令我们持续的喜悦和惊奇的是，在将其作为流行音乐的最终乐器夺取的位置近一个世纪之后，人们继续用吉他和您将吉他插入的东西继续做精彩的创新和原创事物。
The Design Award celebrates the seemingly infinite capacity for the brightest and most creative minds in guitar culture to come up with inspirational new ways to put a spin on a bunch of wood, strings and early 20th century technology.
Whether it’s big guns finding new ways to do things that would have been unthinkable a few decades ago, or maverick geniuses working out ways to make sounds we’ve never heard before, the spirit of the Design Award is the primary reason why 70 years on, the guitar remains undefeated.
Fender George Harrison Rocky Stratocaster
Earlier this year we were chatting toJackson/charvel的Vice President John Romanowski about the difference between what a multi-headed global megabrand like Fender does versus what a small boutique luthier does in terms of producing an instrument.
To paraphrase our conversation, Romanowski opined that while it’s very impressive and laudable to make one great guitar, it’s infinitely harder to produce great guitars at scales in the hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands and at various price points. The ability to do that with consistency across all its various brands and factories, Romanowski opined, was what made Fender special.
我们想起了那次谈话Fender揭示了George HarrisonRockyStratocaster今年早些时候。当它被揭示为一个最深奥和独特的strats时，我们给我们留下了深刻的印象Custom Shop2020年在纳姆（Namm）建造的仪器 - 但那是£23,000。对于Fender的Ensenada设施来说，制作了一种吉他damn closeto the look of the Paul Waller-made version for less than a tenth of the cost is a remarkable feat of design and innovation in the field of mass-produced instruments.
Chase Bliss Habit
无论是让每个人都想要踏上踏板上的飞行器还是重塑人们对圈子的看法，Chase Blisshas been creating thoroughly innovative and thoroughly musical pedals for a good while now, each one a polite but firm statement that says, ‘We don’t care what anyone else does, this isour做事的方式。’
This year’s Habit delay pedal might be the most definitive of those statements yet. You can’t move in the boutique pedal world for ‘quirky’ delay pedals but the Habit is something altogether more interesting. Effectively an always-on sampler, the Habit stores everything that you’ve played in the last three minutes and then, with a twist of a knob or two, pulls out snippets that are then modulated and manipulated to create a chorus of gloriously glitchy, unexpected sounds. As our review stated, “The Habit is a highly unconventional delay pedal – in the same way an elephant is a highly unconventional insect.” And it’s also one of the most inspirational and innovative pedals the brand has ever produced.
伊士曼·朱丽叶（Eastman Juliet）
When you’re a guitar company that has made its name paying tribute to the classic designs of the Golden Era, it can be hard to break out of that box – both as a company and in the perception of the wider guitar market.
All of which makes the moves that Chinese disruptors伊士曼吉他在过去的几年中，变得更加有趣。该品牌通过生产而变得更加突出吉布森- 具有出色质量和可玩性的启发乐器将剧本翻转为疲惫的关于亚洲制造乐器的旧往事，而对于许多赚钱的品牌来说，如此成功的利基市场就足够了。
But Eastman clearly have ambitions beyond people’s expectations, and that’s evidenced in the Juliet, the company’s first ever original solidbody electric guitar design. In the hands of chief designer Otto D’Ambrosio, the Juliet is a remarkable thing – a design that feels familiar and yet unique, pulling in elements of boutique design and the all-time classics. Simply, it’s one of the coolest new electric guitar designs of recent years.