About frog
Frog (styled as frog) is a global design and strategy firm founded in 1969 by Hartmut Esslinger in
Mutlangen, Germany. The name was changed to Frogdesign in 1982, (acronym for Esslinger’s home
country, the Federal Republic of Germany) it received it most current name frog in 2011 and was
intentionally make all lowercase letters as a rebellion against German grammatical rules.
History of frog
An industrial designer by trade, Esslinger desired for his product designs to trigger an emotional response
with their users. In order to do this, he believed that design must be valued in the upper echelons of
executive management, and then its principles would be “Adopted in every layer of management it passes
through” (1). It’s first designs were for WEGA in 1969. WEGA specialized in radio and television products.
The success of frog’s design with WEGA lead to the WEGA being acquired by Sony in the early 70’s. Frog
then went on to design Sony’s “Trinitron” television in 1975.
Frog also began designing its first computer systems in 1970 with Computertechnik Muller and later with
Diehl Data Systems in 1979. In 1982, Esslinger met with Steve Jobs and explained his “emotional
connection” mantra for design. He also explained how design must be valued at the highest levels of the
company, and must be a complete package. According to Esslinger, design must be initiated “From the
top down”. He stated to Jobs that design should “Express the products very soul” (1). This conversation
landed him an exclusive $1 million dollar per year contract with Apple to design its computers only, with
