Great design and designers exist everywhere. There's nothing extrinsic to the companies in the US, Europe or Asia that makes any of them better at design. It's all about the internals of the companies themselves.
I would say, however, that Teenage Engineering is "small" enough to take the kinds of risks that bigger companies just aren't able to do (even with much more money). Here's a fast company article (https://www.fastcompany.com/3016739/more-than-an-office-teen...) from 2015. They claim wide variety of backgrounds and keep their facilities modest. At the time they released the first incarnation of the OP-1, they had 30 employees.
Contrast that with KORG, who a few years ago created a "lab" in Berlin staffed with superstars with intention of creating ground-breaking music tech (https://youtu.be/Y0NY6iUqbEM). They clearly poured A LOT of money into that venture. Similar kind of hipster vibe, but what became of it? I don't know but it seems like Teenage Engineering is doing just fine.
> Contrast that with KORG, who a few years ago created a "lab" in Berlin staffed with superstars with intention of creating ground-breaking music tech (https://youtu.be/Y0NY6iUqbEM). They clearly poured A LOT of money into that venture. Similar kind of hipster vibe, but what became of it? I don't know but it seems like Teenage Engineering is doing just fine.
That seems to have been kicked off just short of two years ago. Building hardware, especially this kind of hardware, takes a long long time to even reach the prototype stage, even longer to get it out of production. I'm sure the OP-1 Field we saw launched today has been in development since (or even before) the first OP-1 was launched, 10 years ago.
It's a little more than 2 years, and there should have been projects underway before even moving to Berlin.
I am sure they're doing good work and it's probably awesome to work there, but looking at the website, it's the kind of thing corporate bean-counters have nightmares about: https://korg.berlin/ No glimmer of product teases, just cool people bios, insta/facebook links, and oh yeah, they have a cookbook of recipes you can download!
Sort of makes me think of Brett Victor's DynamicLand project-- has a really awesome vibe, but where's the stuff?
I would say, however, that Teenage Engineering is "small" enough to take the kinds of risks that bigger companies just aren't able to do (even with much more money). Here's a fast company article (https://www.fastcompany.com/3016739/more-than-an-office-teen...) from 2015. They claim wide variety of backgrounds and keep their facilities modest. At the time they released the first incarnation of the OP-1, they had 30 employees.
Contrast that with KORG, who a few years ago created a "lab" in Berlin staffed with superstars with intention of creating ground-breaking music tech (https://youtu.be/Y0NY6iUqbEM). They clearly poured A LOT of money into that venture. Similar kind of hipster vibe, but what became of it? I don't know but it seems like Teenage Engineering is doing just fine.