Sony KV-1310 - Gizmo
On 15 April 1968, Sony held a press conference in Tokyo to announce a new type of television. The research team had just finished hand-building ten prototypes. They were shocked to hear Sony's co-founder Masaru Ibuka promise full production in six months. By October, the KV-1310 was in stores. It would change the television industry forever.
The Trinitron was Sony's answer to a problem that had plagued colour television since its invention: the shadow mask. Conventional colour tubes used a metal plate with hundreds of thousands of tiny holes to direct electron beams to the correct phosphor dots. It worked, but it blocked most of the electrons, producing dim pictures. Sony's engineers developed the aperture grille - a screen of fine vertical wires that let far more electrons through, creating images that were noticeably brighter and sharper than anything else on the market.
The name combined "trinity" (for the three colours united in a single electron gun) with "tron" from electron tube. The technology was so significant that the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded Sony a technical Emmy in 1973 - the first ever given to a consumer electronics company. Over the following four decades, Sony would sell 280 million Trinitrons worldwide. The KV-1310 now sits in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, recognised as one of the foundational products that established Japan as a world-class source of advanced electronics.
From the Gizmo collection - a series of prints adapted from Simon Tyler's forthcoming book Gizmo: Retro-Tech We Loved and Lost, published by Laurence King in May 2026.
Produced as an open-edition print on 250gsm archival matte paper, with crisp detail and rich colour faithful to the original illustration.
Gizmo Series
Gizmo gathers illustrations adapted from and inspired by founder Simon Tyler's forthcoming book Gizmo: Retro-tech We Loved and Lost, published by Laurence King in May 2026.
The series is a visual archaeology of consumer electronics - the machines that shaped how we listened, watched, played, and worked from the 1960s to the early 2000s. Synthesizers that invented entire genres. Cameras that democratised photography. Computers that launched industries from bedroom desks. Boomboxes that soundtracked city blocks. Each one arrived as the future and departed as nostalgia, often within a single decade.
Every illustration begins with extensive photographic research - sourcing original imagery of each machine in its best light - and builds toward a clean, considered portrait that honours the object's design intent. The aim is not retro sentimentality but honest observation: what made these machines distinctive, how they looked when they were new, and why their forms still resonate.
Printed with the same archival care as our other series, Gizmo turns industrial design history into crisp, enduring graphic art.
Printing & Materials
Our Gizmo series is produced in collaboration with specialist fine-art printing partners using museum-grade 250 gsm archival giclée paper.
Each print is made to order with exceptional precision and colour accuracy, using pigment-based inks for long-term stability and rich tonal depth.
Prints are carefully rolled in acid-free tissue and shipped in rigid cardboard tubes to ensure they arrive in perfect condition, ready for framing.
All materials and processes are chosen for their longevity, texture, and fidelity to the original artwork, reflecting our commitment to quality and craft.