although it wasn't the only factor). This didn't make the final cut, but Raffi was saying that overseas manufacturing really accelerated in the 1980s. He also mentioned that economic factors definitely played into. He specifically mentioned that the crazy colors and fun forms kinda came to a screerching halt shortly after Black Monday in late 1987. He was saying real "80s aesthetic" that we think of was realistically only mainstream from 1982 to 1988. It faded out after that.
these videos are truly some of my favourite things
Had to shout out Matt Bird. He was my favorite professor while I was at RISD. He made some of the most mundane concepts so insanely enjoyable and I miss him dearly!
Memphis only ever really appealed when photographed isolated on a white background.
I was in art school (Pratt Institute) in the late 80s. I cannot overestimate how influential this movement was at the time. Memphis' bold primary colors and geometric shapes were diametrically opposed to the amorphous shapes and earth tones of the 70s.
I want this style of design to return. It's one of my life goals as an engineering student.
it’s such a fun style! i love it
loved the little glimpse of the progress of this art form. brilliantly presented.
I think people mistake "Form follows function" as if that is the only thing taken into consideration. It's rather "form follows function first" so you don't end up with a chair that just a nice looking scoliosis machine or a gaming console that doesn't fit next to the tv (i get that some consoles do have non-square designs so you don't use them as a table or block the airflow tho).
My point is those Yeezys are ugly AF, like alien crocs with an alergic reaction.
I had the pleasure of meeting Peter Shire in 95 or 96, he came and visited the ceramics program I was the TA for at the time, for California Summer School for the Arts. He sat and spoke with teens for over an hour, very sweet and humble.
I have a lot of nostalgia for Memphis, I was definitely an MTV era kid.
Did you ever get a chance to make a video about 90s design? I think that would also be interesting
You just fueled my excitement right when I was about to lose it forever.
I have no interest in design, but your channel has really got me hooked. All your videos are so informative and extremely well made. Plus I love how you are simultaneously the strangest person in front of the camera, but also the coolest! Don't change anything about your channel, it's in my top 3!
Just discovered your channel, as for the ex-design grad/ ID-er turned brand marketer your content remind me why I fell in love with it and spent 5 good years in the design school in the first place. It also remind me that the magnitude of design thinking extend beyond the tangible thing that we touch but also touch the culture as well. Keep up the good work!
Memphis Milano Group furniture is based on Bauhaus art, which was inspired by a mix of Cubism, Orphism, De Stijl, influence from architecture in Tiruvannamalai India, & 1920s painter Wassily Kandinsky.
The entire first half of the 80s was still very much stuck in the 70s, but more pastel, floral print, modest, & very "grandma's house" with a very heavy emphasis mid 1950s-mid 60s design influence in architecture, music covers & jackets. The bold colors & abstract avant garde shapes were mid 80s to mid 90s.
Boy I tell you, this made me go through my junk drawer and find my old floppy drive disc set. Seeing how all the old adhesive so worn out on the all the old labels really was a trip back in time for me. I remember paying $0.50 for those things at the high school library.
It's truly a blast from the past, isn't it? It was a lot of fun making this video.
Thank you for bringing a light to this decade in design. So many previous paradigms in culture, design, technology, life, music, were broken in the 80's directly influencing just about everything that is around us today. There is book called High-Tech by Joan Kron and Suzane Slesin. The aesthetics shown there are now ubiquitous everywhere.
Well done John - Great job encapsulating an entire decade of transformation and energy both in the movement and professional practice of 1980s design. The video really shows that it's not just a nostalgic trip back to a different time, rather it's a provocative comparative study on what's happening today in the same contexts as new technology emerges in the wake of radical world changes. Design should challenge how we think, how we advance technology, and how we emerge through tomorrow.
I still have that AT&T digital answering machine, It was awesome and I loved it.
I worked with Peter Shire through the pandemic. Wonderful artist.
Just collecting all of that footage must be a heck of work, thanks again!
