French product designer Philippe Starck has designed everything from chairs, hotels, airplanes, boats and now he has teamed up with LaCie, again, to make a limited edition hard drive. Called The Blade Runner, the hard drive has all the hallmarks of Starck’s ultra futuristic aesthetic and LaCie’s knack for making cool looking products.
Sure the Blade Runner, which has a 4 terabyte capacity, looks like an old car part, but that’s surely the point. “In my design nothing is useless – style, symbolism or functionality,” says Philippe Starck. “In the Blade Runner, the warm interior electronics are encased in a mystifying shell, and the blades are the radiator that cools it down. The suspension gives space for air to circulate around the hard drive, and the metal material increases the temperature conduction.” That “warm interior” is an anamorphic blob that carries all the data and seems to float around, trapped inside the series of formidable blades.
LaCie has always been a stylistic option for consumers who want to store their special data with class and sophistication. And why wouldn’t they? This is not the first time LaCie has teamed up with hip and covetable product designers to create their chic devices. This is also not the first time they’ve teamed up with Starck: 20 years ago, they put their heads together to create the award winning “Toaster” hard drive.
All the limited 9,999 Blade Runner hard drives available are custom built. It also has that pretty illuminated power button in the form of Starck’s signature cross symbol that he uses for the T in his last name. And for a cost of $299.00, it’s actually an affordable option. Pick one up before they’re all gone.
