Recstand is one of those products that is trying to be high design but falls short, in my opinion. What is it? It’s a plastic CD stand that comes in dozens of colors. I first noticed it in a beautiful, full paged ad in Surface Magazine. Their advertising design is beautiful as well as is their web design and packaging design. But their product design? It’s a piece of plastic with some slots in it. As I used to hear growing up in Texas, “B.F.D.” (or Big Fucking Deal). Admittedly, it’s a simple way to stand up your CDs but it does nothing gestural, it doesn’t let you do anything clever like letting you see which CD is which, it’s not stackable, it’s not combinable. Nothing. With the next design, this company should probably think of the numerous ways people would like to interact with their CDs before they release such a mediocre product with so much fanfare.























February 8th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
I just received my recstand and i think you missed the point.
RecStand is not a substitute or even an alternative to other cd-stands in the market.
RecStand is not made to be stackable or combinable.
RecStand only purpose is for you to hold your cds while you are using them.
Oh, by the way, do you have a recstand? Because, its not plastic, its soft rubber, and because of that you can actually see which cd is which just by gently move your finger on top of every cd.
You should know a little bit more about the products you criticize.
February 8th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
This is embarrasing for me to say on my own website, but you are completely correct. I missed the whole point. It’s actually really cool to be able to flip through all your CDs because it’s made of soft rubber. Honestly, this little design maneuver brings it from joke product to pretty clever.
As far as knowing more about a product, I agree that I should know more about the products I criticize. So, if you are a designer or manufacturer of a really cool product that needs proper criticism, please send your product sample to 122A Linda Street, San Francisco, CA 94110. Otherwise, I will continue to criticise products with the less informed “saw-it-on-the-internet” level of criticism.