leon brown explores personality in the home with eight toasters

the home is the battleground for product superiority and attention of the human figure – and on human desire and waste, the product sphere has entered a crisis of behaviour. for the human gaze is an empowering force – we wield the power to create, and make waste, of objects around us – and instead of having to force attachment to products which we do not enjoy using, we should instead have the products we use designed to adapt to our attention.

all eight toasters

here the studying product designer from the uk leon brown has created eight toasters – a metaphor for paradigm objects in the home, and presents a future in which our appliances compete for our attention, lest they be thrown out and neglected. each toaster is designed to operate on a different emotional and evolutionary characteristic – be it domesticated, predatory, or parasitic.

the crumb toaster – providing you with a crumb artwork if you commit to using the toaster every day and use a whole loaf of bread

the cradle toaster – appearing cute and friendly and needing attention to turn on, it is designed to appear worthy of affection

the free toaster – which provides you with free bread so long as you accept the advertising burnt into the side of the toast

the service toaster – demanding you to tear apart other competing brands of objects to complete its circuit for it to work

the latch toaster – physically sticking itself to the kitchen surface so that it cannot be moved, and knocking other items off the table to gain dominance

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: maria erman | designboom