The other day on the way back from a customer meeting I found an interesting article about the designer Peter Schmidt from Hamburg in the Lufthansa-Bordmagazin. Peter Schmidt seems to be a well known and self-confident man, who I didn't know before, but who designed the company logo and perfume flacons for Jil Sander (one of them is in the Museum for Modern Art in New York today), or whose cap the concise appearance of BOSS is on. In this article, Peter Schmidt demands an "Obama of good design," because he thinks that there is too much bad design in the world. Design, he says, suffers from the concessions to mass taste. That's true, I think.

Let's be honest: if you're driving towards ten different mid-range brands on the A 81 today, they all look somehow similar. That doesn't mean that they don't exist, products that are unmistakable, that have character, that are technically top, and that everyone wants to have (whether for work or in their private environment).

Most DIY enthusiasts and craftsmen, for example, think of HILTI when it comes to drilling machines. Why? Because with a HILTI you can perceive quality and performance with all your senses. You can see it in the unmistakable design, you can hear it in the sound of the engine, you can feel it when you pick up the machine, and you can recognize it by the result of your work. HILTI is not about hip, chic design, says German chief designer Stephan Niehaus in the magazine brand eins, but about conveying the values of the product through design.

Apple's a case like that. You also know: iPhone, iPod, iMac and so on. Just a few years ago, everyone thought of Nokia when it came to mobile phones. Today, Apple's iPhone is considered the ultimate in design AND functionality, even by people who have never worked with an Apple computer. The South German recently wrote that Apple earns so well because the products are well received. And why do the products arrive? Because the products are good AND look good.

And now to our grinding machines from the Multigrind® series. Do you remember what machines, whether grinding, milling or turning machines, used to look like? Usually they were green or blue and just looked like machines had to look like. The main thing was that they were technically perfect. The customer or the man at the machine didn't want more, but neither did the machine builders. Haas Schleifmaschinen were certainly no exception. But a lot has happened in the meantime. Today, a machine must not only be technically up-to-date and deliver excellent grinding results, it must of course also meet all the requirements of an ergonomically designed workplace. And I am convinced that it must also set standards in product design.

With our Multigrind® CB we have shown that this is possible. The innovative design of the Multigrind® CB, for which we also received a design award, visualizes the technical and ergonomic quality of this grinding machine. The value and technical innovations of a Multigrind® CB are also visible in the design. By the way, we hear this again and again during customer meetings. Thus the design, the appearance of a grinding machine from Haas Schleifmaschinen contributes to the success of the machine itself and of course to the development of the Haas Schleifmaschinen brand. Just like our logo or our bright, modern production hall, in which every visitor immediately feels at home.

We at Haas Schleifmaschinen make every effort to ensure that every new grinding machine from the Multigrind® series not only sets standards in terms of grinding technology and ergonomics, but also impresses our customers and users with its unmistakable line management. As the designer Kurt Weidemann so aptly put it on the subject of design: "A draft is not good when it is finished. It's finished when it's good."

And now I'm interested in your opinion: Do you value the design of a machine? Or don't you care what a machine looks like? Please write me a comment on this article.

Dirk Wember

PS: A trip to the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein is also worthwhile on the subject of design.