Deconstructing Product Design

Glock 17 Pistol

Glock, 1982

1. Considered one of the great firearm innovations of the twentieth century, the Glock 17, a designation derived from the gun being Glock’s seventeenth patent, was developed in a competition to supply the Austrian military with a new duty pistol. Prior to this competition, Glock’s company had no experience with handgun design, but with manufacturing plastic kitchen boxes, ammo belts, shovels, and utility knives. What possessed Gaston Glock, an engineer by training, to believe that he could create a world-class, combat-quality handgun? “That I knew nothing was my advantage,” he says. Glock began work on his gun in 1980, purportedly test-firing prototypes with his left hand so that if one blew up, he could continue ...