The original design was a collaboration between Tom Hardy, corporate head of the IBM Design Program, Italian-based designer Richard Sapper (noted for the design of classic products such as the Tizio lamp for Artemide, office chair for Knoll, kitchenwares for Alessi and ballpoint for Lamy) and Kazuhiko Yamazaki, lead notebook designer at IBM's Yamato Design Center in Japan.[8][9][10] Sapper proposed a design inspired by the Shōkadō bentō, a traditional black-lacquered Japanese lunch box.[8][11]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad