ThinkPad

ThinkPad is a professional-oriented brand of notebook computers manufactured by Lenovo, which secured the right to design and sell ThinkPads through its purchase of the IBM's PC division in 2005. The ThinkPad was initially conceived as a dedicated tablet computer - ergo, the "Pad" - but the prototype design was abandoned due to the small size of its niche market, and the first and subsequent ThinkPads became notebooks and tablet PCs.

I wanted to create a volume as simple as possible and as expressive as possible... and I thought the form of a cigar box, which at that time corresponded to the dimensions... more or less than a laptop computer had to have, would be an expression of what I wanted to do. I wanted to make an object that looks like a black cigar box and that shows on the outside nothing of being what it is... except for the logo of the producer. Then, when you open it, you see this is not a cigar box, but it is a computer, and you see all the complicated stuff inside. And that would create a surprise, and this is the basic concept of the ThinkPad.

- Richard Sapper