7. Principles of good design

The audacity that Olympus occasionally shows is not necessarily a deliberate act of comeuppance. Over the years the company has been instrumental in shaping and changing design trends and while industry acceptance might have been lukewarm initially, many have since adopted them. Other than the Pen’s novel 35mm half-frame format, the Four-Thirds represents the single biggest resistance to Olympus’ immediate competitors but while their market presence remains strong, the company would have to bide its time and continue to enlarge its base.

The E-3 epitomises everything that characterises Olympus the company but even as the company’s flag bearer, it does not compete directly with its immediate rivals’ full-frame models. That will have to wait for a bit longer. In the meantime the E-3 is in a segment tucked under the FF DLSR market sector where its more apparent competitors sell extremely well because of its performance-feature mix. To compete in this segment, the company focused strongly on getting things right in four key areas of development. They are Mobility, Functionality, Reliability and Performance.

Olympus sees the need to up the stakes in all these four areas beyond the E-1 while keeping faith with the original philosophy and design template. One of the earliest issues the company addressed was to seek a balance between ‘defined performance’ and ‘multi-functionality.’ The two aren’t always synergistic. You can have a very high level of performance without loading it with innumerable features just as you can also have a feature-laden DSLR that doesn’t perform justifiably. What Olympus was looking for was a complexion for the E-3 where the features contribute far more directly to performance. In other words the E-3 must not merely be a ‘marketing statement’ but also deliver in the purest sense.

These four key areas of design and development formed the principle bedrock to help materialise the E-3. They were also the basis from which the company’s engineers shared insights with invaluable input coming from selected photographers that are part of its luminary programme called Olympus Visionary. This gave the engineers not just some things to work on but a way to better understand what goes on in the harsh hostility of the real working environment and how the E-3 must be made to cope.