A Documentary Film by Gary Hustwit.
http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/
I remembered that after watching the documentary for the first time, I felt emotionally touched and
happy about it. It was because finally I felt that there was some public recognition for the things we do
in our Industrial Design profession. We had always been somewhat of the back stage crew in the design
field, unlike the areas of fashion design or graphic design.
However back to the main point of this task, there are a number of interesting topics that were raised in
this documentary. The areas of discussion that was highlighted were about the idea of good and bad
design, the designer's and the identities of consumers by their possessions.
The idea of a good design differs for every designer, and it is very interesting to hear what each of them
said and from there on identify my own view of what a good design is. I would like to start with Dieter
Rams's ten points of what a good design should be as what he spoke of in the documentary. He said that
a good design should be innovative, be useful to it users, be aesthetically pleasing, be understandable to
its users, be honest, be unobtrusive, be long-lived, be consistent in every detail, be environmentally
friendly and have as little design as possible. I find these points to be very true in every aspects and
some of his points are further reinforced by other designers' views. For example, Erwan Bouroullec
said: “Often our hardest job is to remove, remove, remove bit by bit, anything that is unnecessary, that
gets in the way of maximum unity.” and also Naoto Fukasawa said: “ I thought about how people don't
think about the tools they are using while they are using them.”, “...actions that human beings make
subconsciously without thought.” and “Design dissolving in behavior.”. I feel that as designers, when
we are designing a product, we should not design it so as to intrude into the end user's lifestyle, but
instead design a product that allows the users to use it without any discomfort and aid him, and allow
him to carry out his daily rituals as per normal. Because if the product presents an issue of being
uncomfortable, the user will get hurt either physically or emotionally or even both. One of our main
objectives as a designer is design a product for our end users to meet their needs in an inconspicuous
manner. David Kelley also said that as a designer, we should “design something that gets better with
use.” An example that he gave was his grandfather's leather suitcase that was handed down to him. This
will resulted in the product having a longer life span and thus being long-lived.
Dieter Rams said that he was disgusted by the “...arbitrariness and thoughtlessness with which many
things are produced and bought to the market.” This statement made me asked myself, “As designers
today, what can we do?” Because the poor designs of products are just as a reflection of the designer
and the consumer. The designer in that he who design the product, do so so as to make another product
with no intention to add any value into it; just designing products for profit. This will lead to consumers
being uneducated about good designs and then result in polluting our market with bad deigns and also
polluting our environment as it creates more wastes in the landfills when consumers discard them. The
consumer is also at fault here for buying the product as he/she did not put much thought into
purchasing the product and just solely buying it for its function. This will lead to them throwing away
the spoiled product and buy another, in turn contributing to wastes.
Anthony Dunes talks about the idea of “mass-communication more than mass-production” which I
found to be interesting. He was more concerned about educating the public rather than producing
designs and making profits. The thought of educating people about good design really tackles the
problem at its core. It motivates people to ask questions about their individual decisions and them
asking “Why?”. I feel that when consumers ask questions like why this and not that, they can help
contribute to the elimination of bad designs as lesser people will be buying them. Moreover, designers
themselves should be then asking whys twice instead of once. Asking whys about the consumer's whys,
which allows the designers to be more empathic towards their end users and further understand their
true needs and wants in order to design better products.
Rob Walker also had some ideas of what good design is. He said: “Good design is something you
want.” and that “Good design is something that distinguish you, it's some sort of a mark of progress.” .
This is also true in that when a user has experienced a case of bad designs, he would generally be on
the lookout of a better design for his situation. Thus, there is always a need for consumers to seek better
things, which leads me to my next topic of the identities of consumers by their possessions.
The consumer's self image is a reflection of his possessions. An example to justified Rob Walker's
statement about “Good design is something that distinguish you, it's some sort of a mark of progress.”
will be when one gets a promotion and would generally be happy about it, and would in return like to
celebrate and buy something for himself like a new car or a new house. Thus, when one has more
expensive belongings, he would have a higher social status as determined by the society. However,
these ideals of consumerism were put into our minds by the media, the major co-operations and
business people, whose main goals is to encourage people to spend more and purchase more. Rob
Walker stated that “ We (the consumers) tend to want new things.” and Marc Newson added that it is
“All about wanting new things.”. So the question here is that whether it is us, human beings, to be
blamed for impulsive behavior of wanting newer things or is it the media that turned us like this with
their advertisements? Another thought that I had was whether it was possible for ourselves to be
brainwashed of our old habits and be reprogram to start afresh in order to save our Earth from
environment damages due to consumerism.
Moreover, Chris Bangle talked about his views of how people look at products and infuses themselves
into it. He said: “We (Designers) have to create it in a way, you as the observer, look at it and you put
the emotion into it, by the way you scan it. Because that car has to be a reflection of that emotional
energy that you want to see in it.” and “Like avatars, I show myself to the outside world through this
car.” I feel that it is our human instincts that wants us to be not alone in society that makes us consider
about our self-identity. This desire to be notice by our community resulted in us, the consumers to buy
products to dress ourselves in a desirable way to be accepted by society. However, this is all a mere
perception of ourselves thinking that it really matter when in fact, it is just a false reality.
I would like to end my entry with a quote from Karim Rashid saying, “Are the things we are doing
really making an effect and making change?”
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