There is a good reason why the beMatrix frame system, since its introduction 25 years ago, has remained untouched: to this day, the system still proves its worth thanks to its fast assembly and disassembly, seamless design and unlimited reusability. Some brands are just as clever: their design has been the same for decades, since that’s how consumers recognise them, they are timeless and solid to their core.

Cola bottle

A bottle that still is recognisable when it is in bits on the floor… Cola Cola came up with an ingenious plan when, back in 1915, they launched a competition to transform their straight bottle into an eye-catching feature, with a design so strong people would know the product just by touch only. The Root Glass Company, tasked with the design of the famous contours, found inspiration for the organic roundness in the cocoa bean, mistakenly to have thought to be part of the secret recipe. A ‘mistake’ that would become a worldwide icon. Would there be anyone today who doesn’t recognise a cola bottle? Not only did the design trigger the senses, it also became a muse to many an artist and musician. Warhol used it as a symbol of mass culture, blues musicians played slide guitar with the neck of the bottle; hence the name ‘bottleneck guitar’. These days, the famous drinks manufacturer does not rest on its laurels; 2009 saw the launch of the PlantBottle, containing 30% material of vegetable origin, which has to become 100% over time. A new icon in the making?

Lego

How timeless power can be hidden in pure simplicity, is proven by a tiny building block that first saw the light in the shed of Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen. The name Lego in fact preceded its making; a homemade word derived from ‘leg godt’, meaning ‘have fun playing’. Later on, it seemed that in Latin Lego translates as ‘I put together’ or ‘I collect’. A lucky fluke, since Christiansen would be the first to manufacture and commercialise the modular building blocks at a large scale; and in plastic! Initially hollow at the bottom, later with hollow tubes for more connection options. Christiansen epitomised what it is to be an entrepreneur; he wasn’t going to let a setback or negative criticism, or a burnt out workplace, the Great Depression or the use of plastic in toys, defeat him. Today, Lego is the second largest toy maker in the world. Millions of kids are having endless fun building and creating all kinds of constructions, and enjoy the occasional visit to Legoland…

Post-it

A straightforward case of serendipity, these well-known sticky notes, namely: coming up with something without having been looking for it. In 1968, American chemist Spencer Silver rather by coincidence discovered a kind of glue that keeps thin sheets of paper together. Sticky little balls provided just enough sticking power to stay together, as well as still being easily removable. But what do you do with such invention when what you are really looking for, is super glue? Art Fry came up with the solution. Frustrated with the bookmark that kept falling out of his choir book, he wanted to sell bookmarks that would be easily removable, without leaving any trace of glue on the page. After a difficult start as a bookmark at 3M, the stickies did conquer the world as notepads. Another coincidence: the lab next to the Post-it team only had yellow scrap paper at hand at the time…

Barcelona Chair

Practical, stylish, no frills: when Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lily Reich based their design for a chair, customised to the German pavilion of the 1929 Barcelona world exhibition, on an antique folding chair, no-one could have predicted how this simple, white goat leather seat would become the embodiment of functional luxury. Today the seat and ottoman are available in different colours and part of many an interior in banks and offices.

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