It’s taken me a year to get to know my mobile phone.
I can now find a number and dial it, listen to music and
send humorous cartoon messages on people’s birthdays.
In the course of that year I’ve lost the stylus twice,
dropped the phone quite a lot and scratched the screen a
bit. The ‘paint finish’ – actually a spray coat of iridescent,
almost-black plastic – keeps peeling annoyingly just
around the on-off switch, and there are sundry dings
and dents. Par for the course really.
I suppose I’d be quite happy to keep this phone. It
doesn’t have a camera or a fold-out keyboard, so it
doesn’t look as though it’s annoyingly trying to hybridise
into something else. It’s actually rather sleek and cool.
It could almost have been designed by Apple – but
it wasn’t. A friend of mine said recently – in obvious
reference to my non-Apple but nevertheless leathercovered
and ploughing-its-own-design-furrow-quitenicely
laptop – that to own anything made by Apple is
like owning a piece of science fiction, a peeled and cored
slice of the near future that somehow suggests that one
day all things will be as glamorous and elegant.
'I'm starting a campaign to reintroduce tactility and encourage people to buy the real thing. Metal pens for a start, and furniture made from solid wood.'
And glossy. That’s one thing I’ve noticed about Macs
and iPods: they’re very shiny. Those of us who still tramp
the dusty roads of Windows and Walkman can only
dream of such perfection. Our tools are matt: printed
and painted, not lacquered. The lettering rubs off and
the metal finish turns out to be silver spray, which I think
explains why Apple owners remain so attached to their
wares. Not only are the products beautiful and functional
but they also have surface qualities. Jonathan Ive, Design
Director at Apple, has achieved something quite rare
– he’s made plastic into a tactile, luxury material.
Which is some trick I can tell you. When PVC was
introduced 50 years ago it was considered the luxury,
multi-coloured alternative to boring old leather. Hence my
red and green PVC three-inch stack shoes of 1975. Now,
materials like leather, stone, metal and wool are considered
luxurious; quite ironic given that 200 years ago they
were the things that held the life of the average peasant
together. Today it’s quite possible to rise in the morning
from polyester sheets, dress in polyester and viscose, and
go and sit on a plastic chair next to a plastic-coated desk.
Pen? Plastic. Bog seat? Plastic. Phone? Painted plastic.
No wonder we like wood and leather and glass and
ceramic. Not because they’re in any way ‘luxurious’ –
they’re not – but because they immediately feel different.
I really don’t want to throw my phone away now it’s all
scratched, but it’s lost all the qualities that I loved when
I bought it. That’s because all those qualities were visual,
not tactile. Now it’s just another piece of dull plastic.
Whereas the old Pentax K1000 SLR camera I bought
decades ago still feels good because it’s made from finely
engineered metal and glass. Where the paint’s chipped
off there are glints of aluminium and brass, not cheap
crud. As it’s got older, the thing’s actually developed a
patina. I don’t think that even a scratched old iMac has a
patina. So I’m starting a campaign to reintroduce tactility
and encourage people to buy the real thing. Metal pens
for a start, and furniture that’s made from real solid wood
and upholstered with horsehair or silk or proper leather.
And if possible, a mobile phone made from burr walnut
with mother-of-pearl inlay and a knitted woollen case.
Are you planning a Grand Design? If so,
I would love to hear from you. Get in touch with the
Grand Designs team directly on 01494 733 538 or
email granddesigns@talkbackthames.tv
