French designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec have teamed up with Samsung to create Serif TV, a radically different approach to the TV user experience.

Launched at the London Design Festival, Serif TV is defined by its L-shaped frame – a serif font ‘I’.

Wider at the top and bottom, the unique shape gives the TV solidity, turning into furniture that is a part of the room rather than disappearing into the walls. This is a TV that can sit on a flat surface and hold vases, books or other decorative objects on top. The TV even has attachable legs, allowing it to sit comfortably and prominently within the home.

It has been three years since Samsung approached the Bouroullec brothers about working together on televisions. It was the brothers’ first foray into electronics, and over that period, many concepts were tried out and models built, until they at last came up with Serif TV.

“From the outset of designing Serif TV, our aim was to craft an object that fused technology with our knowledge in furniture design and to create a solid presence that would sit naturally in any environment,” the brothers said.

Not only has the frame been drastically redesigned, but the back is very different too. Now a woven fabric panel covers the back of the TV, concealing connectors and wires.

The brothers didn’t just redesign the outside of the TV; they even redesigned the user interface, coming up with an abstract but enticing setting called ‘Curtain mode’ – which takes whatever is being shown on screen and blurs it, transforming it into shimmering abstract shapes like a digital curtain. In addition, they created a new remote control device.

Samsung has teamed up with great designers before to come up with cutting-edge and unusual concepts in TV. It partnered with Giorgio Armani in 2008 for the Armani/Samsung LCD TV, with artist Yves Béhar in 2009 for the abstract, high-tech installation ‘Anima Terra’ at the Art Institute of Chicago, and again with Yves Béhar for an 82-inch, extra-wide-screen curved SUHD TV.

The Samsung Serif TV is available from Sound Machine, local Samsung distributor.

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