Bad Design #13 — that’s beauti… uhh what’s that?

CitizenRod
Aug 23, 2017 · 2 min read

Lamps, there are thousands of them. Whatever tickles your fancy. Sizes, shapes, colours, materials, price, you name it, there’s a variation out there for you.

But even with all the differences between them, they all have one thing in common…

a power cable.

Now some designers take this into account and try their best to involve the cable within the design, great. But for the majority of lamp designers, it seems the power cable was never even a thought. It’s like they designed a beautiful piece of art and then said “Oh, now where should we stick this?”

And you can see this in the way lamps are presented on websites and catalogues. They hide the cable as best they can, maybe even Photoshop it out, tsk tsk tsk.

Look Ma, no cables…

So yes, there are constraints, and power is a big big constraint, but this is what designers are trained to work with, constraints. They’re not supposed to neglect them.

It’s always sad to see a great lamp design “ruined” by an ill-thought power cable.

Challenge to the techies. Here is a problem, with plenty of opportunity. What can you come up with? Rechargeable? Microwave? Did somebody say Nikola Tesla?

Show us what you got!


CitizenRod

CitizenRod is an entrepreneur, industrial designer, artist, and thinker. Follow his rants at citizenrod.com, his artwork at rodrigoantoniomunoz.com, and his startup at Maate.it.

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