Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Reflection on "Objectified" by Gary Hustwit


http://brooklynartanddesign.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/objectified-logo-01.jpg

Since the book by Donald Norman "The Design of Everyday Things" was published, the concept of user-centred design has been prevalent then and with even more emphasis today than ever. This video showed us that combined with the need by society for products that can be mass produced to reduce cost in the most competitive period of time in industrial design, we’ve learnt has results in the changing philosophies of designers. Therefore, good design should be “innovative, useful, understandable … environmentally friendly and with as little design as possible” as asserted by Dieter Rams and consider how “you (the users) connect with the product” maintained by Jonathan Ive from Apple.

Society today, illustrated in this video, with the help of growing product advertisements in everyday media, has grown to love contributing to the “Golden Star” of consumerism so to speak, euphemised by Annie Leonard in “The Story of Stuff”. Thus the products which they chooses from the hundreds of mass bombardment of products shoved in their faces have become personal things that are “like avatars… a representation of who you (the users) are” quoted by Chris Bangle, ex-director of BMW Design. For example, Bangle elaborate on the fact that people would buy a car based on their “face” to express their individuality, a car that in the user’s perception will be seen by other people in a highway, when really, quote “no one really cares”. So the main point driven by this video has mainly been about the need for designers to really focus to “understand what people need better than they do.”

Another idea that is reiterated by most of the designers interviewed was the need for objects that users surround themselves with to “improve their (the users) daily life without them ever thinking about it”. This mean the future of our design are veering towards the iPod’s approach where no longer does form follows function but the object has to not only “feel undersigned” quoted by Ive but more importantly, products that a person chooses to obtain to fill their home with also “becomes part of your family” quoted by Hella Jongerius. Thus, we’ve learnt that manufactured objects, shaped by society today is first and foremost about “creating an appropriate environment where people feel good” quoted by Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec.

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