I was reading my email this morning. I get this great daily email update from CrunchGear – a part of the vastly popular TechCrunch website. I saw this bright red super fancy computer mouse on there. My blood started pumping and I couldn’t click fast enough to see more pictures of this cool new mouse.
All of the sudden my cheap little mouse came screeching to a halt when I saw the price – $99!!!
What really surprised me was the auto-fill on the search box at Amazon when I typed in Logitech MX performance mouse.
These search auto-fills are generated by the most popular searches. So, lots of people were also looking for this mouse.
OK, it’s pretty but is anyone actually willing to pay that much money for a computer mouse? Apparently so – there are over 627 reviews for this mouse.
Yep, design matters. Still in sticker shock, I thought about this a little more. On a consumer product, beauty and design are really important. They are. It’s not just about personal visual appeal but we all enjoy showing our friends and neighbors and friends a beautiful product that we own. Just look at all the people that buy fancy sports cars.
But, when we are making these decisions, we all make sure that the product quality, workmanship, durability, performance, and product life match and exceed the beauty of the product.
If you’ve been following this blog, you’ve heard me say over and over that you should see the light source and not the light. So why is this fixture made out of solid copper and, frankly, really a stunningly beautiful fixture?
Well, the solid copper performs two functions. It’s incredibly sturdy unlike the all-too-common plastic fixtures on the market. But the copper serves another purpose. It patinas over time. The patina will allow your solid copper fixtures to blend nicely into your landscape.
What’s interesting is study this picture further to find the other identical fixture in the picture. If this fixture wasn’t so far in the foreground of this photo, we’d likely have a hard time seeing it also. The copper does happen to blend beautifully with the popular pinestraw landscaping material.
So what is it – should the light source be hidden or seen? Well – both. With architectural lighting on the home, you have the opportunity for the lights to be hidden in the shrubbery at the front of the home. But, on a path, you really have no choice but to see the outdoor lighting fixture. So, in that case, make sure it’s both beautiful and durable. When a lighting fixture is not hidden by landscaping or protected by its proximity to a tree or other structure, it will get kicked, run over by kids bikes and more. So make sure your structure is strong enough to withstand the test of time.