Nicely done. As a industrial designer during late 70s to the present, I felt that the Memphis Movement was an experiment that eventually was able to be trickled down to everyday concepts and products. We still see today many products, graphics and images based on that movement, not overt but more subtle. I loved it at the time and still do. The design world is again is coming to another milestone with future technologies with it's possible advantages and what does that mean to designing a product, environment and images. Hoping I can be there to see the changes. Thanks for the video.
Hey Roland, thank you very much for the thoughtful comment. It certainly seemed like an interesting and tense time, not too different from today (although totally different in many ways, to be fair)
11:33 "But you have to remember what other computers before it looked like."
_shows a computer that was released after the Macintosh was released_
Also, for some reason, people keep presenting the Macintosh as a symbol of the 80's or some genius design. The original Macintosh is instead an example of when to not put form over function, since it was marred by performance issues and instability competing 16-bit machines didn't experience. The design didn't even include a cooling fan; thanks for all the fried components, Jobs.
The design also embodies another staple of Apple's design that persists to the modern times: take away features and raise the price. The Apple IIGS released later had much better specs, most notably full color and wavetable audio (compared to the Macintosh 128k/512k's monochrome screen and beeper), and it was expandable and user friendly, unlike the Macintosh. Additionally, the Macintosh was more expensive than the IIGS and its competitors; the Commodore Amiga, the Atari ST, and the IBM PC and its clones. Despite this, Apple continued to develop the Macintosh and deserted the IIGS.
The Atari ST looks better than the Mac too.
Hi, I’d like to see some more design history videos from your channel - or comparing industrial design in different countries, like Japan. Thanks!
Noted! Yeah I actually really wanted to mention Japan in this video because they were so important to the 80s design movements. But there just wasn't enough time and the video was already getting too long
Hey dude! Cool video! Thx for making it. Youre on something here. Keep up the good work.
Glad you liked it! Thanks for the nice comment :)
You have a really great channel. I'm thoroughly enjoying going through your content and thinking about the design around me.
Memphis style design in architecture was a fail for me. They struck me as garish and ugly, poorly executed and would of course age bad in European weather conditions. I think the ideas work better for whimsical consumers objects.
Yeah I'm not in love with the Memphis aesthetic, although I think that was the point. I do appreciate what it represents.
I think it was more about the message behind the design rather than look of the objects. The initial visual impact was simply a starting point. Also, it’s easy to look back and judge from a time now where literally nothing is new. This was a shakeup and it didn’t matter exactly what it looked like…the shakeup was the point.
I'm all for expressing yourself, but these objects just look like a bunch of ugly shapes and colors smashed together lazily in attempt to have meaning. You can be meaningful and expressive without the things you're making look like shit. I have a bit more outlandish taste, and I don't want everything to be super reformed, but that chair for example was just ugly and uncomfortable looking. How could you make a home with furniture like that? In an attempt to stop being pretentious they ended up becoming more pretentious than they started.
The design choices are an expression of an burgeoning philosophical point of view and unless you understand this, its difficult to see it as anything other than a funky chair. It’s also easy to look back 40 years later and judge something as ugly or pretentious, but at the time it was revolutionary which is why derivative aesthetics infiltrated every corner of pop culture thereafter. It wasn’t necessarily about how any one design looked, it was a radical visual response to an austere modern philosophical viewpoint that had completely dominated the landscape for the previous handful of decades.
@@travkenn1019 As a kid I liked old buildings, things that looked medieval. There was more story to imagine with those buildings. They had a feel to them. My dislike for modernism or this Memphis derivation started back then while playing in modernist concrete play grounds amongst repetitive cuboid buildings. It’s architects and their pretentious ideas that don’t work out in application. I’m with Christopher Alexander on this. Instead for trying to be clever with styling, architecture should strive to create wholesome and live able places that embrace the humans living in those places instead of being self indulged with visionary concepts.
