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| Ken
Larson: Lead Industrial
Designer . . . |
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Won a competition
which determined the appearance of the first ever portable
cellular telephone, Motorola's original Dynatac phone which made
the cover of Popular Science. |
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Over 30 years of
product design experience at Motorola, Rick Springer & Associates,
and Mel Boldt & Associates. Ergonomics expert. |
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Holder of 32 design
patents. |
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Highly skilled in
design applications such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Streamline. Also skilled
in Photoshop, Cadmover (File Transfer application), Excel, Word processing
and Graphics. |
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Extensive knowledge
in the design of molded plastic parts, extrusions, sheet metal, castings,
escutcheons, and product labels. |
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| Ken's
15 Minutes of Fame |
| Back
in the early 70’s, Motorola was preparing to introduce a revolutionary
new product. Ken Larson was early into his career as an industrial designer.
As with any new invention, the big question is always, what will it look
like? So, Motorola decided to let all of their industrial designers each
propose a concept for what was to become the first portable cellular telephone.
Of the many designs conceived, Ken’s was chosen. He proudly admits that
his was not the most stylish concept. So why was it chosen? Because his
concept was readily perceived as manufacturable by both management and
engineering, an important factor lost on many of today's designers. |
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Ken’s design made
it possible for Motorola to reuse many of the components that Motorola
used in their portable two-way radios to make the first portable cellular
phone prototype. This was a critical factor since Motorola was under a
deadline by the Federal Communications Commission to demonstrate a full
working cellular telephone or the frequencies that were set aside for cellular
telephone service would be reallocated. The deadline was met and so the
first Motorola Dynatac was born. |
| When compared to
today's cell phones, the original Dynatac may appear a little prehistoric.
But consider, it was designed 30 years ago! To really appreciate Ken’s
styling ability, one only has look at the phone itself. After taking into
account that its large size (by today's standards) was dictated by the
technology in existence at the time, most people would say that it still
looks OK. Who can honestly say the same about the clothing and hair styles
of the 70’s. |
| I think that Ken’s
design has aged quite well. It was also no coincidence that the portable
cell phones produced by other manufacturers, at the time, looked similar
to Ken’s design. Motorola's UltraClassic series retained most of Ken’s
original styling and survived into the 90’s. Some are still in use today
in public safety and construction because of their rugged design. The UltraClassic
was replaced by the Flip Phone which represented the next big leap in cell
phone design. Unfortunately, by then, Ken had moved on to another division
of Motorola. It would have been interesting to see what the original Flip
Phone would have looked like had Ken played a part in its design. |
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Peter
Janko, President, Lumenelle, Inc.
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