联想ThinkPad：经典设计背后的故事
Miguel Helft | 2013-06-18 10:54
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[译文]
A few rows of airline seats are bolted to the floor in a room with sweeping views of the North Carolina countryside at Lenovo's U.S. headquarters in Morrisville. It's an incongruous sight, until you realize that if you are going to make one of the most enduring tools for business travelers, well, you need to make sure it's going to work well on airplanes.
The room is a showcase for the ThinkPad, the iconic black-box notebook computer that IBM (IBM) first introduced in 1992. Twenty-one years and dozens of models later, Lenovo, which bought IBM's PC business in 2005, is still making ThinkPads, which are instantly recognizable as descendants of that original model. Indeed, the ThinkPad is not only one of the bestselling business laptops of all time, but also the most enduring design in the history of the computer industry.
Much of the responsibility for the ThinkPad's slowly evolving look falls on David Hill, 56, a soft-spoken Oklahoman, who joined IBM in 1985. He took over design of the ThinkPad line in 1995, as IBM was considering how to update a three-year-old computer that had become a mega-hit.
"The question was, What are we going to do now?" Hill says of the time when he joined. "My view was that if it is not broken, why fix it?" The ThinkPads were selling so well that they had sparked a string of copycats. "So why not make it better?" he asked.
Hill and his team of designers in North Carolina and Japan have been doing that ever since.
The first ThinkPad was conceived by Richard Sapper, a renowned German-born designer. Sapper envisioned a device that would have the simplicity of a cigar box or a bento box. The process was not without hiccups. When Sapper chose a particular kind of red for a pointing stick that would be embedded into the keyboard to control the cursor, IBM's product safety group balked. Red, apparently, could only be used for emergency shutoff buttons, says Hill.
Sapper quickly came up with a workaround. He varied the tone a bit a created a new color that he called "IBM magenta." After the new color got the okay from the product safety police, he gradually reverted the tone back to the red he had originally chosen, and no one seemed to notice. Nowadays, the red dot is an integral part of the ThinkPad design, and one that still elicits strong reactions: Users either love it or hate it.
Over the years, ThinkPads got faster, slimmer and lighter, of course. But their design, while staying true to the original concept, also embraced innovation. Among the most iconic models was the ThinkPad 701c, unveiled in 1995. It was a 10-inch box whose "butterfly keyboard" expanded when users opened the machine, allowing them to type on a full-size keyboard. It became part of the design collection at New York's Museum of Modern Art. The ThinkPad was also the first laptop to come with a pop-up second screen, and the first to have a detachable base so users could travel without the extra weight of a CD drive.
Hill is fond of highlighting design details like the shape of the ThinkPad's keys, which, rather than being a square shape like most computer keys, have a curved bottom edge. Hill says that makes the keyboard more forgiving of mistakes, a claim that has been validated by third-party tests. His favorite machine, not surprisingly, is his latest, the X1 Carbon, an ultrathin, three-pound laptop with a 14-inch screen that Laptop magazine called the best business Ultrabook.
"We are working on a huge number of ideas to take ThinkPad to new places," says Hill. In the past year, two Lenovo tablets got the ThinkPad name, which in a sense is a return to the past, since before launching the first ThinkPad notebooks, IBM released a pen-based ThinkPad tablet that was too early for its time. (It's not impossible that a ThinkPad phone could be in Lenovo's future.) "Design is a moving target, and we are still evolving it," he says. "But we have a foundation, a fan base." Hill plans to make sure that no matter how much the ThinkPad evolves, something in it will still evoke the bento box that Sapper conceived more than two decades ago.
羽量级选手：联想的ThinkPad X1 Carbon是世界上最轻的14英寸超级本
