Sisters and Friends
Chapter 15
By Design
Doctor Ron Maas glanced up as he walked towards the gallery, passing the two young women actually looking at the objects in the glass cases that lined the corridor. Having walked past the collection so often he sometimes failed to notice them, although he himself had been the curator.
To him they represented the finest examples of Industrial Design, manufactured artifacts that combined refined aesthetics with an appropriateness of form, arguably achieving that rare balance of functionality, manufacturability, and clarity of vision. He himself was somewhat old fashioned in his sensibility, feeling that when a product was correctly formed it was invisible to the intent of its use.
The perfect tool was picked up, fit the hand or mind as it should, and became the tool that extended the user, facilitating the completion of a task without calling undue attention to itself.
Hardly the kind of thing that would stand out on a crowded store shelf, and so an increasing rarity in this age of rapidly evolving technology. Products needed to be noticed in order to be selected, so the young designers today were steered towards style and trend to take advantage of the increasingly short service lifespans of cutting edge tech.
He nodded to Molly, one of the student advisors, seated behind the reception table, and began his final review of this latest crop of graduating Industrial Designers.
These were among the best and brightest young designers in the country, and still he could see the classic 80/20 split. Most were merely excellent works on display, and only a fifth were truly exceptional. And of these, he could tell who would go on to make their mark on the world, yet another fifth. Would his school produce another Rams, Bellini, Starck, or Ives?
Perhaps.
The gallery was rather quiet this morning, just a dozen or so visitors. Most were drawn to the most outlandish or overdone work as usual. He glanced back, noticing that the young red-haired woman he had passed by in the hall was intently studying what he felt was one of the best, a collection of small, understated wearable computing and communications devices. She seemed to be taken by the delicate headpiece, an item that Maas too was pleased by. Much better than the clunky eyeglass computers, this one was like an asymmetrical diadem that was worn on only one side of the head. The designer had made it flexible, most of the electronics housed in a tiny pod that was tucked behind the wearer's ear. What was visible were the almost floral stems that housed the physical interface components, the visual infinity projector being the most difficult to execute.
"Look, the designer put the control set both in the lower section of the earpiece as well as on the bodynet bracelet," she was saying to her friend. "You can put a hand to it, so people around you can see you're using it so you don't look like you're interacting with a ghost. And that little status indicator on the projector is visible to people nearby. It's like holding a phone to your head."
"Won't the device color be a problem in day to day use?"
"No, look. The actual color is really neutral, with only those accent surfaces noticeable. See? There's a set of them in different finishes and colors so you can change them out. They could also be made with different profiles for a completely different feel." She shook her head admiringly. "This is really brilliant."
Maas smiled to himself. She had a designer's intuition. This project was one that he at first struggled with, since it seemed to be more of a fashion and styling exercise at first, but upon reflection he had realized the depth of the concept. He had been a world class designer for almost forty years now, and this girl had gotten it almost immediately. This project would probably take an IDSA Gold award in the student division.
The two continued to walk through the exhibit, and he noticed that they would dwell at the projects that he himself had favored. He noted that they both carried the catalogs from the Graduate Architecture show. The pretty Eurasian girl kept opening it when her friend would take too long at a particular item.
Perhaps they were transferring students. He hoped so, anyway. He had a gut feeling that this red-haired woman would be something special.