INDUSTRIAL DESIGN | Braun 2 :: Rethinking the Braun Aromaster KF 20 ::: Richard Wilson, 2010

Description

Re-imagining the classic Braun Aromaster KF 20 coffee maker by Florian Seiffert. The aim was to combat design obsolescence through aesthetics (iconic influence) and maintenance (designed for disassembly).

Photo > Koichi Okuwaki

Richard Wilson is completing his Master’s in Industrial Design at the University of Leeds where his interests include Industrial Design and 3-D Modeling. If I were on the lookout for talent, I’d snap him up and give him a job right away.

When I first saw Richard’s rendering of his redesigned coffee maker for Braun, I was fooled — I thought it was a photograph of an actual product and I wanted one!

Braun has been up and down with its industrial design ever since the company was sold, first to Gillette and then to P&G. The current coffee maker (below) can’t compete with either the original Seiffert design or Richard’s redo. It’s awkward and clumsy and I wouldn’t want it cluttering up my kitchen counter.

The original KF 20 is such an icon of 20th-century industrial design that it is featured on the cover of the book Braun: Fifty Years of Design and Innovation:

I love how Richard’s design pays homage to, but does not mock, the original KF 20. In many ways I think his design is an improvement on the original. The KF2010 is one sensual coffee maker. As Gizmodo put it, this machine has been remade for the Jetsons. And that’s a good thing!

I hope that the executives at Braun see Richard’s design and get him involved in their design studio. I, for one, would snap this design up if it were commercially available (and his other industrial designs are pretty cool, too!).

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