联想公司（Lenovo）位于莫里斯维尔的美国总部有个房间能将北卡罗莱纳州的乡村美景尽收眼底，房间的地板上用螺栓固定了好几排飞机座椅。这个情景显得有些突兀，直到你恍然大悟，如果要为商务旅客打造一款经久不衰的利器，必须确保该产品在飞机上同样能够表现出色。 这间房是ThinkPad笔记本的陈列室，IBM在1992年首次推出了这款标志性的黑盒造型笔记本。如今，21年过去了，伴随着几十种型号，ThinkPad如今的主人已经换成了联想（Lenovo）。联想于2005年收购IBM PC事业部，继续制造ThinkPad笔记本。它们理所成章地成为IBM ThinkPad的正统传人。ThinkPad不仅仅是有史以来最畅销的商务笔记本，它经典的造型也堪称计算机界最长寿的设计。 ThinkPad经久不衰的设计多半要归功于大卫•希尔。现年56岁的希尔是位温文尔雅的俄克拉荷马人，于1985年加入IBM。他在1995年接手了ThinkPad产品线的设计工作，当时ThinkPad已经面市三年，取得了轰动效应，而IBM正考虑升级这款产品。 回忆当年的情形，希尔说：“当时的问题是，我们要怎么做？我的看法是，既然它卖得不错，为什么要忙着修修补补呢？”ThinkPad产品当时大卖特卖，市场上也出现了许多仿造者。“我们为什么不更上层楼呢？”希尔反问道。 自那时起，希尔和他在北卡罗来纳以及日本的设计团队就一直在忙这件事。 第一代ThinkPad笔记本是由著名德国设计师理查德•萨帕设计的。他希望设计出一款如同香烟盒或者饭盒般朴实无华的产品。当然，设计并不总是一帆风顺。萨帕当时打算在键盘中部设计一个特殊的红色触控杆来操作光标，不过IBM的安全团队提出了反对意见。希尔说，这帮人认为红色只能用于类似紧急关闭这类按钮。 萨帕迅速找到了迂回的解决办法。他把颜色稍稍做了调整，变成了所谓的“IBM品红。”新方案马上得到了批准，萨帕随后逐渐改变颜色，直到最后又变回了最初的红色，这下似乎再没人提意见了。如今，小红帽成为了ThinkPad的标志性设计，同时也是用户反响最大的设计：大家要么对它爱不释手，要么对它恨之入骨。 | A few rows of airline seats are bolted to the floor in a room with sweeping views of the North Carolina countryside at Lenovo's U.S. headquarters in Morrisville. It's an incongruous sight, until you realize that if you are going to make one of the most enduring tools for business travelers, well, you need to make sure it's going to work well on airplanes. The room is a showcase for the ThinkPad, the iconic black-box notebook computer that IBM (IBM) first introduced in 1992. Twenty-one years and dozens of models later, Lenovo, which bought IBM's PC business in 2005, is still making ThinkPads, which are instantly recognizable as descendants of that original model. Indeed, the ThinkPad is not only one of the bestselling business laptops of all time, but also the most enduring design in the history of the computer industry. Much of the responsibility for the ThinkPad's slowly evolving look falls on David Hill, 56, a soft-spoken Oklahoman, who joined IBM in 1985. He took over design of the ThinkPad line in 1995, as IBM was considering how to update a three-year-old computer that had become a mega-hit. "The question was, What are we going to do now?" Hill says of the time when he joined. "My view was that if it is not broken, why fix it?" The ThinkPads were selling so well that they had sparked a string of copycats. "So why not make it better?" he asked. Hill and his team of designers in North Carolina and Japan have been doing that ever since. The first ThinkPad was conceived by Richard Sapper, a renowned German-born designer. Sapper envisioned a device that would have the simplicity of a cigar box or a bento box. The process was not without hiccups. When Sapper chose a particular kind of red for a pointing stick that would be embedded into the keyboard to control the cursor, IBM's product safety group balked. Red, apparently, could only be used for emergency shutoff buttons, says Hill. Sapper quickly came up with a workaround. He varied the tone a bit a created a new color that he called "IBM magenta." After the new color got the okay from the product safety police, he gradually reverted the tone back to the red he had originally chosen, and no one seemed to notice. Nowadays, the red dot is an integral part of the ThinkPad design, and one that still elicits strong reactions: Users either love it or hate it. |
当然，ThinkPad笔记本电脑多年来变得更快，也更轻薄。而它的设计也在忠于最初理念的基础上进行了创新。其中最具代表性的机型是于1995年亮相的ThinkPad 701C。用户打开这款10英寸的机器时，它的“蝶形键盘”会伸展开来，于是用户可在全尺寸的键盘上打字。这款产品已成为纽约现代艺术博物馆（Museum of Modern Art）的一款设计藏品。ThinkPad也是最早配备弹出式副屏的笔记本电脑品牌。另外，ThinkPad还首创了可拆卸底座，使用户旅行时可去掉CD驱动器的重量。 希尔喜欢突出一些设计细节，比如ThinkPad的按键。与大多数电脑的方型按键不同，ThinkPad键的底缘是弧形的。希尔称，这种设计使键盘对[输入]错误更宽容，这一说法已经第三方测试证实。毫不意外，希尔的最爱是他最近推出的the X1 Carbon。这款配备14英寸屏、重3磅的超薄机型被《笔记本电脑》杂志（Laptop）称为“最佳商务超级本”。 希尔说：“我们正努力创新ThinkPad。”过去一年，有两款联想平板电脑使用了ThinkPad这一品牌。这在某种意义上可谓回到过去，因为早在它推出ThinkPad笔记本电脑之前，IBM就曾推出过基于手写笔的ThinkPad平板电脑，可惜它们当时太过超前。（未来联想推出ThinkPad手机也并非不可能。）“设计是一个移动的目标，我们仍然在不断发展。”希尔说：“但我们有根基，有粉丝基础。”希尔计划，无论ThinkPad如何变迁，它仍然将继续秉承萨帕二十多年前奠定的便当盒设计理念。（财富中文网） 译者：项航 | Over the years, ThinkPads got faster, slimmer and lighter, of course. But their design, while staying true to the original concept, also embraced innovation. Among the most iconic models was the ThinkPad 701c, unveiled in 1995. It was a 10-inch box whose "butterfly keyboard" expanded when users opened the machine, allowing them to type on a full-size keyboard. It became part of the design collection at New York's Museum of Modern Art. The ThinkPad was also the first laptop to come with a pop-up second screen, and the first to have a detachable base so users could travel without the extra weight of a CD drive. Hill is fond of highlighting design details like the shape of the ThinkPad's keys, which, rather than being a square shape like most computer keys, have a curved bottom edge. Hill says that makes the keyboard more forgiving of mistakes, a claim that has been validated by third-party tests. His favorite machine, not surprisingly, is his latest, the X1 Carbon, an ultrathin, three-pound laptop with a 14-inch screen that Laptop magazine called the best business Ultrabook. "We are working on a huge number of ideas to take ThinkPad to new places," says Hill. In the past year, two Lenovo tablets got the ThinkPad name, which in a sense is a return to the past, since before launching the first ThinkPad notebooks, IBM released a pen-based ThinkPad tablet that was too early for its time. (It's not impossible that a ThinkPad phone could be in Lenovo's future.) "Design is a moving target, and we are still evolving it," he says. "But we have a foundation, a fan base." Hill plans to make sure that no matter how much the ThinkPad evolves, something in it will still evoke the bento box that Sapper conceived more than two decades ago. |
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