Analogue: A Field Guide

“It’s only now the analogue world is effectively over that we can grasp its extraordinarily rich legacy,” writes Deyan Sudjic in the introduction to his new book Analogue: A Field Guide (published in the US as The World of Analog: A Visual Guide). Sudjic features 250 of “the most ingenious consumer artefacts ever produced,” gadgets made possible by the vacuum tube and the transistor, and rendered obsolete by the smartphone. (He cites the release of the iPhone as “a kind of mass extinction event for a vast range of analogue products”.)

Analogue includes numerous industrial design classics: the Polaroid SX-70 instant camera, the Sony TR-610 handheld radio, and the JVC RC-M90 boombox. There are devices made from Bakelite (the Ericsson DBH 1001 telephone) and plastic (the Panasonic Panapet portable radio), and once-familiar product ranges from former consumer technology giants like Sony (Walkman, Watchman, and Handycam) and Kodak (Brownie and Instamatic). Each product is beautifully photographed against a white background, and the images are so clear that the buttons and dials are all legible.

Some of the featured objects also appear in the Phaidon Design Classics series, and in design histories by Charlotte and Peter Fiell (Design of the 20th Century, A–Z of Design and Designers, Plastic Dreams, and Industrial Design A–Z). A History of Industrial Design (by Edward Lucie-Smith) features a chapter on consumer technology, and Extinct (which includes an essay by Sudjic) and Essential Retro (by James B. Grahame) also cover vintage devices, though Analogue is the first book to feature such an extensive guide to analogue design and technology.