This video made me question: What even is a 'bad design'? As long as a 'product' serves my needs, and does the function that it says it will do on the box, it's fine whatever it looks like for me, as long as it looks like (and there's evidence that) the designer has put care, effort, and passion into that design. It doesn't have to look 'modern', minimal, clean, sleek, etc. like every new product nowadays, or the opposite of that, entertaining, out of the ordinary, etc. I don't think anything is 'required' to look like anything, or be a certain shape, for it to be a 'good design'. So, while I'm not exactly super attracted to those very colorful 1980's furniture, they look comfortable. I guess for some products, there's merits for it to blend in with other things in your environment, or not look too 'busy' with the parts that are visible to the eye. You reviewed the iMac 2021 design for example, for an all-in-one computer like that to have a 'succesful' design, the only thing that should attract people's eye in its front side should be the screen, otherwise any other design detail at the front would cause people to not be able to focus on the user interface and not be able to be productive with the computer. But that doesn't mean Apple shouldn't go crazy with the back design (and I'm not just talking about a slightly more vibrant color than on the front, I'm talking way crazier than that). That said though, I don't think the imac is a bad design, I'm just pointing out the fact that the iMac is very minimalistic because some people think it looks too boring and non-innovative/iterative. As I said, I do not care (care not as in not caring, but as in "I *don't mind* if it's too minimalistic OR too overwhelming with emotions), I just care about a good computer. So anyway, these are what crossed my mind after watching this video, and I wanted to share it.
I'm reminded of (GE?) designing a thermostat (the round spinning dial thingy), so they took hand measurements and made the size the average of the hands so it would be comfortable to the most people, integrated the change temperature into the housing, two analog displays, etc.
In a word, ergonomic. Intuitive. Very clean design.
I believe most of those lessons are lost.
I like that you also see 1980s coming back in some new form. There has to be some positive energy to use.
its also interesting to see how music genres like vaporwave have also recently exploded in popularity
this has been one of my favorite videos! It makes me excited for the future and being part of it
So happy that you got that kind of value from the video. I appreciate you checking it out!
I was born in 91 so even though the style was changing i still saw a lot of examples of this style. It creeped me out back then and it still does. XD
What's funny is these were THE agencies to apply to when I was in school. Give it 5 years and we'll be well into another burst of creativity.
yea, if you look at it the 1980s brought about some great trends in car design too. the fiat panda was an exemplary example of good packaging and functionality with a quirky look, and i think the 1980s was also the time when the MPV, the SUV, were sorta born and became popular. :)
still remember playing with my dad's floppys
also his first pendrive and having a proud face about the *whole* 2 gb storage
Another excellent video 🙌 your insight is unreal
Glad you enjoyed it Isaac :O :D
We were just at that museum in Mount Dora, FL and had Produced a series of tv segments with Michael Graves. In any event, I think the inspiration to the entire movement is the Hipgnosis designed 1976 Black Sabbath album Technical Ecstasy. Look it up, its the design language for the 80s and 90s
The 80s was the rise of hubris so powerful that people tried to see how bad they could make their design and still get people to buy it. "Watch this," the 80s laughed, "I can make these idiots buy anything."
lol you're not far off actually
That end ‘70s chair design looks so fire, looks like a modern chair to me.
New subscriber !! Love this content soooo much and also jow totally obsessed with Memphis design styles, i ve always just called this stuff 80s tech haha and now I want that chair! Thank you for this knowledge bomb 💣 💕
12:01 LOVE the clay model work for the Opel Manta GT. A great image.
great video! I like your editing and the interviews were really good. btw i think you should get a fill light or a reflector for your talking head shots so the contrast isn’t as stark
Great video, very informative
Glad you think so! I appreciate you checking it out
Awesome audio visual essay dude!
great video! The way you draw similarities between the 80s and today makes me think that our Memphis movement is meme design: cybertruck, yeezy, ps5, etc.
Love that! Here's a little tidbit that didn't make the final cut of the vid from Mara. She was telling me that the Memphis Designers were primed for media consumption by hiring a publicist (this was exceedingly rare to do unless you were already famous), and they also made the most of other innovations around color print. industrial design magazine was black and white on the inside (color covers) until the early 1980s.
This was such a good video, i like how you changed the format, very nice.
Oh it is good to have this kind of channel. Thank you.
