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Posted Under: "Good Design" (Tyranny of)
Best Product Design of 2007 list includes The HomeHero Fire Extinguisher. Apparently it’s not actually for sale yet (a surprising number of the picks have no demonstrable track record in the actual marketplace — odd for a business magazine, no?) but will be available at Home Depot later this year. BW says: “A modern, elegant look makes it more likely to be displayed — and accessible in case of fire.”
Oh really? And is that a big problem? Lots of fires burning out of control as a result of all the shamefully ugly extinguishers we’ve been stuck with up to now? Good Design to the rescue!
Whatever. I failed to figure out how much the thing costs, compared to a regular fire extinguisher (another thing that BW surprisingly doesn’t bother to tell us), but while trying to do so I found this Core77 post, in which Don Lehman asked two worthwhile questions:
Is it just me or is every product that you see getting a ton of press lately meant to be proudly displayed on your counter or coffee table instead of being relegated to the closet?
It’s not just you. Instead of building a better mousetrap, someone, somewhere, is designing a more gorgeous mousetrap, the kind of mousetrap you’ll want to leave on your coffee table, even with a dead mouse in it.
And on the subject of breaking away from the traditional red extinguisher form, he asks:
That seems like a kind of a bad thing right? … [T]he traditional red fire extinguisher is a design icon in its own right and a recognizable one at that. I hope in an emergency that someone who isn’t familiar with this new version will know that it is in fact, a fire extinguisher and will think to look on the counter for it instead of in the closet.
That’s actually a really good point!
Besides, red fire extinguishers already look pretty cool, I think. That’s what I want to own: red ones. The classic.
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Kim Fellner's book 
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Reader Comments
This “good” design is missing several things that are important on fire extinguishers, most importantly some prominent symbols that say what kind of fire it works on, and a stamp for when it was last checked.
But it looks like it might be a little easier to use — I find fire extinguishers hard to use, what with the clunky handles and bottom-heavy tanks — and the classic design probably could benefit from a rethink.
Wow – kind of looks like a Mangroomer. Could be confusing during an emergency. Or embarrassing if you leave it out “on display”.
This is why I won’t be getting one, because I’m already using a Mangroomer as our dining table centerpiece, so I’d have nowhere to put this.
Then, of course, there’s this: http://www.redferret.net/?p=9052
That’s a great idea – a better looking mousetrap! I’ve been looking all over for one to put my desk! I’m only half joking, actually. I think for awhile our office had rat problems, and I suspect them rats were touching my mug. Nasty.