Discover what made the future: Bang & Olufsen

Bang & Olufsen (B&O) was founded in 1925 by Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen in Denmark.

B&O has a distinctive design appeal that Wired Magazine described as “quality media delivery via striking objects”. Their work with radios and loudspeakers led them to value high fidelity musical reproduction uninfluenced by technological limitations. To this end, psychoacoustics was important to designing and testing B&O products.

Star designers such as Henning Moldenhawer and Jacob Jensen were hired and given a lot of free reins. This set the tone for what would become the iconic design language of B&O. Later, David Lewis became involved and went on to design most of the company’s products after 1980.

It also has been debated that Apple’s iPod design was inspired by B&O’s BeoCom 6000, a wireless telephone designed by Henrik Sørig Thomsen with a wheel to scroll.