Today’s technology in yesterday’s avatars!

A perfect post for throwback thursday, these products show us how far we’ve come in just a matter of two decades. Each product you see is branded with an app or a service we, collectively, use and can’t live without. Making the point that we had alternatives (albeit less addictive) to each of these technologies is Thomas Ollivier’s set of old-world products with new-world branding… or rather, reimagining the very services we can’t live without, if they existed long before Y2K.

You’ve got a Spotify-branded Walkman (with a voice-activated system! How cute!), a Netflix View-master, a Facebook pager that takes a subtle dig at the company and at humanity’s addiction to likes/validation, an Instagram disposable-cam, a Whatsapp walkie-talkie, a Google toy-computer, an Adobe Illustrator etch-a-sketch, and if anyone knows what the Snapchat product is, do hit us up, my memory fails me… and if that isn’t proof that we’re all growing old, I don’t know what is!

Designer: Thomas Ollivier

Sarang Sheth

Sarang is the co-editor in chief of Yanko Design. He is a former industrial designer at a Bangalore-based multidisciplinary design studio, working in areas including appliances, FMCG, packaging, technology, luxury, etc. Sarang has written about design and technology for over a decade and has been a jury member on international design awards. He occasionally works on tech concepts featured on Forbes, The Verge, Hypebeast, Digital Trends, SlashGear, Tom's Guide, LetsGoDigital, and Unbox Therapy. Sarang graduated from MIT Institute of Design, Pune.

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