Just Great Designs

[cherryowen]

Last weekend, having a clear out of the dresser in the dining room, I found something I bought 13 years ago that I thought I'd lost about 10 years ago. A new flint and some fresh fuel, and it lived! A slimline rainbow effect zippo lighter, just like this:-



For me, it's a testament to a great design. Pretty much unchanged since 1933, the design is simple, effective, and still looks good (in its simplest forms). It got me thinking about other designs / products that fulfill the same brief. A few others spring to mind.

Is there a better, classier, solution to lighting a desk than an Anglepoise lamp?



Imagine, in the early 1950's, one is landed gentry with either a villa in Tuscany or a Schloss in Austria. What better way to drive to one's continental retreat in a Bentley Continental R



Ask a kid to draw an electric guitar. Now, there are hundreds of guitar manufacturers each with dozens of designs but I bet that child will draw the outline of a Fender Stratocaster



Note : this is being typed under the light of a proprietary B & Q lamp; unless six number come up, I'll never own a 1952 Bentley Continental R; and Strats are uncomfortable to play (for me)

[underwhelmist]

Before I got to the bottom of your post I was thinking this...

[227bhp]

Before I got to the bottom of your post I was thinking oh God, not this again, but also that Zippo lighters are carp and butane ones are much more reliable therefore a better design.

[underwhelmist]

Oh dear, somebody’s had their chips pissed on

There are many basses which are objectively better designs than the Precision (many of them also designed by Leo Fender), but the P is widely considered to be the original, which embodies the fundamental nature of the instrument. There were basses before the P, but the P is what made the bass available to the masses. It’s like the Model T or the VW Beetle or something, but better sounding.

[cherryowen]

227bhp said:

Before I got to the bottom of your post I was thinking oh God, not this again, but also that Zippo lighters are carp and butane ones are much more reliable therefore a better design.

Fine

Feel free to post up your opinions on great designs

[cmvtec]

I have that same Zippo, although I no longer smoke.

I would like to contribute the Ray Ban Wayfarer sunglasses design.