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ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence

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Re: ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence

#11

Post by miahi »

stan_rogers wrote: post #5

Well, that was a horrible experience. Sure, my connection is unforgivably slow, but a long player download (in my case, about four minutes) followed by a long per-page content download (with no apparent prefetch) means that I didn't get very far before bailing. Oh, and none of the usual keyboard navigation (arrows) work. There are a lot of ways to present something like this that work ; this doesn't, particularly.

The presentation looked fine and loaded really fast on my Android phone using 3G network.

Re: ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence

#14

Post by zerostar07 »

acabal wrote: post #6

I can't believe I'm reading an article touting the design smarts of the Thinkpad designers... honestly I've always thought that the standard black Thinkpads were unspeakably ugly. And I'm not even a design snob. Usable yes, but aesthetic? No way.

I think it's intentional, well, not ugly but no effort to make it beautiful either. I see my computer as a tool; do people care if their electric drill looks ugly?

Plus, if you ask me, sturdy case, functional keyboard, docking connector and myriad of ports is a very smart design that trumps macbooks.

Re: ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence

#15

Post by acabal »

w1ntermute wrote: post #9
acabal wrote: post #6

I can't believe I'm reading an article touting the design smarts of the Thinkpad designers... honestly I've always thought that the standard black Thinkpads were unspeakably ugly. And I'm not even a design snob. Usable yes, but aesthetic? No way.

I use ThinkPads and their timeless design is one of my favorite things about them. For a lot of people, shiny aluminum is great, but some appreciate the ThinkPad color scheme.

I'm not knocking the color scheme, I think black with red highlights can look pretty slick myself. It's just the overall feeling I get... it just looks so sharp-edged and industrial. To me that's the opposite of aesthetic. On the other hand they're doubtlessly excellent machines and there's no accounting for taste, even mine :)

Re: ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence

#16

Post by anonymouz »

acabal wrote: post #6

I can't believe I'm reading an article touting the design smarts of the Thinkpad designers... honestly I've always thought that the standard black Thinkpads were unspeakably ugly. And I'm not even a design snob. Usable yes, but aesthetic? No way.

Personally, I find them very aesthetic. But this comes down to a subjective feeling.

More important in my opinion is the functional design, which Thinkpads really excel at.

Re: ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence

#17

Post by kitsune_ »

acabal wrote: post #6

I can't believe I'm reading an article touting the design smarts of the Thinkpad designers... honestly I've always thought that the standard black Thinkpads were unspeakably ugly. And I'm not even a design snob. Usable yes, but aesthetic? No way.

The ThinkPad was designed by Richard Sapper [1], somewhat of a legend in industrial design.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sapper

Re: ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence

#18

Post by w1ntermute »

acabal wrote: post #15
w1ntermute wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use ThinkPads and their timeless design is one of my favorite things about them. For a lot of people, shiny aluminum is great, but some appreciate the ThinkPad color scheme.

I'm not knocking the color scheme, I think black with red highlights can look pretty slick myself. It's just the overall feeling I get... it just looks so sharp-edged and industrial. To me that's the opposite of aesthetic. On the other hand they're doubtlessly excellent machines and there's no accounting for taste, even mine :)

> To me that's the opposite of aesthetic.

I see "aesthetic" as a subjective concept, so I don't really understand how it can have an opposite. It's a matter of opinion, and for a lot of people, the ThinkPad design has what they're looking for.

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