Interface: People, Machines, Design

Interface: People, Machines, Design explores how design has been applied to information technology products; about how a handful of companies made complicated technology appealing and easy to use. What they did effectively was, look at what you do, think about what you need and create what you want. Interface is about the visionaries who started some of the great consumer product companies of the 20th century, including Olivetti, Braun and Apple, and how the designers and engineers they hired found a means of imparting their ideals into the products they designed.

Interface considers successful and not-so-successful design methods and approaches, influences and ideals that are shared by different companies and designers, in different parts of the world, at different times. In this publication we extract those threads and pay homage to the ideas, the designers, the companies and the devices that preceded the extraordinary information technology that is now a part of our everyday lives.

The publication features a conversation with revered Italian designer Mario Bellini in which he reflects on his design approach and philosophy, as well as essays by Museum curator Campbell Bickerstaff, design academic Jesse Adams Stein and technology journalist Seamus Byrne. It also features over 60 information technology design classics from the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences collection, spanning just over a century and including typewriters, radios, telephones, calculators, computers, portable media players, mobile phones and tablets.