A RETURN TO TRIUMPH

They say that when trying to inspire the early Apple employees in charge of designing the plastic mold that would serve as the Apple II’s case, Steve Jobs showed them a favourite kitchen appliance. What a tragedy. It’s a cruel fate to have probably the single most influential person in product design of the last half century inspired by nineteen-seventies’ blenders. Instead of steering the world into a magical era of rugged, bulletproof designs that are military grade, last forever and look cool as hell to boot, we are headed for a world that looks like I, Robot. Not Johnny Mnemonic, not Blade Runner. I-fucking-Robot. Why couldn’t have Steve Jobs ridden a Triumph motorcycle?

If that’s not the coolest motorycycle you’ve ever seen, you’re doing it wrong. And your friends probably hate you.

As someone who has only an extremely marginal impact on the aesthetic flavour of the world, I find it frustrating that so many people are unable to embrace that kind of rugged perfection, but instead insist on blindly perpetuating the myth that post-modern inspired design should hold any place in visions of the future. And don’t tell me you actually like that style of design because you’re lying and you have no soul.

I’m not a fan of militarism or war or any of that stuff, but I am a fan of military design. Military design is the quintessential example of form following function. Not only that, but form following flawless function. The only thing that matters when it comes to military design is that it works and works well. If it doesn’t, people die and your team loses. If the planet focused more on functional design—both in a fundamental and aesthetic sense—maybe we’d function better as people and as a society. Instead we are more focused on making shit look like blenders, and most of the things we create hardly perform their intended function. But by god, they have sleek edges. The dysfunction of design is mirrored at every point on the spectrum, including from the perspective of society as a whole. A stretch? For the purposes of this article, no it is not.

No more dysfunctional design. From now on let’s let flawless function truly speak for itself. Here’s to a return to Triumph. Motorcycles, that is.

Addendum: I don’t really know what I’m talking about in regards to product design, I just wanted to make a controversial article that would drive some traffic. *snee snee*