Deconstructing Product Design

Tykho AM/FM Radio

Marc Berthier for Lexon, 1997

1. In his explorations of media, Marshall McLuhan asserted that “the medium is the message,” meaning that the medium itself communicates information and ultimately influences the interpretation of the message. There is perhaps no better example of this observation in product design than the Tykho radio. Given its toylike patina, the radio has received a surprising degree of acclaim, including induction into the Museum of Modern Art, featured on the cover of the Time magazine issue focused the rebirth of design (the subhead was “Function is out. Form is in”), and recognized by the Pompidou Center in Paris as one of the two objects that best signify the years 1985 – 2000 — presumably because it ...