oren meets world: teenage engineering: product design as art & aesthetic trends

This is the Deep Geek Industrial Complex, and we're gonna talk about what that really means. Today, we are gonna talk about products as art and the brand Teenage Engineering as a perfect example of it. We are in the aesthetics economy. Basically, every single thing that we buy or purchase, there's opportunity to make a more beautiful version of it or to geek out for a really specific niche. And this is something the brand Teenage Engineering, whether you've heard of them or not, has done an excellent job of. In this video, I'm gonna walk through their storytelling and why it's so good. I'm gonna talk about the speaker that I bought from them and what makes it special. I'm gonna talk about their medieval sampler, Nitecore, and this whole world of aesthetics and how people get into it and how to play trends into your products. Then we're gonna talk about aesthetic objects in general. I'm gonna dive a little bit deep into the fitness niche now that we've seen companies like Celine release weights and the whole cottage industry of just making things slightly more beautiful. And then I'm gonna talk about some of my favorite new brands who are doing things in that same space. But overall, it's a conversation around how everything in our homes and our lives is becoming more artistic, why that's a good thing, and what it means for our future. Let's kick off with Teenage Engineering. As you can see on their website here, a lot of the things that they make are musical equipment or related to music. Hop over into the product section. They have this popular field recorder, they have popular synthesizers, they have samplers, but they've also dove into some other items like actual desk sets, et cetera. What you'll notice is things like this field recorder that you see here, this is as simple as any kind of audio recorder, but they've gone above and beyond to make it particularly beautiful. That right blend of Dieter Rams and Bang & Olufsen, their own kind of signature style. And they charge a premium for these things versus anything you would see that would be in the same vein of what's actually available from a product perspective, from the actual features that you're buying, for this look and feel. That takes us to this first point of this world that we exist in today, where anything that's on the background behind me or on the desk sitting beside you, whether you're in real life or on social media, is kind of an opportunity to stand out. If something catches someone's eye for another second or two, that can make their video perform better. If you have something very interesting on a desk at work, it's a talking point with others. These different collections of products and brands that we purchase, that form our inherent experience as people and how people see us and how we perceive ourselves and feel about the environments that we're in. As we've grown more conscious of this with social media and seen all these beautiful interiors and all these beautiful things we can get, we think about our purchase decisions differently. While at the same time, the direct-to-consumer economy has meant that we have the ability to purchase things that honestly cost the same price sometimes as things that have been around for a long time or you're buying a certain brand value, to be able to kind of pick things that are more into our personal aesthetic and our personal visual sense of self. And this brand is a perfect example. They've zoned in on what I'll call the deep geek demographic. So in everything from these field desks that you see here to the toys that they offer, to all that audio equipment, they're looking at a certain type of person who is into the vintage, the design perspective and the aesthetics and is willing to pay a premium. For many people who look at this and go, why would this be three or $400 more than the normal thing I can buy? They'll understand that that demographic of folks who loves it and looks at it as a hobby chooses to purchase those things, not just for their function, but because it's an important moment for them. It's an art piece for them to build their style and their collection around. They're proud of that purchase choice. I could have gotten any number of speakers, but because I love Teenage Engineering's design aesthetic, because I've been into the ideas of the brand, the way they create things and want to own a piece of that experience, it became a natural choice for me to pay a bit of the premium to have something like this. And I also appreciate all the minor things and features they build in for people that really care. One of my favorite things about this speaker is it actually has like a rewind function where it records a certain amount of the things that have played through it, whether it's Bluetooth on my phone or whatever it is, and I can actually just turn that back and hit it anytime I want. So if I'm out and about in a different place, I can simply replay things that happened before. And it does that with a little visual cue of the actual rewind happening on top of the speaker. And the little things like that just provide a slight experience that I as a deep geek of my own appreciate. But what separates this brand isn't just the interesting look and feel of the products, it's the storytelling around it. I'm not gonna translate the German you see here on this website, but this sequencer and sampler launch is as immaculate told storytelling and the presentation of the product visually to the Kraftwerk style visuals that we see here, the DOS sequencer tagline. They're tying into that whole experience you've seen of German techno, of the history of this niche and industry and presenting a complete visual story that goes with it, videos that tie into it, and adding this whole element and dimension of the product that you simply don't see on much musical