It's funny you mention the floppy disk as a save icon. In the user interface design class I took, the professor asked if anyone had even seen a real floppy disk, and I was one of maybe 5 in the class who did, and that's because I remember those Magic Schoolbus games that came in cereal boxes that were using those instead of CDs. I've noticed some programs switching to a down arrow like the download icon, that will change colour based on if you saved it or not. I don't remember the name, but one of the Ubuntu icon packs has the LibreOffice save icon be an orange arrow, and then it turns blue when you save. I liked it, as with computer design, knowing what something is and real-world parallels are very important. It can be seen as restrictive, but like you mentioned with the game systems, there's a lot people can do to both be intuitive (to know what something is and how to use it) while also being creative and adding something unique and fun into it. I found Nintendo did that well with the DS systems, but very poorly with the Wii U, where a lot of people didn't know how to use the Wii U, and if it was just a Wii add on, or what games needed what controllers. Where the DS systems, we already knew what flip phones were, and how most game controllers looked, so putting those together with some fun shapes and colours was a good way to make something simple, yet versatile, fun and welcoming.
Having lived through both I can’t imagine two decades more different than the ‘80s and the 2020s. The ‘80s were the last time mainstream society celebrated the new and avant garde. It was an extremely fun, experimental and confident decade, full of both nuclear apprehension and futuristic hope. Every design asked why. Why does a window have to look like that? I literally remember people asking that question verbatim and it was years before I could buy a lamp that looked like a lamp. I(f you ever saw Conran’s, you’d understand.) The exchange of ideas couldn’t be stopped. There was no internet but there were ‘zines and alternative newsletters and coffee shops and bookstores and pop up nightclubs where you’d encounter the strangest assortment of people and ideas.
Here I sit in the year of safetyism, cancellation and conformity, mass corporate and government censorship, looming tyranny and mob enforcers, and design that’s reduced to a Cuisinart of decades, with the same crap whirled around again and again until it becomes bland slop, watching the collapse of the empire of lies, looking at my Alessi coffee pot and having no idea how we got here from there.
Hey dude, properly fascinating video.
And thanks for the credit and the link to my AI Art stuff, I wondered where all the visitors were coming from ;)
I think Mr. Esslinger must have been referring to later computers when he talked about the sand painting inspiration, as the original Macintosh was designed before his time with Apple, primarily by Terry Oyama and Jerry Manock with guidance from Jobs. One source of inspiration that is definitely known for that Mac was a Cuisinart food processor, likely the model designed by Marc Harrison who was a pioneer of accessible design. Jobs was known to haunt department stores for inspiration, and it would be quite something if this early example of accessibility ended up inspiring the friendly ol' Mac.
Oh hi! I'm quite new to the channel but I've been really enjoying the channel
I might add that in the 80s we dreamed of electric cars, powerful portable computers and robots. We also thought we'd be to mars by now... and robot butlers are sadly not here... yet!
I guess it does sound more like a repeating cycle at this point where people would make basic, utilitarian designs -> get sick of the standard, let's make something new -> makes wacky designs -> "ok this is too much, let's go back to minimalistic" and so on.
Almost like politics at this rate, too. One generation got sick of what was popular among their parents, so they tried to be different as a counter-culture.
I wish this 80s resurgence we're having came with more good and not just all the bad stuff.
Well done. Also mentioning CAD based manufacturing.
I had in mind that 3D printing really started around 2004/2005 when it became open source (hard- and software, FDM). Laser 3D, that must have been around 2012 when patents expired. well, there were companies like EOS and some in the US before.
Love the interviews !
I've got a love-hate relationship with Memphis design. I love the colour, as it reminds me of the prevalence of colour in medieval and Renaissance architecture (think stuccos, tapestries, marble, and paintings); however, I despise the child-like impractical design of Memphis design. The shapes are too simple, yet almost overwhelming; like a visual tinnitus. By contrast, classical design is complex for individual items, yet simple in its sum. Every item is an unassuming treasure.
Microphone in hand. Love it!😂
Another amazing video, my favorite video by far! love seeing a combination of trends, key opinion leaders, and design analysis.
Really interesting video. I'll have to watch more! That said, I seem to recall both the new Xbox and Playstation have cooling as a major demand of their designs. I think digital foundry has gone in depth with them, and it's really neat.
If Ai really does start influencing designers the position will end up being someone who just feeds parameters into a black box and sifts through the output until it looks good.
