2009 – 2011
in the early 2000s I was so anoyed of the product design. Everything looked the same, cars, phones, stereos, yust different in size but same kitchy plastic bubble look. Boy was I anoyed! So i looked at the products I liked and they were all – old and manufactured and from “real” materials.
I came up with the idea of some wooden classy computer hardware with art nuveau influence and no, the term steampunk had not yet appeared back then.
Few years later I had developed this keyboards and was willing to sell. These N°2 models were made from real wood, not bamboo or dyed plastics. The keys were made from those old metal typewrighter keys. I found somebody to sell me few thousend. He had got them from of an old austrian typewrighter manufactorer when they closed in the 1960s. They were made of brass so I had most of them nickel coated.
I handmade fabric coated cables – ofcourse.
It was the first time that I actually made a design concept meant to be produced, using CAD, rapid prototyping, teaching myself Adobe Illustrator for that. In the end I build three, sold two and then stoped making them because I had to study design…
Fun fact – 3d printing was totally unavailable those days so i really built the key sockets from normal plastic ones, all onehundred-something and then added the metal paper and glas onto them.
During those years I also experimented with mobile phones and other electronics and loved the whole steampunk idea ending up making stage designs for a metal band … ofcourse.
And a decade later, after studying design and regretting that whole retrograde idea i would exhibit this keyboard in with a tiny, naked black and white CRT TV tube at the Analog Mania IX, 2021.
