Does It Take A History Lesson To Figure Out You Can Make A Product In Different Colors?

from the mindblowing,-like,-wow dept

Fri, Dec 12th 2008 10:20am — Carlo Longino

The amount of attention paid to and interest in industrial design has skyrocketed over the past several years, with people like Jonathan Ives, Apple's chief designer, becoming well known. Without question, industrial design is hugely important in the consumer electronics space, but some of the genius ascribed to it gets a little over the top. Witness a post on a BusinessWeek blog that attributes the launch of the iPod Mini in different colors to "what Apple Learned from Kodak". It says that Apple's decision to give consumers a choice of colors was borne out of Kodak's 1926 release of its Vanity camera in different colors, an attempt to make the product more attractive to women, and that "What Apple did was learn from history, and adopt, adapt, and assimilate past success to current context." So figuring out you can make a product in different colors requires an immensely skilled designer with an acute knowledge of the history of colored products? That seems to be buying into the mystique of industrial design just a little too much. While it was beneficial for Apple to expand the iPod color palette, that move in and of itself wasn't all that innovative, was it? Furthermore, the success of the Mini, and continued success of the iPod, is because of many factors beyond design -- the ability to deliver more functionality at lower prices, for a start.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: colors, design, ipod
Companies: apple

14 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

MPR, 12 Dec 2008 @ 10:55am

design design
"the ability to deliver more functionality at lower prices"

things can actually be designed to deliver more functionality at lower prices, so how is that "beyond design"?

design is more than colourways, and designing under constraints (such as BOM costs) is still design.

or, did i miss something?!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- David, 12 Dec 2008 @ 12:43pm
  
  Re: design design
  Anything can be designed to do something. So I guess nothing can be "beyond design".
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - nasch, 13 Dec 2008 @ 10:15am
    
    Re: Re: design design
    There's also manufacturing and marketing.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Henry Ford, 12 Dec 2008 @ 11:11am

Model T
"You may get the Model T Ford in any color you like, so long as it is black."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2008 @ 11:17am

No, it doesn't take a history lesson to figure out colors but it does take one to convinced the heads at Apple that offering different colors would be a profitable thing on a product line that's already as successful as is.

Apple is in the tradition of telling you what you want instead of letting you chose what you want. For the longest time, that color was white and white only. They ditched the original imac (ones that look like tv tubes) color pallets long ago. So in today's apple, even the introduction of a black color was major departure from their design motto (ie, black macbook)

so ya, you did missed something.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Collin, 12 Dec 2008 @ 12:40pm
  
  Re:
  That's funny, I pretty clearly remember the iMac coming in different colors 3 years before the iPod hit the market. So different colored iPods was not a "major departure from their design motto".
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2008 @ 12:50pm

Not sure how this is a design matter. Seems entirely a marketing matter to reach a larger customer base.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
beevis, 12 Dec 2008 @ 1:24pm

i leyek purrrrpull
he heh heh somebody gimme a lighter. burn it!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Matthew Muro, 12 Dec 2008 @ 1:24pm

More Recent Examples
They can probably look at more recent examples such as the Game Boy and any subsequent versions of Nintendo's handhelds.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2008 @ 2:58pm

Colors
Furthermore, the success of the Mini, and continued success of the iPod, is because of many factors beyond design -- the ability to deliver more functionality at lower prices, for a start.
No, it's all because of the colors!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Philip, 12 Dec 2008 @ 3:06pm

iMacs?
I guess the article forgot the iMacs were the original line of Apple hardware to borne the multi-colour palette. And those colours were based off the original Apple logo.

The original author isn't very acute with his own knowledge of history.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
John (profile), 12 Dec 2008 @ 5:51pm

Market to women
I think the real genius is figuring out how to "market to women" and apply it to the rest of the market.

Way-back-when, Ford introduced automatic transmissions on the Mustang "for women", yet now it's very difficult to find a manual transmission car.

Someone in the electronics world thought that women like color, so now all of Apple's products come in color.
This makes a certain amount of sense since PC's (and printers and other hardware) have usually come in two colors: gray and black. Why? Because a *man's* office doesn't need those frilly colors. Who wants a blue computer? We're men! Gray and black is all we need! And sometimes we're happy with just gray.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Sim Wong Hoo, 13 Dec 2008 @ 1:57pm

Gee, wasn't Creative Labs offering up Zen Micros in 10 different colors back when you could get your ipods in any color, as long as it was white? Just like Creative was making MP3 players years before apple even though of the ipod...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- EngineerZ, 15 Dec 2008 @ 10:05am
  
  Re:
  Heck, You can go a lot further back than the Zen Micro... The Regency TR-1 transistor radio, arguably the iPod of the 1950s (e.g. see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4265374.stm ), came in a variety of colors. Not to say Apple got the idea from Regency or Creative, rather it's not all that innovative of a concept. Consumer electronic manufacturers have been offering their devices in multiple colors continuously through the years. It's not a forgotten Kodak concept.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]