This is great! Thanks everyone for your thoughtful responses. I feared that the idea of how, or if, we derive a sense of meaning from a product or a company may be too abstract. This is something I have been wrestling with for a while now and I’m thrilled to see how others are responding to the topic. Evan had a great suggestion as to how I might clarify the question. His suggestion for another way to ask the question might be, “What does RBW means to you -- that is, what attracts you to it and how do you explain/account for that attraction?” I think this was a nice way to ask the question (which is what happens when a writer writes it instead of a designer!).
I guess I should have thrown in my own take on the subject. As a designer, I’ve worked for lots of companies where they created products that they may or may not have cared about. Design choices were often driven by marketing reports and focus groups more than some sort of core beliefs. The times I’ve loved my job the most were those where the company operated from their beliefs more than the latest focus group reports. From my view, RBW seems to exist, promote and continue to evolve around things that Grant and others at RBW believe in. He proves that taking a strong position in design may repel some but will also attract people with whom those beliefs and resulting products resonate. As I often tell my students, the stronger position you take will increase the chances that you will alienate some people but it will also increase the depth of connection you may make with those with whom your designs resonate. I admire that RBW believes in MUSA, steel, lugs, craft, wool, small manufacturers in Europe and Japan, etc. My industry went through an “authenticity” kick in the early 2000’s but it struck me as an industry buzzword with no content backing it up. RBW products don’t have to market authenticity, it just is. I thought exposing students to this may reveal an option that many are unaware of when they come to design school. With the exception of a few particularly unsettled years, I’ve always enjoyed cycling, did a little road and mountain racing, but mostly just enjoyed bikes and riding. I’ve almost always ridden steel bikes, some lugged, some not. As bike design became driven more by the racing world, the more I embraced my love of steel bikes. When I was introduced to Grant and RBW, I had aluminum MTB I didn’t like and a tig-welded road bike I did. The craftsmanship of Riv bikes represented a caring that I had been witnessing slip away in my industry. The prices didn’t strike me as exorbitant since the craft was evident and I understood the value and costs associated with their production methods and low volumes. When I finally bought my Hillborne, I saw it as analogous to purchasing a piece of finely crafted furniture. Riding it clarifies what I always loved about using a bicycle for exercise, recreation and enhancing the sensory experience of getting where I need to go… as well as a few places I didn’t know I needed to go until I got there. Riv products and bikes seem to align with my values as a designer and person. In doing so, this helps clarify how I want to design and live going forward. The Hillborne makes sure I don’t lose sight of that by revealing how fun it can be. John On Wednesday, February 17, 2016 at 4:10:42 PM UTC-8, Surlyprof wrote: > > For those of you who don’t know me, in addition to wanting a Rivendell > bicycle for years, owning a Hillborne for a year or two and being a member > of this group for over a year, I am also a professor of Industrial Design. > This semester I have been teaching my course entitled, “Design and > Meaning”. The goal of the course is to prompt our students to explore > various roles that meaning plays in the industrial design profession. A > portion of the time we look at the more artistic side of design and how > designers express ideas using industrial design as a medium for > expression. Another aspect of the class covers semiotics and semantics and > how designers can utilize form to communicate function. The third topic of > the course deals with meaning that people associate with and attach to the > built environment that surrounds them. As one of the lectures, I’ve been > trying to pull together a lecture about RBW. It seems to me that there are > interesting connections between RBW, Grant’s ideas and meaning for many of > us who own Rivendell bikes and accessories, belong to this group and/or the > Facebook group, and believe in a cycling lifestyle that may veer from > current mainstream bicycle culture. This is where my question lies… How > do you connect meaning (however you interpret that) with RBW, Grant’s > writings, bicycles in general and the design of bikes and other goods at > RBW (as well as B,B&H)? Are there design choices made at RBW that boosts > that sense of meaning? > > > Rather than presenting the students with just my take on that subject, I > thought I'd solicit the thoughts of group members. I’d be happy to field > your thoughts via private responses but, if everyone is OK with this as a > topic of open discussion, I think it might be a fun one to be shared in the > group forum. Also, this is intended only for a course > lecture/presentation and, even in that limited audience of 24 students, I > will do all I can to protect every individual’s anonymity. If this grows > into something particularly interesting worth publishing somewhere, I would > want to communicate with contributors before publishing anything anywhere. > > > So, there it is… any thoughts? > > John > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
