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Why is Samsung Making TVs Thicker?
The new Bouroullec-designed Serif TV is being hailed as a design triumph. Do you agree?
By Rain Noe - September 22, 2015
I'll never forget a design professor telling us students about the dematerialization of objects. Technology, he said, would enable certain objects to get smaller and others to virtually disappear. Our job as industrial designers was to go along with that, and to focus on the user's experience.
Which is why I think the dematerialization of the TV is one of the best things to happen to the modern-day living room. Up until the 1990s, televisions were gargantuan objects with considerable footprints and an attendant impact on the interior design of a room. The TV my family had in the '80s sat on the floor within its own enormous oaken cabinet. No consumer wanted the cabinet, what we wanted was the image.
Flatscreen technology freed us from the cabinet, allowing us to mount the image on the wall and get it out of the way of our living space. But Samsung is now going back the other way, with their launch yesterday of their new, relatively chunky Serif TV.
Designed by the brothers Bouroullec, the Serif—which looks like a capital letter "I" in profile—breaks the "form follows function" convention. It is purposely beefy, with "its slim body broadening to form a flat surface like a small shelf at the top." The design is meant to "[move] away from the logic of ultra thin screens. Its presence is like an object; you can turn around and manipulate it. It can stand anywhere—even on the floor using the legs."
Enter a caption (optional)My question is: Why? Do we want to stack things on top of a television? Do we want to move our televisions around, to physically manipulate them? And do we want to see the wires? Take the optional legs shown below, which do not feature any cable management:
Enter a caption (optional)With the TV in such a configuration, we would then see the cables dangling below the screen as they run back to the outlets and other components, no?
Other design publications are swooning over the design, with some even calling it a "masterpiece," but I simply can't see what it is that they see. To impose typography onto the design of a television set feels like design for the sake of design to me. But perhaps, in this day and age, that is precisely the point that I am missing?
Enter a caption (optional)What do you think? Do you want to physically interact with your TV, and/or notice it as an object beyond what is on the screen?
Rain Noe
Rain Noe is a writer and industrial designer based in New York City.
29 Comments
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I think what the article and commenters thus far are ignoring is the fact that a television IS just an object when it's not turned on. It is an unsightly object, when not in use, especially since they are often positioned as the focal point of the room.
Other designs attempt to hide these large black rectangles by camouflaging or hiding them, but this design attempts to beautify. I don't think it succeeded, but I understand the rationale.!Report as spam-
I understand what it is the designers were trying to achieve, I just don't think that its really necessary... Sure, it is just a blank object when off, but modern tv's don't (in my personal opinion) look unsightly at all. In fact, I love the way TV's look, just a large, flat, gloss-black rectangle.
This is probably a somewhat unusual opinion so I'll voice my suggestion to where, I think, TV manufacturers should go:
I've recently seen an article about how LG have created a 55inch OLED screen that is less than 1mm thick. Paired with all these Apple/Amazon Fire/Etc TV Boxes and our overwhelming obsession to make everything wireless, the way I see it is that we make TV's that become part of the wallpaper, rather than a standalone unit, and so when not in use they can be used to mimic the wallpaper/paint that it sits on theoretically rendering it invisible.!Report as spam-
So a TV that is running all the time to attempt invisibility (which will never be achieved anyway due to different surface materials)? Yes, increase energy demand without additional functionality .. what a lazy and uncreative approach.
The only way we can take humanity into a prosperous future is to learn to live with the limitation of the resources that allow us a sustainable existance. This TV would not be helpful.!Report as spam
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Yes, I belive thats the point, to beautify, the problem is, it's horrible
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The serif 'I' form of this TV's profile stands out to me a lot less than the uniquely three-dimensional framing of the screen, which I find interesting and refreshing. I wonder if reactions would be different if it wasn't called "Serif," maybe that calls too much attention to the relatively unremarkable novelty of its side profile.
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I agree on your point of view. Serif is just the medium to link a common reference with the product. It gaves some more funded context to justify the existence of the profile, which I think is purely based on the useful side, not on the serif one. It's obvious that the first scketch wasn't an "I" (with serifs). But that's the non important side of the project/product. At least it's great and brave move (not the first), beacuse dematerialisation, as mentioned on the article, from my point of view, is not what we need to pursue. We are human, so we are all about materialization. Dematerialization is on the side of digital world. Objects stand on the ground. Dematerialization is finite, materialization can be anything. Put aesthetics aside.
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I know a few people who would be happy to see TV design head in this direction. Those that currently hide their TV behind cabinet doors or in an armoire. It also feels like they are catering to interior design work. For example, when an interior designer considers the furniture for a room, they also consider how the style of the TV will complement the furniture.
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Some (including myself) would argue that no matter what, you can't "invisible" the TV.
Thinness is a fool's errand; we know that a pencil stroke laid on paper is a handful of atoms thick; a TV a few atoms thick is still a 42" black rectangle.
Why not sculpture-ize it? Why not make available a piece that people are proud of? I think it's gorgeous, and the only TV out there that looks different from the Samsungs and Sonys. How can you not be a bit sick of shiny black plastic, faux brushed metal, swoopy contours, etc...?!Report as spam -
I'd much rather have this in my house than a big black plastic rectangle.
