Honest But Jarring

I've always had a certain respect for Kogan (or K-powerbutton-gan as they prefer to be known), their competitive pricing and perfectly middle ground designs proves a fantastic 'economy' option in todays world of almost worthless weekly consumer sales. 

To be honest the only reason that I have never seriously considered a Kogan product is that I am two much of a consumer whore to settle for middle ground - plain an simple.

My brand elitism aside Kogan is a (mostly) honest brand with simple ideas to prompt the masses to put down their hacksaws and save their arms and legs that they would otherwise spend on shinier (or more matte depending on the current trend) but technologically similar products.

The Kogan 'kicker' is as such:

Now I realise that this blog is no place for fence sitting so in that spirit I'll spare you the role of Kogan defender and simply illustrate what i dislike about their internet (that is wifi, fm, digital and iPod friendly) radio and why.

Firstly the thing that immediately gets me about this radio is that it looks like a culmination of every bad and incoherent drawing I've done over the past TWO WEEKS! 

The concentric circle control scheme makes sense as a basic all in one UI section of the device but just adds the the overall sense jarring of misbalance crated by the odd dominance and placement of certain circles on the front panel. The one stretched circle that borders the controls, screen and logo almost gives the front composition a sense of warped perspective - and I should know I just cleaned out the majority of an A3 pad practicing that sh#*%.

It seems like Kogan - or which ever company penned the design - though up a similar brief to ours: (in short) to recapture the wonder of the radio in the new age.

The small feet and curbed rectangular body are reminiscent of an amalgam of 40s radio design, just gone horribly wrong.

Perhaps to remedy the design a more pure simplistic aesthetic could have been employed with less of an emphasis on iPod connectivity…

Thats my waffle for the week,

thanks for reading

Images (if they work this week) courtesy of the Kogan website: http://www.kogan.com.au

--By Tahl