Amazon Kindle 'a Bit Sad,' Designer Says

I've been hesitant to post about it, although to some family members I have boasted how bold it was for Amazon.com to come up with a product similar to the iPod, but for books.

I'm assuming, when he started the site, Mr. Bezos had the intention to get people interested in books, by, selling books (on the internet). His site has taken off, gone through some ups and downs like most companies, but I'm assuming has made enough profit to design either what he initially hoped to do or.
b. something he got an idea to do after he started making money.

as with google, starbucks, panera, and similar establishments/corporations, I view them as 'artist types' or generally nice people with an idea to break into the corporate world by making people a profit, yet, exposing people to great things (google wants to simplify everyones life yet expand people's knowledge and give them everything at their fingertips, starbucks charges a lot for a cup of coffee, but are doing so to give their employees a 401k and help out the farmers in the foreign companies they're importing from, panera (i'd assume) wants to provide an alternative fast food with a classy, relaxed environment).

I personally believe these companies (and i'm sure many more) have gotten into the corporate game to make a difference, for the better.
you need money to live, so if you can make a living and try to better peoples lives, why not.


i forgot what my point was, but it's almost a little sad that the response from the kindle is that "Amazon Kindle 'a Bit Sad,' Designer Says".

Before I go further, I want to explain that I don't blame the designer for critiquing the or just any product. he's a designer. he's an artist. to be either, you need to look at every piece of work you're competing with in an objective manner, with a critique that everything you do is better, or, you can somehow do what they took from nothing, and make it better by looking at what they've done.

What makes this bad is according to the article "Amazon should consider it got off lightly from the critique. Earlier in his speech Starck said most products today are designed only for profit and without consideration for those who use them. They are "10 percent useful and 10 percent [expletive]," he said."

but, at the top of the article, the article states ""In this type of product, the best design is the least design possible," said Starck. That means it should be small, simple and strong, and not distract from the content, which should be the most interesting part.

The Kindle almost achieves that, "but the designer wasn't quite humble enough to completely disappear, so he made a little slope here, a diagonal there," Starck said. "It's a little sad because the concept is modern, but the design is less modern, because the designer doesn't want to disappear.""

Ok.

So, basically what this article and almost every other headline i've seen is trying to grab peoples attention by the headline "Amazon Kindle 'a Bit Sad,' Designer Says".

Now, most Americans, as busy as we are, probably don't care that much about the Kindle (me not included, i think it's a great idea), that the majority of people probably won't actually read the article. Since they're not going to read the article, they're not going to know that this designer actually thinks this is a decent product. Especially when he compares it to other products, he (what i'm inferring from the article) thinks this could use some work, but overall, it's not that bad of a design.

If you give Mr. Starck, for arguments sake, a picture or a miniature model of a Hummer H3, I could almost guarantee he would consider this product to be one more than "10 percent [expletive]," he said."

Point being, on my end, is that Amazon.com actually had a good intention, especially right around Christmas, to release a book reader and hope that people will buy it and be interested in books, instead of whatever people do now.

The Kindle has been out for a few weeks with some press coverage, but nothing calling it the next iPod or anything. And now, on top of almost all internet news sites regarding it, the general population that doesn't care about books and just scans through the headlines will assume the product, as a whole, is sad. Instead of the fact that this designers only problem with it is that the DESIGN is "a Bit Sad".

sigh.