Character Driven

Posted by Rob Walker on August 6, 2006
Posted Under: Consumed,Subculture Inc.

This week in Consumed: Mimoco: Why form needs functionality — however vague.

Cheap, boring devices don’t sit still for very long these days before somebody comes along to breathe new life — and profit margins — into them, through clever aesthetics. So it is with flash drives, which have lately become the raw, functional device onto which a variety of design identities has been layered. The most compelling example may be Mimobots, the creations of Mimoco, a “designer- toy studio meets consumer electronics brand” based in Boston that has pulled the drives into the context of collectibles.

Read the rest of the column at the NYT Magazine site, via this no-registration-required link.