Funny you say that. I watched a video of dalle 2 yesterday with my gf. We spoke about how it will dominate, but that it won’t create anything truly new. Reason being, artists are embodied mortal beings existing in a cultural environment, who live, struggle, love, hate, and die. The AI designers while incredibly, can’t create anything truly new, in the sense that a human artist alive in a specific time and place can.
@@maxtroy it's much simpler. Neural networks are fed data, and they can only puke out data similar to what they have been fed.
I disagree Max/Mithrax. But you'll have to wait for the AI video to come out to find out why (sorry to be such a tease, but honestly it would take way too long to type out)
@@Mithraxium exactly, but most people and business won’t see that. They’ll think it is doing what the artist is instantly and with no cost. Artists will go out of work, and we will all be impoverished.
Really good book worth reading on this subject is The Creativity Code. Really good. Just like computers are a "bicycle for the mind", I think first generation "AI" (neural networks) will be similar.
To many the Memphis movement was also know as 80's Deco, impart because many of the Memphis Movement items had lines very close or indentcal to that of Art Deco/Decorative Arts. Also in the late 70's a Art Deco revival was being done in Architecture, which lasted into the 90's - but is better known as 80's Deco. in fact when you do an image search for 80's Deco it will reveal a lot of interesting images from the 1980's. With 80's Deco/Memphis furnishing etc. it was fun in style and also a fun mix of bright neon colors. I have seen a lot more interesting elements from the 80's being used in design today; with in sneaker design I have seen new shoes that looked like they browed from the mid to late 80s. I have also noticed some Architects are recreating 80's Deco homes; though some Interior Designers don't fully know how to grasp designing kitchens and bathrooms that look like they belong in the home. The 80's was definitely a fun and exploration period for design.
All your videos are amazing!
I cant help but comment about you not blinking for ~16 seconds haha great video
Great video. I love the original Macintosh design!
So I’ve been a fan of this channel and Atomic Heart (the video game) and I have always wondered what have been the direct inspirations for such outlandish designs in the game and I think it is Luigi Colani. Thank you for mentioning him and helping me explore his designs better
Ah yes, I am the type to pause the video to read tiny text, so thus I must comment. Also, glad I found this channel. Awesome stuff 😁
Form follows function is far older than apple. It goes back to the 30's functionalism in at least Scandinavian design. Sigvaard Bernadotte comes to mind when talking of functionalism. Same goes years later with the designs of Torun. (My background has to do with studying Scandinavian design for work.)
The 80's were interesting, with it's more brutalist interpretations, everything was very harsh and geometric.
I'm not sure if I said that it was an Apple thing. Louis Sullivan was the first person to write about it in the late 1800s I think? And I'm sure similar ideas were communicated even before that.
Idc what you say but I dig the 80s design, it's def a vibe
As a 90s kids who lived in post-sanctioned Iraq, the 80s mish mash, neon, angular aesthetic was ubiquitous in lots of government constructions. I always thought it looked ugly. Not kidding, I must’ve been like 6 and I still remember just absolutely hating that aesthetic whenever I saw it. Now, at the age of 34, I kinda like it. It has its own charm. I probably still wouldn’t decorate my own space like that, but I’m somehow now growing to appreciate it for what it is.
this channel is gold
Hey I’m a 15yr old extremely interested in design specifically clothing but other things too I’ve fully drawn out shoes shirts shorts jackets pants sunglasses and was wondering what steps are necessary to actually see them created
Loopop uses the music at 3:50 for his Moog one demo. Fun fact 😄
Great! I'm way excited about design!
Mathew Bird is the best. Everybody should watch his series on Industrial Design.
@13:26 Ya kno... I wonder if there'll ever be a change to that with Generations of the past 10y+ being unaware of its roots - Not that there is any _necessity_ to change it though... 🤔
I think the only - not quite - _Successor_ to the Floppy Disk Icon would be the Cloud Icon as it kinda serves the same purpose _but_ in a different way.
