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frog Turns 50 and Celebrates with a Delightfully Nerdy Exhibition During NYCxDesign

From original Macs to futuristic dishwashers, the retrospective walks visitors through frog's rich ID history

By Emily Suzuki - May 16, 2019

Cleo Laptop for Vadem Clio, 1998 A convertible computer that served as a predecessor for current laptops and tablets. 1 of 19

Cleo Laptop for Vadem Clio, 1998 The retractable arm allows the screen to swivel up to become a laptop and down to become a tablet. 2 of 19

Dual Stereo for Dual Electronics, 1994-1996 frog designed a complete user experience for Dual Electronics, who needed to reinvent themselves for the digital age. 3 of 19

Dual Stereo for Dual Electronics, 1994-1996 The Dual Stereo features a panel that can be removed and turned into a remote control. 4 of 19

51K Audio Concept for Wega, 1978 An all-in-one turntable, cassette tape player and radio tuner that set the stage for Wega being acquired by Sony soon after. 5 of 19

51K Audio Concept for WEGA, 1978 So. Many. Dials. 6 of 19

NeXT Cube for NeXT, 1987 When Steve Jobs left Apple to found NeXT, he partnered with frog to create the infamous NeXT Cube, a "smart station" for the higher education market. 7 of 19

NeXT Cube for NeXT, 1987 The Cube didn't exactly take off in the market, but it offered something new in a sea of boring beige computers. 8 of 19

NeXT Cube for NeXT, 1987 Hey, at least the company's focus on design carried over into Jobs' future work with Apple. 9 of 19

Digital Answering Machine for AT&T, 1990 The first digital machine produced by AT&T. 10 of 19

Digital Answering Machine for AT&T, 1990 Cassettes were the typical technology for the job at the time, so this machine marked a new era of phone services. 11 of 19

Macintosh SE for Apple, 1982 frog helped design Apple's 'Snow White' design language, which was meant to give a sense of consistency to all new Apple products from 1983-1989. 12 of 19

Macintosh SE for Apple, 1982 "Snow White" takes its name from the seven original products it was meant to be implemented across. 13 of 19

Macintosh SE for Apple, 1982 frog's goal was to communicate a message of precision and strength, which they accomplished through lines that mimick code and zero-draft modeling, which helped in large part to reduce unwanted copies. 14 of 19

Boom Urchin BT Speaker for Sound United, 2012 This bluetooth speaker is designed to be clipped to a backpack, window, skateboard, beach towel—just about anything. The product range brought a new boldness and versatility to a company most known by hardcore audiophiles. 15 of 19

Tetra Dishwasher for Heatworks, 2018 An energy-efficient countertop dishwasher that uses Heatworks' proprietary Ohmic Array water heating technology, designed for apartment dwellers. 16 of 19

Digital Jukebox for Touchtunes, 2018 For this project, frog was given the task to help reinvent the jukebox through modernizing its form and function. This machine allows users to access songs and other applications such as games and karaoke. 17 of 19

Overview of the Exhibition 18 of 19

Overview of the Exhibition 19 of 19

Happy 50th birthday frog! To celebrate, the iconic design firm is currently hosting a retrospective at their Brooklyn office as part of NYCxDesign. The exhibition celebrates the vast amount of work that frog has been a part of over the years, displayed in the form of physical products, framed advertisements and even interactive AR displays. In the above slideshow, view some of the products we were most excited to nerd out over, from original Mac computers to a futuristic dishwasher.

For those who are in in town for NYCxDesign, we recommend taking a trip over to frog's office to experience this taste of design history in person. And if you need help planning the rest of your NYCxDesign experience, be sure to check out our handy NYCxDesign Map.

Oh, and we can't leave out one of our favorite displays at the frog show—the below miniature model inside of a 1980 Mac SE computer:

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dean blackketter

5 years ago

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Typo: It's the "Clio" laptop, not "Cleo". Otherwise a lovely article.

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Emily Suzuki

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Emily is the Content Marketing Manager of Autodesk Fusion 360 where she focuses on shaping the overall Fusion 360 content strategy, including the Fusion 360 blog and social media directions. Prior to Autodesk, Emily was the DMTV Content Coordinator at Design Milk, the Business Editor at HYPEBEAST and an Editor at Core77. During her time at Core77, she also served as co-chair of the 2018 & 2019 Core77 Conferences.