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awesome article!

i only got my first strat a year or so ago, after playing guitar for 10+ years at that point. i’d only played versions with necks i didn’t like, and passed them off as too common to be interesting! i picked up a ’57 jap reissue, looking just like the one in the photos in your article, and was instantly nuts about it. it feels wonderful to play, after battling with a mustang tremolo for years i am still giddy when i can smash the strats tremolo up and down, with complete control, and remain in tune!

and that fender headstock is the prettiest of them all in my opinion. especially the big fat 70s versions.

I can see what you’re saying, but I still don’t like strats.

Thanks for this article, man. I think perhaps the problem with Leo’s guitars after the Strat was that they were way too over-engineered. You could probably argue that the Jazzmaster and Jaguar were technically more ‘advanced’ designs than the Strat, but yeah, it probably confused more people than impressed. In terms of form, function, and production efficiency, the Strat was just so well engineered. Also mindblowing is when you think about what Gibson was making in ’54 – a clunky Les Paul with a wraparound tailpiece, which although would sound awesome with those P90s, just looks so antique and primitive (but I guess awesome in its own way) compared to the Strat.

I have been playing Stratocasters for thirty years now and I love the way you can show non-players what we Strat lovers have always known. Except for the construction and materials of the tremolo arm and hole the Stratocaster couldn’t be more perfect!

i’m a graphic designer as well (a good one i might add) i don’t really think you proved anything. i find it to be a boring and not very inspirational shape. you can match up the lines on other guitars as well. a flying V should be a masterpiece according to all of this (but a lot of people hate it). it’s just personal preference and you didn’t prove anything by matching all these things up.

still an interesting take on it!

Hi shmarnalds… I was trying to remind people who see Strats everyday and have gotten used to them that some great design thought went into that guitar. The shape of the Strat is so ingrained into our conciousness that Fender recently lost a major court case where they tried to trademark to Stratocaster shape…“FENDER MUSICAL Instruments’ efforts to trademark the body shape outlines of its Stratocaster, Telecaster, and Precision bass models were rejected by the United States Trademark Trial and Appeal Board in a decision handed down on March 25, 2009. The Board concluded that after more than 50 years in the market, the guitar body shapes had become generic because consumers did not solely associate them with the Fender brand.” By all rights, Fender should have won this case as they INVENTED that shape. But they lost the case because after 50 years, the classic Strat shape is what people automatically think of when they think of electric guitars and it was beyond trademarking. It’s like someone trying to trademark the fork.

Your statement that you find the shape “boring and uninspirational” is probably that… familiarity. A designers job is to go beyond that and find the artistry in all design. I guess you find the classic Coke bottle design boring as well?

Also, your comments discount 90% of my article which shows how innovative the Strat was for it’s time. The Strat introduced a tremolo system & saddle system that has been copied by pretty much every other manufacturer… along with the forearm carve, ribcage carve, double cutaways, the classic Fender single coil, the 12th fret lining up with the top horn strap peg to help with balance… things which also have been copied by everyone else… Sure, after 50 years the overall design may look boring now… but with the Stratocaster-style guitar still the biggest selling guitar in the world, a lot of people seem to still like it.

Name me one guitar that has influenced guitar design more than the Fender Stratocaster. Les Paul? Basically a solid body Gibson jazz guitar. It’s still one of my favourite guitars and introduced the fabled maple/mahogany body combo (and later on the stop tail piece & humbucker… but these were later upgrades), but the Strat beats it for innovation.

And the Flying V. Have you actually ever played one? They hang perfectly, are a great weight, sound great, fantastic top fret access. A lot of people hate them… ok. A lot of people love them as well. Again, this guitar design is 50 years old and is still being made by hundreds of different guitar companies… an amazingly innovative guitar for it’s time.

Of course other guitars have lines that match up. I didn’t say the Strat invented that. It’s a fundamental part of design called ‘balance symmetry’… as a designer you would know this… Symmetry means a mirror image — one side is the mirror image of the other. Symmetry can occur in any orientation as long as the image is the same on either side of the central axis. This type of image has great appeal — it makes for “good” shape relationship. Many people automatically gravitate to symmetry. We are symmetrical after all — two eyes, two ears, etc.. Look around at consumer products and graphics (printed materials) to see how many use symmetry. You will find that it is the dominant organizational concept.

The Stratocaster, Fender Jaguar, Jazzmaster and most other Fender’s are actually an example of ‘Near Symmetry’… Near symmetry is based on symmetry but the two halves are not exactly the same. Slight variations will probably not change the balance but there is more potential for variety and hence more interest. When the sides become too different, symmetry ceases to exist and balance must depend on other concepts (asymmetry). Near symmetry is more versatile than pure symmetry. It is used in many graphic images since type throws off the symmetry but the balance is still achieved. It is also occasionally used for formal fine art images, especially early Christian religious paintings.

Cheers – guitarnerd