Digital Dreams: The Work of the Sony Design Center

For the past half century, the Sony Corporation has been highly successful at tapping the seductive nature of consumer electronics. Around the globe their ubiquitous products are recognized as symbols of cutting-edge technology and innovative design, making Sony the undisputed leader in high tech and one of the most recognized brand names in the world. Digital Dreams takes an unprecedented look inside the world’s most influential design center and their products–many never before published–for the next millennium.

With nearly 250 industrial designers; graphic, packaging, and logotype designers; user-interface specialists and Web designers working in offices from Tokyo to San Francisco to Cologne, the Sony Design Center is responsible for nearly 2,000 new products, concepts, packaging schemes and design strategies every year, driving sales of products and services totalling nearly $50 billion per year. By shaping the most pivotal technologies of our time, the Design Center exerts a greater influence on popular culture and current trends in industrial and graphic design than any other single entity.

As Sony stands perched on the new millennium, its design team is now redefining virtually every major product line in the company’s vast consumer electronics sector–launching Sony’s definitive leap from analog to digital technology.

Until now, the work of the Design Center has been shrouded in secrecy. Digital Dreams is the first comprehensive preview of the technological and aesthetic vision that will dominate the landscape of the next century.

This book surveys Sony’s twenty-first-century product line, examining more than 100 new products, concepts and prototypes. Following the transition to digital technology, Digital Dreams reveals the corporation’s techniques and design philosophy at work. Everyone who listens to music, watches movies or TV, carries a Walkman, or communicates by telephone or the Internet will be affected by the “digital dream” now taking shape at Sony.For the past half century, the Sony Corporation has been highly successful at tapping the seductive nature of consumer electronics. Around the globe their ubiquitous products are recognized as symbols of cutting-edge technology and innovative design, making Sony the undisputed leader in high tech and one of the most recognized brand names in the world. Digital Dreams takes an unprecedented look inside the world’s most influential design center and their products–many never before published–for the next millennium.

With nearly 250 industrial designers; graphic, packaging, and logotype designers; user-interface specialists and Web designers working in offices from Tokyo to San Francisco to Cologne, the Sony Design Center is responsible for nearly 2,000 new products, concepts, packaging schemes and design strategies every year, driving sales of products and services totalling nearly $50 billion per year. By shaping the most pivotal technologies of our time, the Design Center exerts a greater influence on popular culture and current trends in industrial and graphic design than any other single entity.

As Sony stands perched on the new millennium, its design team is now redefining virtually every major product line in the company’s vast consumer electronics sector–launching Sony’s definitive leap from analog to digital technology.

Until now, the work of the Design Center has been shrouded in secrecy. Digital Dreams is the first comprehensive preview of the technological and aesthetic vision that will dominate the landscape of the next century.

This book surveys Sony’s twenty-first-century product line, examining more than 100 new products, concepts and prototypes. Following the transition to digital technology, Digital Dreams reveals the corporation’s techniques and design philosophy at work. Everyone who listens to music, watches movies or TV, carries a Walkman, or communicates by telephone or the Internet will be affected by the “digital dream” now taking shape at Sony.