Design and Architecture
High Design for Household Objects
One artist-engineer spent five years making thousands of prototypes, to reinvent a machine that had cleaned carpets quite well for a century. That vacuum cleaner?s colorful, see-through body is said to have influenced the look of the first Apple iMac. Now, that charismatic computer has set a new design standard for PC?s, the workhorses of the American office. James Dyson and Bob Brunner speak with Frances Anderton about what makes a household appliance a classic piece of industrial design.
By Frances Anderton • • 30m ListenJames Dyson, inventor of the Dyson multi-cyclone vacuum cleaner, is the chairman of the
London Design Museum, a Council member of the
Royal College of Art in London, and the winner of many awards, including Chicago Athaneum's
Good Design Award and the Prince Philip Designers Prize. James Dyson will be in town Thursday, February 6, to lecture at the
Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.
Robert Brunner, a former design director at Apple, is now a partner at Pentagram Design in San Francisco, where he is now designing for Dell, Hewlett Packard, Palm and Logiteck, Nike and Motorola.