Many years ago (it was in a previous millennia) I had an idea for a picture book. It revolved around the story of a young anthropomorphic radio cassette player who was always playing up in school (he only wanted to do rock and roll in music class), being naughty, and, worst of all, LOVED eating cassette tapes.
Of course he wasn't allowed to graduate until he got
that tendency under control!
And of course, radio cassette players were already well on the way out when I came up with my idea. The 90's were the heyday of the CD after all, and rewriting it as the story of a maverick CD player just didn't seem to work in the same way. It was a cute idea whose time has come and gone, and only remains as a few sketches in my archives.
In this internet age, even television seems to be on its way out. Strangely enough I am listening to more radio these days than ever before, which was a mature technology even in my father's day.
Here are a couple more sketches of my old story book character.
In later designs he was less the old square boom box, and a more curvaceous post modern design. At one point I even started to build a model puppet of this design, which I planned to give a talking mouth and eyes that moved and blinked. I didn't get much past drawing up full sized plans, and getting a few bits together.
So, check out the details, like the nose is a radio tuning knob, and the carry handle is actually fluffy and is an analogy of hair. The carry handle also could unhook from the top and become a shoulder strap. Such innovation and clever industrial design ideas. So stylish, too!
Too bad I usually come up with these things on the wrong side of obsolescence. Anyway, I've spent enough time blogging tonight, it's time I went back to working on my story of the little steam train who couldn't...
