Hasta La Ideas

As an American living in Japan, I was surprised to find many households own washing machines but no one owns a dryer. Due to electricity costs and space constraints, everyone hang-dries their laundry. So there’s a rash of inexpensive, folding plastic contraptions on the market there designed for this task, with a complexity of design that would surprise many Westerners.

To get a sense, peep the three products in this video below. The set-up is as silly as any stilted American infomercial, so you can skip the first 30 seconds, and you’ll then see there’s some great design thinking in each product. (In particular, check out the simple angle-adjusting wire-and-slot mechanism at 1:56, and the folding hanger shoulders mechanism at 2:22.)

This second video is a collection of four commercials for similar products by the same company, Aisen LTD. While not as informative as the first video, it’s pretty freaking funny, featuring some kind of Japanese laundry superhero. And you’ve gotta love the attention drawn to the difference between a 60- and 90-degree angle:

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