Conversation

Why aren't there more studios like Teenage Engineering? Is it because making hardware is just so brutal? Because industrial design insights are rarely defensible?

being cool is not scalable to many firms

Andy Matuschak

@andy_matuschak

I’m honestly not sure if this is a joke or actually quite a profound answer! Coolness requires uniqueness, so everyone can’t be it. One does get the sense, though, that more people could do stuff like this.

I think only a few dozen people/firms can be cool at any given time - coolness requires some scarcity

To expand - if everyone did design like Teenage Engineering it would be the default design we find in Target or Bed Bath and Beyond and it would lose all interest, we would all move on to some new look, a new ethos fast

Andy Matuschak

@andy_matuschak

Hm. I think of TE as being a) striking/unique and b) exceptionally polished. Is it possible for many people to have those properties but in very different ways? Many ways to be unique?

6:29 PM · Oct 31, 2020Twitter Web App

Striking and unique are the things that require scarcity no? Every mass market item in Walmart is probability exceptionally polished right? If they are making them at 10m unit scales. Just not with premium finishes.

Replying to

and

Hm, can't they be striking and unique in different ways? e.g. on a walk through an art museum, you can find many strikingly different subgenres of contemporary art!

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