The main challenge with this design was to try to create a portable TV for the same price as normal 14inch TV’s. The product manager knew that people who buy a 14-inch TV considered it small enough to be portable. However, when you added the cost of a handle, it pushed the price point of the product up enough to reduce the sales quantities by almost 50%. The real innovation in this product was that I was able to design a true (fully enclosed round form ergonomic) handle on the top of the set using the front and back moldings that did not require any additional parts or expensive sliding cores in the tool, thus adding a visible on a store shelf (very important requirement to sell the set) portable benefit for users for free! Commercially being able to claim portability at the same price as normal TV’s gave us a huge advantage and many additional positions on store shelves.
Having solved that problem quickly, I looked for other ways to gain advantages and given that I now had a little more time on hand than normal, I was able to spend that time thinking through how the set would look and how I might maximize the technology I was given.
A 14-inch TV was the most basic TV you could buy in the 80’s. The tubes came from one of the oldest molds, which meant the screen had a very rounded ball like profile. This was a huge disadvantage at the time as the general design direction of TV’s was that they were looking more sophisticated because tubes were getting flatter and so were the cabinets designed around them. The goal being to fit the tube and frame as tightly (or seamlessly) together as possible. In 1991 no designer wanted to design this 14inch product because it had the oldest technology and therefore if they followed the normal design trend to manipulate the form of the plastic casing to make the set look as flat as possible it would result in an old fashioned looking product. This was because when you followed the conventional aesthetic convention with an old curved 14inch screen, the corners of the frame got even deeper making the screen look even older and more old fashioned. You know the story, the more you lie, the more it looks like you are lying about something! I figured the conceptual direction the market was taking was basically flawed for this set and a more honest approach was called for. The resultant design of being true to the form of the screen resulted in a refreshing more technologically sophisticated and desirable form because by following the form of the screen and focusing on creating the tightest integration of screen and plastic frame, the deep corners were eliminated.
As I sketched out the idea on a flight to Milan, it became clear to me that I had just arrived at a very different feeling value proposition for the market. Something much more friendly than the square box approach, which I reasoned would be a better feel for what was normally the TV used in bedrooms or given to children.
There were many technical challenges set up by taking that conceptual direction, not least of which was how to convince a factory of development engineers that this was even possible as it flew directly in the face of their conventional engineering wisdom. i.e. to make the cabinet front much thinner than normal seemed to them to reduce the rigidity of the cabinet too much. I have always relished collaborating with great engineers to solve technical problems set up by a change in design concept together. In this instance I think I had the very best engineering team in the world, a group from the Philips TV factory in Monza, Italy.
In Italy engineers see design as the discipline providing the direction in a project and their role as engineers as solving the problems to make this concept work. This poor team had spent the past decade being asked to make some very strange and highly questionable designs. With this project, we got to produce a concept that they believed in and that made the collaboration all that much sweeter as we knew that we were working together to achieve a concept that looked commercially viable and at the same time was going to challenge us to solve engineering challenges Philips had not yet achieved. A challenging problem with a great chance of commercial success is always a project people want to be involved in. Yes, the designer has the responsibility/pleasure to set the direction in Italy, but they also have the corresponding responsibility to lead the engineering team in a solid direction and not towards a wasted effort. I never expect an engineering team to solve something technical that I cannot envision myself and together we all spent many days brainstorming and coming up with alternatives until we solved all our production problems.
Going for the flush fit screen hugging cabinet direction set the visual look and feel of this product which would produce a result that was true to its technology, rather than trying to hide it and as a result made it credible and unique in the market. But that was not enough.
The most amazing thing about this design is that it took only 3 weeks from start to finish for me to produce the design, so certain was I that the direction was right. One concept, one shot, while I was running a team of designers, this was a project that no-one wanted that I just took on to get it out in time.
The success of this concept was proven through its sales. It became the longest running TV Philips produced and I saw it used in countless ads by other companies. I love this design and was really rewarded by the number of other designers in Philips who came up to me and said, hey I bought your TV last week and I love it!
My designs are never flashy, tend not to be the standout trendsetter or become the cover shot on a magazine though that certainly happened more than once! However, they solve real user and commercial problems and prove their value through longevity.