Why do some sets demand a high price, where others sell cheaply?
A. Designers used to talk about ‘form following function’, which was a way of saying that tables should look like tables, radio sets like radio sets and so on. It is an obviously circular argument which begs the question ‘What then should a radio that looks like a radio look like?’ and is often discredited nowadays, but there is some point to it – consider the 1930s Ekco radio designs of Wells Coates. Presumably he started with the shape of the loudspeaker and wrapped the entire design around that device, the outcome being the ’round’ Ekcos, simple uncluttered elegance, none better than his very first models and, some would argue, never bettered in visual terms by any radios before or since. Interestingly, the Wells Coates designs do not slavishly follow the fashion for Art Deco styling – they are more influenced by streamlining, in fact. Coates was, of course, an avant-garde architect and that background perhaps allowed him to resist the pressure for the excesses of Deco. The British
A. Designers used to talk about ‘form following function’, which was a way of saying that tables should look like tables, radio sets like radio sets and so on. It is an obviously circular argument which begs the question ‘What then should a radio that looks like a radio look like?’ and is often discredited nowadays, but there is some point to it – consider the 1930s Ekco radio designs of Wells Coates. Presumably he started with the shape of the loudspeaker and wrapped the entire design around that device, the outcome being the ’round’ Ekcos, simple uncluttered elegance, none better than his very first models and, some would argue, never bettered in visual terms by any radios before or since. Interestingly, the Wells Coates designs do not slavishly follow the fashion for Art Deco styling – I believe they are more influenced by streamlining and modernism. Coates was, of course, an avant-garde architect and that background perhaps allowed him to resist the pressure for the excesses of Dec
