While in Spitalfields over the weekend I saw an beautiful retro drafting desk. The kind with wires and pulleys so it can go from flat to vertical and be aligned just right for whatever you’re working on. It got me thinking about what the dominant ergonomic desk paradigm would be for the 21st century. The 20th century has been about desks to write, type and now compute on. Drafting or art desks were rare.
Maybe, just maybe, with the advent of all these multi-touch screens, drafting desks would come back. They are better for working on this kind of interface, neither upright like in the Minority Report or flat out would work for these things in a single user situation.
And the steampunk in me hopes that 21st century drafting desks’ll keep all the pulleys, gears and polished wood too.
August 3rd, 2007 at 6:20 pm
As a student in the 60s I went out to buy a drawing board. This was pre-metric, so I had to choose based on the imperial sizes – they asked me whether I wanted a half elephant or a full elephant.
August 4th, 2007 at 9:44 am
Did you have to pay for that with chickens