This 3D-Printed Headphone Celebrates Every Tangle We Hated - Yanko Design

"Remember the pocket archaeology of untangling your headphones every single time you pulled them out? That split second of dread when you'd fish them from your bag only to discover they'd somehow tied themselves into impossible knots? Designer Aleš Boem remembers. But instead of trying to solve that universal frustration, he's immortalized it. His project, Tangled Headphones for print, takes that chaotic mess of wires we all spent years battling and transforms it into something worth looking at."

"The design itself is striking. Boem has essentially frozen a moment of cable chaos in black plastic, creating headphones where the tangled cord isn't a bug but the feature. The earcups are swallowed by loops and knots of wire, the headband twists and weaves, and even when you look at them straight on, your brain does that thing where it tries to trace the path of the cable and gets completely lost."

"What makes this project so interesting is its timing. We're living in the post-wire era. AirPods dangle from ears everywhere. Bluetooth has become the default. Most people under 20 probably think tangled headphones are some kind of abstract concept, like dial-up internet or waiting a week to see what your vacation photos looked like. But for everyone else, there's this strange collective memory of the tangle struggle, and Boem is tapping directly into it."

3D-printed headphones present tangled cords as deliberate, sculptural form rather than a flaw. The earcups and headband are enveloped by frozen loops and knots rendered in black plastic, creating a visually complex object that challenges the eye's attempt to follow the cable path. The pieces are nonfunctional sculptures that celebrate cable chaos as aesthetic. The timing engages a cultural shift to wireless audio, positioning tangled cords as a nostalgic relic for many while evoking collective memory for older users. Moody, editorial styling with vintage devices reinforces an archaeological, nostalgia-driven narrative about shifting technology and everyday rituals.

Read at Yanko Design - Modern Industrial Design News