Notes of Mustard
Casio’s digital piano with design details intended to tempt lapsed players back to the keys (image: Fabian Frinzel).
There is a surprising number of “people who can play the piano [to a high level], but who have lost the habit,” says Shuhei Nakamura, a designer at Japanese tech company Casio. The problem, he suggests, is partly one of decor.
“Conventional pianos, given their large, boxy structure, can feel oppressive,” says Nakamura. As such, Nakamura and his team in Casio’s product design department set out to interview lapsed players to see what kind of instrument might lure them back. Traditional upright pianos, they found, were deemed to “stand out [visually] in a space”, with some of the company’s interviewees additionally disliking the manner in which they are designed with “the assumption of being placed against a wall” – a setup they found solitary. “We realised,” says Nakamura, “that a high-performing instrument alone may not entice people to play again.” What was needed instead, the team reasoned, was a more contemporary, domestic take on what a piano could be.
The final result of their research is the PX-S7000, a high-performance digital piano intended to fit more sympathetically within domestic spaces. “When you think of a piano, you might imagine a large, decorative object with black, curved lines,” says Nakamura, “but the PX-S7000 does not incorporate such elements.” In place of these more traditional elements, the team’s design centred around conceiving of the instrument as a mobile piece of furniture. The piano has splayed wooden legs, while the instrument itself has been stripped down to a more reduced form, with the intention that it can then be moved around freely, serving as one element within a space, rather than a dominant presence. “One of the points we were most mindful of,” Nakamura concludes, “was reinterpreting the piano as a modern object.”
The PX-S7000 is available in black or white, but, as part of Casio’s drive towards modernisation, a third colour has also been produced: “harmonious mustard”, a gloss yellow that has comfortably outsold the other two colourways. Harmonious mustard, Nakamura says, is a colour intended to “leave a mark on people’s minds”, but also a shade that was only enabled by changes to the piano’s form. “There’s an issue with surface area when it comes to home pianos,” says Nakamura. “As most pianos are structured like large boxes made of panels, if you decide to adopt vibrant colours, the colourful surface area becomes too expansive and [it] ends up becoming an eyesore.” With the PX-S7000’s reduced form, however, a judicious serving of mustard becomes more appropriate.
This, then, is the design lesson behind the PX-S7000. It’s a piano, but a modern one, rendered in glorious yellow – comparatively modest changes to a timeworn form, but tweaks that have nevertheless proven sufficient to lure back pianists. “[As a field,] I think we have a stereotype issue,” Nakamura explains. “We often place high importance on traditional values, and the general impression of a piano is that of a shiny black instrument intended for the correct performance of classical pieces.” By changing some of these presuppositions, the PX-S7000 seeks to connect with those who have otherwise tired of playing. There’s nothing like mustard for livening up a staid dish.
Words Oli Stratford
Photograph Fabian Frinzel
This article was originally published in Disegno #36. To buy the issue, or subscribe to the journal, please visit the online shop.