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There is a fundamental flaw in your statement that "all we want is the picture" because television is picture AND sound. Sound quality is the great victim of the thin TV trend, when going in a mall to buy a TV the shop assistant will always tell you "don't worry about sound quality because all of these TV sound system is crap". This is a convenient way to sell you soundbars and other stuff. Of course Samsung can't go in the direction of quality trying to implement a decent sound system in a thicker TV, seeking quality has never been in Samsung DNA, they go for a flashy, useless design that thicken the TV with no purpose at all.
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So I guess I'm the only person here who rents and doesn't own their own place? Because I have never hung a TV on a wall for that reason!
Also because here in Belfast, most homes are built with cinder-block covered with something or other to smooth it out and making holes in walls takes time and effort and professionals. Now, you ID people probably have the tools, but I'm a Graphic Artist. :DAnyway, my TV sits on a stand now. So the Serif version would also sit on a stand *and* have some visual interest.I don't see a problem with that!!Report as spam-
You want to consider buying a tv unit - at least you won't be tripping over cables.
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I predict it will be a market flop.
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Hasn't a "TV" always been a vehicle for an information service. The importance of the object is negligible. Why re-establish the materialization of the TV when the process of absorbing and presenting information, as a service, has moved on. The function of a TV is/was to relay information on a large scale to more than 1 person. The necessity in the past, due to limited technology, was for TVs to be big. I appreciated then the effort that was made by companies like B&O, to make the TVs sculptural. This helped give them a visual identity when they were not performing their primary function (i.e. when they were off). I don't think there is a need for them to be sculptural anymore. Is that not like adding a crank handle back on to the front of your BMW? Also... being honest, it looks like an ant farm.
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Personally I love this design, for my household it would fit in just fine and I'd put toys/potted plants on top. But lets remove the I, or self, from our reviews and admit that it is largely different in its approach to what consumers may want. In the current market nearly all product designs strive for an inconspicuous, minimal profile. This one is obviously an expressive design and therefore should't be judged by the same criteria.
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It's still nothing when it's turned off - i mean, what a massive opportunity missed. And that slightly curved back just destroys any elegant extrusion novelty in the design. After watching the video - I got to go thumbs down. This kin of thing is bad design publicity.
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I don't know I think good idea very poor execution - feels like shop decor or something.I mean it's just decoration. Not design. It is in no way a representation of what the TV is or does, for example, a portal into a vast network, a looking glass to the (however media manipulated) world. How would these themes be translated into something physical?!Report as spam
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I love this!With today's technology gearing towards wi-fi connection, the TV stand is only good for collecting bric-a-brac these days. The simplicity of design here not only converts the television back into a piece of furniture (we always had ornaments and Christmas cards on the top of our tele when we were growing up), but it lets you stick it back in the middle of the room, if the desire takes you—look at those legs?! It's the easel carrying the picture we all give a little too much devotion to.Could this also be a step away from consumerism? Are Samsung offering us something we would like to keep? Personally, I would never upgrade my TV every time a new one comes out, I expect it to last at least 10 years. At least! But I'll bet people do.!Report as spam
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It does seem like a great idea but i seriously doubt it will catch on.
1. art is subjective. will i be able to sell my tv later when i am ready to upgrade?
2. will i get tired of the design before then?
3. is the serif design it or will it be one of many interchangeable designs?
4. how will it look if it gets scratched or dented?
5. the base on my tv is way deeper. this looks wobbly.!Report as spam -
Bulky ergonomics...
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Wow. Just wow. First, thank you for calling BS on this thing. Second, outside the box everyone is thinking in, there are projectors, my friends. I personally enjoy one of the Casio green slim with a 10,000 hr or so lamp life. No black rectangles, no curve, no how thick, no how big, no how friendly(?), no how pretty, overall no BS. Just an image. And for those that complain of the noise, a little modification of cooling and insulation takes care of that, the effort pays back in spades. Oh, and for the big screen jocks there is no comparison with a screen size that varies from 36" to bigger than the freakin wall. To conclude- no black rectangle. Period.
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I like the concept: No matter how hard you try, the TV will be there. So you might as well make it stand out. From a engineering point of view, I would also assume the added thickness makes it easier to deal with temperature control of the electronics.
My only issue with this is that I wish it was thicker! If you are going to make it thicker than usual, it would be great if the top of it could be used as a shelf, as you could with old tv's. It would also make it look less prone to tipping over when used with its legs.!Report as spam -
I love it! It's such a friendly object.
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I totally agree that this design is a bit absurd.
Even better than a flat TV is no TV at all though.!Report as spam -
It's more like a normal household furniture than a hi-tech piece so that people will feel comfortable with it and thus tend to ignore its existence, which makes it (psychologically) invisible.
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'I' dont like it
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So it doesn't have a power cord?
The video is fooling you about how neat it would look. I love how it could look but I can never get that look with all my game consoles, home theatre, PVR, Chromecast... Unless they've all gone wireless. Otherwise, I don't even know anyone who use TV to watch TV anymore.!Report as spam -
Is the stand for real? It looks like a stand that holds those giant Post-its. I'd like it better if the bottom had the serif but the top didn't; it just collects dust. It's the best thing about thin TVs, less dust collection.
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I can see this having some limited success with consumers who want to show off their 'taste' and trendiness by referencing some designers, but this goes against what most users have shown to want, which is to reduce the screen to its essential parts and concentrate only on information delivery. Its attractive and clever but I don't see it starting a design revolution in TVs.
!Report as spam
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