Magno wooden radios

I had another madeinhungary post lined up for today, but fab messed up wit my plans. See, I get this newsletter in my inbox. Sometimes I have a look, more times I don't, not time to browse. I am happy today was the day I did have a look and I discovered Magno.

Actually, it wasn't it's cute form that got to me in the beginning, it was the name. Magno means tape recorder in Hungarian, and my imagination started running wildly while I was trying to find out more about the designer and his origin. Turns out Singgih Susilo Kartono from Indonesia named his brand after the first product he designed, which was a small magnifying glass - there goes my wild imagination about an Indonesian guy studying design in Budapest and going back home to name his brand after Hungarian radios.
Nevertheless, I love his philosophy

As a wood consumer, I feel morally responsible towards replacing the woods that I have used. This will ensure that all manufacturing activities that I conducted would not destroy the nature. I do this by replanting every single wood that I've used from the forest. The amount of wood replanted and selected is based on our yearly wood consumption, suitable age for wood to be grown and cut, and the requirement of land per tree. We estimated that for the 40 people we could employ, we could have replanted one to two hectares of land with our selected wood. Currently, Kandangan has almost no forest land. The population is about 4.000 people. If we are to employ the whole population of Kandangan, we will abolish unemployment but most importantly, for every people we employ, we will generate more woods through our forest regeneration programs. Additionally, based on our current income, we receive USD 2.500-3.000 per month; enough to sustain 10 employees. If we are to employ 1000 villagers we would have received USD 250.000-300.000 per month - more than enough to sustain our village life.

See those amounts? Go buy some radios on fab!

And how about this

None of Magno products are coated. We only apply wooden oil to finish them. This finishing is not going to completely protect our products. However, it will give a chance to its owner to feel the wood and also to care for the wood, as the care of its owner is the only real protection of the products. I disagree with the maintenance-free approach in products. We must maintain and take care of products we buy. This is what I call as a moral obligation between product's owner and its products.

For me this is the ultimate designer!