Deconstructing Product Design

Transistor Radio TR-610

Sony, 1958

1. When Akio Morita introduced the first Sony transistor radio to retailers in the United States, they incredulously asked him, “Why are you making such a tiny radio? Everybody in America wants big radios. We have big houses, plenty of room. Who needs these tiny things?” Undaunted, Morita pressed the argument that small, portable radios would allow users to take their music with them and enable listening to the kind of music they wanted — the portable radio would individualize music. It turns out Morita was right, and consumers bought the radios in droves. The more portable, the better. The trend toward the small and compact clearly favored Japanese culture at that time (and arguably to this day), a culture ...