Hello all,
I wondered how easy it would be to allow the engineer who builds each handset to allow them space to write their name somewhere on it (even if concealed, coded, or separately in the box), rather the the generic credits of the company. This may sound like a small detail, however, it could allow the engineer to take some ownership over the product of their labour and build a bridge between the end user, Mudita, and the people at Mudita, rather than just the brand or corporation. It is one of the biggest issues with tech, at least to my mind. It is so impersonal. Apple may foster a relationship between the individual and the company, but not any one person. While it has diminished as a practice, it is still possible with clothing, you might have a local sole repair place for your shoes, or a tailor you know. You might buy from a small company that allows the maker of your clothing to put their name on the label. Small furniture shops might put the name of the restorer or designers on the label. I think it matters for both the end consumer but also the well-being of the staff., it reduces the feeling of alienation.
Even if it isn’t possible, i would love to hear peoples thoughts on whether they think this type of idea is something they value.
Thanks!
I really like this suggestion and I’ve encountered this practice before: my Hilleberg tent is signed personally by the person that put it together. It’s a lovely detail that helps to appreciate the work that went into a product.
Yeah that’s a great example actually, my hiking boots have the same and I really value it. I’d like to think the shoemaker does as well. It’s a craft that’s taken time, energy, and skill. For that to be made impersonal and placed under any brand, even one as nicely designed as the mudita logo, feels like that skill is brushed under the carpet and assumed by an impersonal corporate entity.
Well, there’s another side to that coin, though, isn’t there?
I might argue that putting the name of a single individual on the finished product would belie the beautiful reality that a sophisticated creation like the Pure is the culmination of a broad collaborative effort that required the coordination of a huge number of individuals, each of whom were indispensable to bringing your phone into being.
I think that’s a fair counterpoint, however, that is how everything is these days. You can still have something like “Rhys J & The Mudita Team” or what have you but everything is subsumed by larger impersonal corporate entities these days. I think this idea was first popularised by Marx actually, the idea of labour alienation and the effects this has both on the workers and consumers happiness but also on the quality of the products and macroeconomic health and stability. This is a reasonably reductive reproduction of Marx’s theory of labour alienation, however, I think it is a small way Mudita could address a tangible and realistic problem I think we all recognise as existing.
I think you’ll find that evoking Marxism is barking up quite the wrong tree here in Poland, heh. Especially that a small, creative startup like Mudita—which presumably has a rather tight-knit team—is hardly the model of industrial mass-production.
Haha, I know don’t worry its not Marxism it was just an idea I know he wrote about, he wasn’t the first or last. The point still stands, production under a brand is impersonal.
That rather depends on the brand, though, doesn’t it? Mudita doesn’t seem very impersonal to me. Rather than to reduce the collaboration of dozens of people to some imagined simplicity where all the credit goes to the person who performed the final step in the long and complex process, maybe a better solution would be to include a version of the above in the user manual / product handbook or whathaveyou.
Yeah, something like that is all that is required. I think any brand is fundamentally impersonal almost by definition unless it is a brand that belongs to a single person. Its less impersonal to us because we’re in the forum and have spoken to the wonderful team at Mudita, so I do know some of their names and when I receive it I will be thankful to those people, I may even feel compelled to thank them personally on this forum once I receive it. However, once it is stuck in a box, it is nameless, faceless, the product of standard processes. What has been lost is the genuine artisinal aspect of the device. The human craft that has gone into it, not just the device but even the people on this forum who have listened and communicated to the dev team.
You could say this was Designed by the Team at mudita with the actual names of the people at the company just like the credits of of a film. Everyone who made it possible, and then perhaps assembled by X. But the credits of the team who made it possible would be a fantastic inclusion, unlike a film however, it shouldn’t be pushed to the background, display it proudly. I have actually forgotten the brand, but a good friend of mine uses a set of headphones that were designed by a team of people and it has the name of the person who assembled it on a card that came with the box, he used that several years ago but both he and I still remember it. Hilleberg is also a fairly big company but including the name just shows the craftsmanship that went into it. It feels like you’re wearing or using the product of someones craft, not the product of someone plugging a gap in the market and adopting a strategic set of marketing to push sales to a target group.
I would agree with @sleinjinn. Mudita Pure is VERY MUCH a collaborative effort . It’s not just one person who put the phone together. It’s the whole creative concept, the industrial design team, the software engineers, the hardware engineers & everyone in between. Putting one person’s name on it would, in my opinion, diminish all the hard work everyone has put forth to make this project a reality.