equipment or from any brands in general. So they're treating the product as art, not just from its visual design, but also from the story they tell around it and the branding and the marketing. There is a presentation that's brought to that campaign that is unlike any that you're seeing inside that space at all. Perhaps one of my favorites that ties into a trend that I've seen a lot recently and done a viral video on recently as well, it's called Nightcore, is this medieval sampler. So basically they took a normal musical sampler and made it D&D coded. They added on a whole number of these medieval buttons to it and they presented it in a very majestic fashion. They brought the druids out for the videos. So as I pop this video on screen here, you see the entire look and feel and style that they're going for as they present this product. And this is the kind of marketing that you don't see in your typical objects or interior items or even audio items release. But they're taking an entire visual world and it's very on trend now, and then really applying that to the niche that they're in, which happens to be audio equipment. And this kind of storytelling is all about creating an object aesthetic that ties to a visual idea. And so Nightcore is an interesting visual idea. One that we're seeing a lot of where there are cloaks and gauntlets and armor. Even when I was at Complex Con this last week, there was a brand there that had their mannequins like in full armor there. You're seeing chain mail jerseys from people like Umbro that I talked about in my viral products video. If you start to see these subcultures coming about online, you have the ability to take a product like they have and lean all the way into it. They did that with their fonts and the application on the product itself. And they did that with their marketing. And this whole idea of deep geek is the idea of taking those people that are really into one idea or one concept or one look and feel and creating something super specific for them. And there are hundreds of these cottagecore, coquette, any number of these kind of aesthetics you can dive into. One of my favorite ones if you really wanna go down the rabbit hole is this Aesthetics Wiki that I'm pulling up here. It's aesthetics.fandom.com. Where you can literally go by decade and go through what all the kind of aesthetics that are popular are. And there's just a whole archive of just like lists A to Z of every possible aesthetic that you could think of. From etherpunk to baby core to Christian girl autumn. Whatever it ends up being, you can actually click in and get ideas for things that may inspire some of your products or some of your designs. That has a subculture somewhere that's built into it. And obviously the more authentic you can rise out of these, the better. But as designers and creatives, finding some of those visual inspirations, understanding what resonates and then building that into your references is a really important thing to think about. Let's double click for a second on this aesthetic objects idea. How about everything in our homes or everything in our offices and our lives becoming slightly better looking. And this is really about the design and attention economy. Where more and more people now are design educated. And the concepts are easier to get as you begin to spend more time on YouTube. As you see more beautiful things. And now people with creative visions have an easier time than ever actually producing those because of the affordability and availability of whether it's factories or molds or production methods. One of the things that small companies just simply didn't have access to in like the pre-Alibaba era. And that combination of design skill sets, appreciation of creativity and aesthetics on social media, and availability of production means that almost anyone can create anything. I've done all these videos on websites like Pietra where you can go and find 10 ceramics factories around the world and produce something. Or make your own thing in marble, whatever it is. It is just something that if you had those ideas before, being able to go find your 3D artist online that's gonna be able to help you actually create the thing to produce and find that factory would be super hard. It now exists and you have the ability to do it direct to consumer at price points that are competitive. And the category that's the most funny to me, and one of the reasons I think we'll dive deep into it here, is the actual fitness economy around this. So this whole idea of a luxury home gym. So Celine, a noted fashion house, released a whole aesthetic line of luxury weights and Pilates equipment. And it ties to their demographic, right? A lot of people that do afford and buy Celine have a beautiful home. They're looking at how do they kind of create in a different category, something that people are worth paying a premium for. But it's just funny seeing this idea of a Celine kettlebell. It's actually beautiful and looks very functional. As opposed to some of these other kettlebells you'll see from different brands trying to do luxury weights where you wonder if they're usable at all. And you'll see they're applying all these trappings of luxury design aesthetics. It's something that does not need it whatsoever. But if someone's looking at putting together a beautiful home, or they're looking at putting together a beautiful space, they have an unlimited budget, then they're beginning to look at those options where there's an aesthetic standout. There's companies that base their whole existence around this, like this company, Pent, who I think really sell for the majority of their, to like hotel gyms, yacht gyms, inside existing apartment complexes. They make all these super aesthetic weight sets that have this kind of restoration hardware looking feel. Again, they're a little more focused on actually being very functional as well as