Core77

Good design takes time. Years ago when B.K. Chakravarthy of the Industrial Design Centre in Bombay came across a rusted mailbox, he "felt shameful that being a design professor, we could not do any good design in the public domain." India's mailboxes were difficult to empty, rusted easily and filled with water during monsoon season, making many hesitant to use them. Chakravarthy solicited the Postmaster General's assignment to "design a maintenance-free postbox" and turned the problem into a student assignment.

[Concepts were] collated into a series of idea sketches using engineering plastic, sheet metal and stainless steel, and prototypes were made. The final product is a sleek affair with a stainless steel body with a red beak-shaped lid that slides on top. It's sleek, elegant, easy to install and user-friendly--you can even use the surface for writing.

That was back in 2005, when 30 of the mailboxes were produced; three years later they are finally going into mass production, starting with a run of 200. And you thought the mail took a long time to arrive....

via business standard