Every icon should just be a bunch of lightning bolts to communicate the transmission of information through the air ;) (kidding. mostly)
@@Design.Theory everything should just be binary. Icon? Binary. Text? Binary
yay, Memphis, TN was mentioned
Fun video to watch, but 80s designs are vomit inducing. Having lived through the decade, it seems to me that things weren't so much designed, but rather over-designed in the 80s, which led to the (sometimes) much cleaner and more organic designs of the 90s. The 80s were the "greed is good" decade and that attitude, I feel, was reflected in designs which didn't know when to quit. Just like an endless thirst for material goods, also meant let's use all the shapes in one product whether it needed it or not. Bah.
Yeah, 70's and 80's design sucked, and I don't want to go back.
having to see some of this still in TV and some older stuff in buildings in the early 1990's as a kid yeah I hated it as all of it looked like Nickelodeon had its TV shows intros, just look into a 1990's Chuk-E-Cheeze or a defunct Fun Zone. However the earliest of the modern silver space age look that lots of tech has now including the Acer I am typing on , was created in the 1980's with things like Sony Record players, the model that had the all silver body for main part of the machine with the decibel view in three lines on it, or the small portable players like an old early 1980's GM single speker radio and tape player I had as a kid that was plug in but also had a spot for batteries to go. This moved into the 1990's when a second revival at NASA with Hubble Space Telescope and the 1998 Mars rover brought in more of the modern silver space look borrowed over from the 1980's. Design was going this way anyhow thanks to the new millennium of 2000 coming closer.
There is a band similar to The Smiths called Bauhaus, and I'm just imaging a Bauhaus cover band performing songs by The Wiggles, whenever he said Bauhaus meets Fisher Price. But minus the sharp corners, the Memphis style looks kind neat! And that answering machine looks like a Wii/SNES hybrid!
god honestly idg why so many people took the piss irt memphis design because every piece i see from this movement is so colorful and bold and gorgeous and i want my house to look like this Now
I love rewatching this video in 2024 as we can explicitly see the pendulum swinging back.
Online cultures shows and perceives Gen Z as being into maximalism. Bright, kitschy clothing, furniture, accessories, you name it.
And it's in DIRECT response to the notorious 'millennial' gray and minimalist design preferences of that generation.
Just like with the memphis design movement emerging as counter culture to the design philosophy prior to it.
Memphis Group is my favorite style that I love to hate and hate to love. Postmodernism on steroids and immediately dates something to the late 80s - early 90s. If I had lottery jackpot money, I would have a guest bedroom designed in Memphis Group just to make my guests go "um... what?!"
I tried to google "why do only some things look dated?" and this is as close as I got.
ah you got me. This channel is really good.
Glad you enjoy it! Thanks for checking it out
8:02 **Worst sponsor transition in RUclips history
Lol that sponsor transition had me thinking you had ads on your vid….
On another note, I’m not sure I see how the intersection between design and AI catalyzes the iterative design process…
I’m a CS major and I have studied ML and AI as well as courses in design, architecture, and the arts. With my background I have partaken in honors courses and seminars about the cross roads of design and technology. However, these discussions were mostly about form and function not the process of creation/design itself. For instance, parent company Alphabet and it’s initiative to transform the various landscapes of Toronto into those which may be considered “smart” - technology, data aggregation, automation, and functionality all intersecting; and more. Anyway, I’d love to know what you see for the future you mentioned. A future where AI and the iterative design process are married. Great video all around. Thanks
AI is going to change design completely. It's going to be like what digital photography did to film, imo.
Ok, intersting. But in the 1980's I was studying in Industrial Design. The main teacher was the department director and was advocating what he called "waste design": "there is no such thing as disposable razor because you can create a new one every year". That was another era, around 1985-1986, long before environmental concerns. I was at the time more interested in Bauhaus, so i had good grades, but the spirit in the 80's was to create more fashionable items to sell more.
I like that "Radio" radio.
same lol
thanks for making me feel old with the floppy disk thing... still have a PC case with a slot for a floppy disk drive... i use the slot for extra USB ports though. would be cool if i could find a sata floppy drive though but it may break my drive lettering a little since i lettered one of my HDDs A:\
i remember the 80s much more for fistfights in new jersey than for the snazzy designs