Objectified Review

From Gary Hustwit's film, I learned many new ideas about design that I never heard of or actually put thought in. Design can be something very conplex or very simple depending on the designer. Every design has its specific purpose. Whenever people see objects, they make assumptions about the object. In a way, the objects speak to people, telling about their cost, material, functionality, and etc. This film really portrays that design has many different purposes depending on how people see it. There is no solid idea to what design is.

In the opening scene, Alice Rawsthorn describes how design fills everyday life. To her design is something very consistent. She describes how in the past, China's first emperor standardized design for the sole purpose of functionality. If every archer designs his own bow, then during a war, no one else will be able to use his bow. Also, design creates a story. Within every deisgn there is a story that tells of the evolution. Like Hnery Ford stated "Every object tells a story."

Design has to be something that improves people's way of functionaing. It has to innovative, aesthetically pleasing, useful, long-lived, consistent, economically friendly, need as little design as possible, and unobstructive. From what Jonathan Ive says, design has to communicate with people about who developed it, why it is like that. As a designer for Apple, he is obsessed with the way design should give attributes of material, form, functionality and the process of how it is made. Other designers see design in three different ideas. Design has to be form follow function. Design must give symbolism to an object because symbolism guides a designers to how something should look. Lastly, Design should be a technological object with a human object relationship, such as the dyson vacuum, roomba, or even the good looking cone vacuum.

The films continues on to interview different designers and their perception of what design is. To one, designers must be someone who already knows what people need better than they do. One central goal of design is to make something that is both comfortable and suitable for the environment. To the brothers in France who designs furnitures, design is like a melody, it must create harmony. Others, such as Marc Newson collect weird materials for inspiration to get a glimpse of the future and what it is going to be like. Next, to the director of BMW, design should be defined in terms of emotions. Like a car, people look at it like an avatar because it expresses the driver and shows what he or she is like to the outer world. Lastly, design to Karim Rashid is self contained, strong message, engaging, strong relation with the physical product, and interprets the digital world that we live in today. He abhors how even though there are almost billions of design ideas out there that there is still designs in the world that are uncomfortable and unpleasing. This is where David Kelley talks about how design needs to be something that people demand. If people do not demand for better products, than new products will continue to be produce that are poorly design. One company talked about in the film was Target. Target displays the true important of design and how it is attainable to the audience. It makes people want to buy new things. Thus, showing that design has to be captivating.

Overall, I enjoyed the film a lot. At first I thought it was going to be a boring documentary, but it turned out that is was pretty interesting. I would have never thought what other designers out there thought about design. Many of the concepts told in the film was actually a topic we talked about in class, such as the harmony. This film really makes me look deeper into what I design and how I can make it better.