Deconstructing Product Design

O-Series Scissors

Olof Bäckström for Fiskars, 1967

1. The use of scissors predates written history. The design has evolved from “spring scissors,” comprised of opposing blades connected by a curved metal piece, to the now more common “pivot” variety in which the opposing blades pivot around a fixed axis. After that, however, not much has changed — which means that the fundamental design of scissors, as we know them, is the product of about two thousand years of continuous refinement. Olavi Lindén, chief designer at Fiskars, comments: “All tools exist already: the basic implements, the axe and the knife and the spade. The same tools are still made at Fiskars as in primitive cultures. But they cannot be replicas of something old, they have to ...