Stephen Bayley, co-founder of London’s Design Museum and longtime design critic, has spent decades studying what makes everyday objects last. In this piece, Bayley looks at iconic design — the products that got shaped right once and never needed reinventing — and at where AI-generated design still comes up short.
In a world that keeps dematerializing, we’re still surrounded by objects — and some of them have outlasted decades because a brilliant mind got the design right the first time. Bayley’s perspective is a reminder that good design isn’t just aesthetics: it’s judgment, restraint, and an understanding of how people actually live with things over time.