We have been gazing at our reflection for thousands of years and along time a lot of mirror design trends are appeared, but none of the designs can be compared to the modern and futuristic models we have nowadays. Designers have never been more playful in exploring new ideas and concepts in mirror industry. These silvered glass panes have reflected our images so well, and sometimes too well are getting new faces every day. Here are some mirror designs which some of you would expect to find in “Through the Looking Glass”, but they can be found both in online stores and classic stores, but in designers’ collections too.
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Domestic, the French design house features 32 styles of mirrors, all different, and each provokes a second glance. These mirror models will show off while you watch your reflection, and even if your look sharp or you just like what you saw there, they look very cool, and be sure that a nice elegant mirrors will look great on your room’s wall.

Few people roll out of the bed looking great, but i think everybody will like such a mirror, full of motivational messages, which will make your mornings easier to swallow. “Oh How Beautiful” mirror was designed by Joop Steekamer and it is available in two sizes. Ignore the reflection and read each time when you gaze in this mirror, the message written on it: “Oh how beautiful you are! You’re charming. You look gorgeous! It’s fantastic. You are infinitely attractive! I think that you are fabulous, just fabulous! You are absolutely delectable. Your hair is really stunning, it sparkles with life! I love the way that you do your hair, that silken head of curls and waves is glorious.”This is a great way to start every day, and I think it is great for people who have some self-confidence related problems. After reading the poem on the mirror, I think everybody will be ready for work or for having fun out.

Do you like puzzles? Now you can have a mirror puzzle-shaped which will show each time a different image, unless you manage to solve the 15 inch puzzle without fingerprints and you manage to avoid fingerprint. It has transparent lucite top and base which provide protection (for the silvered surfaces, and fingertips too).

With this special mirror, the question “How tall are you?” looses its sense and transforms into “Who tall are you?” because it has on it height of a lot of celebrities and you can compare yourself with all of them. It also offers interesting information and you can also have fun in the morning comparing Arnold Schwarzenegger’s height with Barry White’s, or you can imagine that you are above all.

In the bathroom a mirror is absolutely necessary, and if it has a radiator incorporated is a pretty cool gadget. These radiator/mirror combinations come in a 43 palette of colors and they are available in 7 metallic shades, and I am sure that you can find the perfect one to suit your bathroom color scheme. These radiator-mirrors have long heating tubes which warm the room and speed the evaporation process, so you won’t face a fogged mirror when you come out of the shower.

Hartmut Esslinger‘s Frog Design made WEGA/Sony’s electronics fetish items, and then designed the “Snow White” language the Mac used. He’s a design legend and an author. Here he tells us about the challenges of designing, then and now.

How did you shift from entertainment products to personal computers? Did you seek them out or were you pulled in? And were there others besides Apple? Was there a chance you might have ended up sharing your Snow White design language with some other company, turning a competitor of Apple into the iconic “cool computer” maker of the day?

My second client in 1970 was the German company CTM, an offspring of Nixdorf, back then a leader in making data processing affordable and usable to mid-size companies. They were quite successful and together we created the first ergonomic desktop terminal with a tilting display and detached keyboard in 1978 which won international acclaim.

Apple’s “Snow White” design language was the result of a very close relationship and collaboration with Apple, and ultimately expressed the very specific values and aspirations of Apple. The key was that Steve Jobs wanted “the very best design, not only in the computer industry but the entire World”. This allowed us to create a totally new design paradigm for “digital-convergent products” without historic precedence.

How have product considerations evolved in the same time? What was the 1979 equivalent of hardware vs. software? Or physical button vs. touch surface?

Let’s take Sony as an example: as of 1976, we were working on remote controls for multiple sources from TV to Audio-Systems and “Home-Control” with software screens, activated both by buttons and direct-touch. Even as the key problem – aside of cost – was slow processing power and LCD screens with little contrast. Our objective was to simplify usage and some products went into the market in Japan. So to your answer: we already had it in 1979.

What design trends were hot in the late 1970s that are coming back around now? Which trends from the 1970s will NEVER come back?

The late 1970s were very much defined by the shock of the oil crisis and the subsequent recession especially here in the United States. In Europe and Japan, there was a wider acceptance of energy-saving and ecologically responsible product strategies. The hot design trends were “personalization and miniaturization” – SONY’s Walkman being the best manifestation – and with the Japanese domination of electronic consumer electronics making professional-grade technology – e.g. cameras – accessible and affordable to millions. This also was a time, when the United States lost out big time in this field. The late 1970s also were the “Golden Age” of product design – and this trend will return for product experiences and hyper-convergence – which means to design how people feel.

Isn’t part of design envisioning products that use technology that doesn’t yet exist? What were the sorts of things you envisioned in the 1970s that are commonplace today but didn’t yet exist? What are you envisioning now (or what have you envisioned lately) that will take some time for technology to catch up?

This may sound a bit arrogant, but in 1968 I proposed an “Atomic-Time Radio-Wristwatch” for a watch competition. People laughed at it, but in 1986 frog designed exactly such a product for the German Junghans company.

Sometimes, technology surpasses human speed: today we are using mobile phones with more computing power then could be imagined 20 years ago – and even science fiction authors like William Gibson or Arthur C. Clarke didn’t even anticipate them – but the user interfaces are split into “old-phone-physical” and “agnostic-digital” (Apple’s iPhone succeeds because it is the first product to bridge this idiotic chasm).

Looking a the future, I think that technology and our body will grow closer together – a couple of years ago, we designed “Dattoos”, the vision of a protein-based computer “living” on human skin. Closer to reality are concepts of enhancing brain activities by electro-magnetic impulses. Already, design is expanding from “bits and atoms” to “neurons and genes” – one could call it BANG-Design.

Were there times when companies were afraid to go as far as you wanted them to? Are there any examples of companies that refused to make design improvements—perhaps because of cost—and paid a larger price for that?

Strategic design is not about “going as far as possible” but about “going the best way together”. As said above with the Apple Snow White example, the interactive relationship between client and designer is a vital element for success or failure. So, even as I may push for more advanced solutions, the client may have many reasons not to follow. At the end of a day, each jointly achieved result shall be a healthy compromise, motivated by achieving the best for the user and/or consumer. Naturally, there are some negative examples where I couldn’t convince clients, which I also describe in my book: Polaroid which stuck too long to chemical image creation, Maytag which refused to innovate in a strategic way and Motorola which missed the opportunity to create the iPhone long before Apple did.

Dr. Hartmut Esslinger, founder of Frog Design, just published a great book entitled A Fine Line, on the lessons he’s learned in his career and on the future of business informed by design. We encourage you to check it out.

Gizmodo ’79 is a week-long celebration of gadgets and geekdom 30 years ago, as the analog age gave way to the digital, and most of our favorite toys were just being born.