How has the desk changed over the past 40 years?

1980s

Remember this? In this typical picture from the 1980s, you can see poodle haircuts and shoulder pads so broad that people can hardly walk down the narrow office corridors. But how did the office space look back then? Well, people sat and worked, usually at a desk with four legs and a fixed set of drawers. Beside the desk, at a 90° angle, was a low table for the most important tool in the workplace: an electric typewriter.

Gradually, the typewriters were replaced by computers, first in the form of what were known as word processors. But as computers came to handle more and more applications, they grew in size too, making it very crowded on the desk! So, at the end of the decade, we introduced separate computer workstations where the keyboard and the screen were placed on different levels for better ergonomics.