having that look. You can go, say, buy this $9,500 gym equipment set for a luxury hotel that may actually care about what that presentation looks like, or want someone to share the gym on social media, versus people sheerly buying the product for the product reason. And this is this concept taken to its farthest point, where you're taking something whose function is exactly the same as an extremely affordable version and marking that price up to the full top of the luxury price points. That's where I like to really show things that highlight the contrast, where, because I do feel like this is a category where there's almost like no reason to buy things at this rate. This ties to all fitness. This company Nord has a treadmill that's $7,300 called the Springbok, all made out of wood. Or if you do wanna go purchase a piece of equipment that is also an art piece, if you're gonna have that sitting in your house and you do buy a expensive treadmill, having something that matches the aesthetic, maybe worth that couple extra thousand dollars for you, versus always trying to hide it away or being like, oh man, I don't want anyone to go into that room because we have this massive piece of equipment there. This helps solve that issue. There's now a cottage economy of brands out there that can take advantage of this inside whatever world they want to. So I have over here a little bit off screen a Rocco fridge. It's a vintage style fridge. Has a really unique look and feel. They also have some tech functions to it. I don't really use it for the tech functions. I have it mostly for aesthetics. But I said, hey, if I'm gonna have a garage fridge in a place where I film and make content, I want it to be a beautiful one. So you can kind of see here on their website the look that they have. But it basically becomes the, hey, what premium are you going to pay for that thing slightly above what you would have for a regular existing item? And I'm gonna bring up my friend Brandon's brand, Blythe, where he's doing a very similar thing where he has developed an aesthetic for his brand of steel, of wood, of kind of geometry, and said, hey, I'm gonna take completely normal everyday objects. I'm gonna take things like a tray, like a lamp, like a folder, like the thing I'm gonna use on my desk. I'm gonna apply a kind of brutalist, geometric aesthetic to it with his own feel. He's gonna document the process of doing that as a young designer and create a whole brand and identity around both the design of the objects and the presentation of them. And you'll see he has this kind of apple meets brawn meets like slight future studio look that is very uniquely his own with the colors that are his own as well. He's storytelling that, and he's basically moving through his design journey of someone who appreciates these things, who's creating their own things, and showcasing that online. And over time, that's going to mature and become something completely interesting and unique. And why I like to highlight this is because there's two ways to think about it that will end this video. The first is, how do I think about this as a creator or someone who wants to make something? And the second is, how do I think about this as a consumer? And should I partake in these items? So if you are a creative, I encourage you to think about things like this the way Brandon has. What is your aesthetic? What is your look? What defines it? If you were to have one person using that or dressed in it, who would it be? What are the kinds of visual tool kit you have you can create all your things around? If you've seen some of my Brandon items, I have this very Americana feel to the beginning of them. Or if I was to create any existing household item, how could I apply that same old vintage car aesthetic? How could I use those lines or put an eagle on it or have this kind of worn feel but that inherently feels right would be part of my aesthetic. Whereas Brandon's is obviously more brutalist, more steel. I encourage you to think about what world you wanna build. Teenage Engineering is building this Apple plus unique identity world they have, right? Where it's like you have this taken tech and vintage to its peak. And now we're adding in subcultures like medieval. And I wanna think about that exercise and actually make something. You don't have to roll out a whole brand the way that Brandon's done. You can take that one item and say, I wanna take one normal item in my life, I wanna design it to match this unique aesthetic I have, and I wanna see what kind of world I can build from that. And then how can I, within whatever budget or constraints I have, tell a really interesting story? And then as a consumer, think about, intentionally, about the items you buy. What price points are you paying for? Is it worth the premium to find someone who's trying to tell an interesting visual story that appeals to you? And then what interesting stories aren't being told inside your demographic? You're someone that's really into coquette and you don't have a great option for a bedside table or a lamp or whatever it is. Is that an idea that maybe you wanna bring into the world? And you can begin to look at, what are the impactful visual things in my life? What is gonna help my reel pop out on Instagram? I'll make my house, have something that really ties a room together. These are the opportunities we now have to think about those decisions and what actually matters to us and what's worth the money. But always have that in the back of your head that if something doesn't exist and you love it and you think a bunch of others would love it, is that a business you can start, an item you can create, or a story that you can tell. So appreciate y'all watching and talking through me through this video, this idea of products as art, this kind of interesting world that we're in. Appreciate any likes and subscribes. I'll see you in the next video.