Why are some products just crap? A rant.

I'm always fascinated by where ideas come from.

My own inspiration behind a new idea often comes from constructive discontent.

Constructive discontent is when you’re unhappy with a certain product or situation and you then take that discontent and do something constructive with it - make something better.

Ten years ago I wrote the piece below about how certain categories of products routinely disappointed me. My thoughts are are still valid today, and one of those categories was the seed of my first ever Kickstarter project for which I had the aim to build a better razor.

Here’s what I wrote in May 2014, with some minor updates.

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Why are some products just crap?

I’ve noticed that some categories of product have a much greater tendency to be uglier than others. It’s as if there’s only a certain amount of aesthetic currency to go round and some things have to lose out.

Three unfortunate examples of such losers are razors, hi-fi equipment and luxury watches.

Turbo power kapow! razors

By razors I mean wet-shave razors with a handle and replaceable heads. You’ll spot these because they’re typically advertised alongside sportsmen, motorbikes and explosions.

Personally, I find shaving quite a tranquil experience - first thing in the morning soundtracked by the Today programme on Radio 4. It’s not a time when I want to be shouted at by an over-engineered, nuclear-powered piece of colourful metal and plastic.

`Gillette Fusion Power Gamer (that really is what it’s called)`

Successive generations of product managers and marketers universally and reliably seem to have decided that each successive iteration of the product should just have an extra blade and more colourful plastic parts.

Perhaps I’m being unfair because planned obsolescence is a key factor in their business and by that measure they’re doing a great job, but either way it leaves me unsatisfied, and is terrible from an environmental point of view.

`Wilkinson Sword Royale by Kenneth Grange, 1979`

It’s not impossible to design a good-looking razor. The great Kenneth Grange has designed some for Wilkinson Sword in the past, but in my opinion today’s popular models lack a certain class.

I’m not alone in my appreciation for that vintage Wilkinson Sword design — I’ve seen originals of those razors selling on eBay for well over $100.

Next time you’re in the supermarket have a look at the choice for yourself. Maybe it’s just me but I find it disappointing. And that’s before you get home and have to tackle the life-threateningly sharp plastic packaging. Is this really the best a man can get?

[A year or so after I wrote this piece I founded the Ockham Razor Company as an outlet to my constructive discontent.]

Hi-Fis

I realise that there may be a declining market for hi-fi equipment, but their ugliness seems to have been a theme over time. Indeed, these days aesthetics should arguably be all the more important now that the competition is more diversified.

To make my point, see what you think of the Cyrus CD player for well over £1,000, or the Parasound Halo CD1 which cost £5,000 [ten years ago].

This phenomenon isn’t restricted to ancient technologies such as CD players. Cutting-edge and critically-acclaimed models are also being dragged through the design hedge backwards. [Ten years ago anyway!]

Take the award-winning Naim UnitiLite for £2,000 or the Krell Connect, a £3,000 audio streaming box.

Again, counterexamples prove that there isn’t a fundamental law of acoustic engineering that limits beauty. There has been some great looking design from Dieter Rams and Braun over the years, combining form and function in perfect harmony the way they do. More recent examples exist too - like this below from Yamaha.

Of course, as with the razors, this is all very subjective. I could find ugly examples of all sorts of products. But with hi-fi equipment ugliness seems to be endemic, and there’s an inverse correlation between price and how much I’d want the product on display in my living room.

[I actually think things have improved a lot in the last ten years since I originally wrote this, but particularly with the most expensive hi-fi equipment out there, there’s still some really bad-looking stuff available.]

Bling watches

I’m sure there are other classes of products sitting in design blind spots, but razors and stereos have rankled me for a while.

I wouldn’t automatically put watches in this category because there are many lovely watches out there. But many incredibly expensive watches do corroborate my argument that money doesn’t necessarily buy taste.

Watches are quite tightly constrained in terms of size and form factor. Perhaps this is why, to justify the ridiculous prices desired by people with more money than sense, watchmakers contrive to produce some truly hideous watches by adding and adding and adding.

The DeWitt WX-1 will set you back nearly £700,000. That in itself is obscene, but based on looks alone I would genuinely pay a small monthly fee to not wear it.

That’s an extreme example of course, but there are many more where that came from.

Judge for yourself via this link to some watches from Harrods which is sorted by highest price first.

These watches have prices comparable to cars, or even houses, yet they’re aesthetically nauseating.

Veblen Goods

With products as expensive as those ridiculous watches at Harrods, the usual forces of economics don’t really apply.

Normally, as prices go up demand for a product will go down. But sometimes the opposite is true, and there we have Veblen Goods. They’re desirable because they’re expensive. People with too much money want to buy something more expensive than the next guy with too much money.

Beautiful products

Beauty, of course, is in the eye of the beholder.

Luxury watches and high-end audio equipment aside, there’s great pleasure to be had in owning and using beautiful products - even a £5 razor. I just wish companies would stop over-complicating things and focus on making simple, beautiful, usable products.