Kelley: The Enorme Phone Failed Commercially Despite Widespread Acclaim
David Kelley · HIBT Lab! IDEO: David Kelley · Jul 28, 2022 · at 12:13
IDEO founder David Kelley reflects on creating the iconic Enorme telephone in a joint venture with Italian architect Ettore Sottsass.
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“But neither of us were much of a business person, and so we designed this phone and had them produced, but it just, as beautiful as it was, it appealed to designers, and so it sold to designers, but it wasn't functional enough to be a big hit, because AT&T was giving away phones, had about the same feature set as this, so it was on the cover of every magazine, and I now still have two cards, lifetime membership to MoMA in New York.”
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