Published by Rhonda Dibachi under Sustainable Products

It’s inevitable. Every industry goes through it.

When you look at this solar sun hat, you know exactly what I’m talking about—solar is in the Ugly Duckling phase. My apologies to the person who designed it, but this hat just can’t represent the apex of solar technology and clothing design.

Solar panels, even the 2007 Ecology Design Prize winner from Showa Shell Solar, share one overriding common feature: They’re homely as wart hogs. Sure, the lines are straight, but a design award? C’mon. Like the solar sun hat above, these panels are more like ducks aspiring to swanhood. What was an appealing roof looks like hell with an oblong solar panel Super Glued onto it.

These rooftop solar panels remind me of what computers used to look like. OK, I don’t personally remember the 1946 ENIAC pictured here, since I wasn’t born yet. But you get the idea. Computers were the original GeekPaks: built for engineers, by engineers. They started out so big they had their own rooms. And so ugly, they needed to be shut away.

But with success came progress. Usefulness bred flexibility, and the many technological breakthroughs led to smaller and smaller computers with more and more capability. From a design perspective, the big turning point came when consumers entered the scene.

In the early 1980s, when computer manufacturers began to market to consumers, they were constrained to address issues outside the industrial geek parameters—price, ease of use/functionality, and looks.

And now, design is at least as important as functionality to many computer buyers. For the design minimalist, take Apple’s new MacBook Air, or for the more bling-oriented, the ASUS S6F leather-bound notebook with jeweled hinges.

Solar products are now ripe for a similar revolution. I’m looking for interesting designs whose use of solar speaks to both sides of my brain. Designs like the bonsai tree by Vivien Muller, which serves as a solar charger for cell phones and digital cameras.

This is gorgeous. Oops, it’s only a prototype. Not in production.

How about this?

At least this one, from Voltaic Systems is available.  Points for trying, but for now, I’ll stick with my buttery yellow Louis Vuitton epi briefcase.

The Ugly Duckling stage is characterized by a certain amount of desperation. You got your Vuitton wannabes:

“Noon Solar’s Fall Collection strikes our style bone just right,” Darren Murph blogged on Engadget. This sounds like irrational exuberance to me, to borrow Alan Greenspan’s phrase. Or maybe it’s just a simple case of de gustibus non est disputandum.

You got your Freeplay Companion radio/flashlight/cellphone charger. With a solar panel and a crank, you’ll never run out of power or have to buy batteries. It’s green and practical, but honey, it ain’t easy on the eyes.

And then, one of my all-time favorites, the solar tombstone:

Vidstone developed the solar powered Serenity Panel, which uses solar power to drive a weather-proof LCD that gives “families and friends a timeless way to commemorate a life that’s passed at one’s final resting place.”

Four hours of sunlight will play a ten-minute video of the dearly departed up to six times on its waterproof screen. Michael d’Estries spoofs on Groovy Green that “There’s even a head-phone jack to limit your groove from beyond the grave to inquiring ears only.” What can I tell you?

But if solar currently ranges from tacky to wacky, there is hope. The next generation is taking this potential and evolving a graceful swan from it.

We’re already on the path, as evidenced by an art class that artist Melissa Manfull staged for middle-schoolers last year at Pasadena’s Armory Center for the Arts.

Titled Solar Gizmos, the class involved “gluing together bottle caps, egg crates and other recycled stuff… to create a mini, movable masterpiece with a 1.5-volt fan motor powered by a 3-volt solar cell.” The purpose was for each student to learn how to combine basic electronics with kinetic art and renewable energy. Not bad for pre-teens!

The LA Times’ Zan Dubin Scott quotes Manfull’s take on the future of these solar-minded students: “Art is about the act of play. It’s really exciting to tinker around with electronics and make them into something beautiful and something meaningful.”

And when we play, great things can happen. Stay tuned to this space for more ideas from the solar playground.

Honk, honk. The swan’s getting ready for takeoff.