About four years ago I had the rare opportunity to start collaborating with Jonathan Ward, founder of Icon. Jonathan and his team hand build limited edition vehicles in California. Calling them vehicles is almost an insult—they are rolling testaments to what happens when you go the extra mile on every single detail. The vehicles don't have headlights, they have LED assemblies made by the same people who made the lights for the Mars rover. They don't have paint jobs, they have electrostatically applied powder coated finishes. The emblems are hand cast by a jeweler. The upholstery is made by Chilewich. When people say things like "They don't build them like they used to," tell them to look up Jonathan.
This is not the kind of object you use and toss. Its very existence nurtures its owner's desire to keep it, to take care of it and be proud of it. Working with Jonathan reminds me a bit of something that frog's founder, Hartmut Esslinger, once wrote:
"If you build in emotional value, people will keep products longer and take more care of it; this of course saves energy and materials. It is the difference between selling an ordinary hi-fi and selling amazing sound."(more...)