The organic look of the Xbox 360 is broken down

Gamer Jay was kind enough to send in this story from The Seattle Times; a thorough look at the design process of the Xbox 360.

It sounds like the project was handled very well, with executives kept out of the loop at the early phases so no one championed a particular design. The bigwigs were just given four themes; mild, wild, architectural and organic. The original console was considered a combo of wild and architectural, while the iPod was classified as mild. The ultimate design for the 360 landed squarely on the organic side ("inhaling" body and, I think, a textural look). 

The sheer number of people involved in the search for the final design is breathtaking. Microsoft set out to craft this thing from scratch and they were, as usual, willing to throw as much money at it as possible. If the look is successful, in the end, then you can chalk it up to the efforts laid out in the article.

Good job, Seattle Times.