Objectified

Another assignment for my Context of Practice course:

Watch "Objectified", a documentary in which a lot of leading designers talk about their work, and make some observations about it in the next session, scheduled for 3rd December.

I've just viewed it and as I won't be attending the 3rd December session, I'll make a few observations here.

Apparently, Objectified is the second of a trilogy of documentaries.  The first one was about the Helvetica typeface and the third is called "Urbanized" and looks at the growth of urban areas.

Regarding Objectified:

Here's a list of "Top 12 Quotes" from the video in a blog written by Build LLC, a Seattle-based firm of architects. 

The ones that struck me:

"Every object tells a story if you know how to read it,"  a famous quote by Henry Ford (cited by Andrew Blauvelt, design curator of the Walker Art Centre in the video).

It brings me back to a question I've asked myself before - should I try and make my work tell a story of my own making, or should I let my audience make up their own stories?

My experience suggests the latter.  For example:

• The person that selected my "Ghosts" for an exhibition told me she'd picked it because of its references to the threat to global bio-diversity, a connection I'm still struggling to comprehend!
• I only realised that I'd designed "Smitten" in the style of Beryl Cook when someone pointed it out to me, after I'd submitted the proposal.

"We now have a new generation of products where the form bears absolutely no relation to the function" - Alice Hawthorn, design editor of the International Herald Tribune.

I wonder whether this only applies to consumer electronics?

Actually, I think it all depends on what you're looking at in consumer electronics   - a point made by Bill Moggridge, the designer of the Grid Compass Computer, also cited in the video.  Namely, the design of consumer electronics doesn't stop at the surface, the hardware - it goes much deeper, into the software.

The reason that Apple's stuff is so successful isn't just because the outside surface looks minimalist and beautiful; it's also because the software is so well designed and intimately integrated with the hardware (which was probably top of Steve Job's manifesto).

I would say that form may not follow function visually in Apple products, but it does follow it from an "experience" point of view.

Thinking about it some more, I think there are other examples of form no longer following function.  There was a time when you could see the various components of a car engine, for instance - the spark plugs, the distributor, the carburettor,  and each one gave clues about what it was for and how it worked.  Nowadays, the whole engine just looks like a box;  the opportunity to fix things yourself has largely been with-held.

I like one of the final points that was made - that the means of making stuff is likely to shift into people's homes (or maybe the equivalent of libraries) in the future.  

I take this to mean that this will have a strong influence on design, and probably make designers more important in the future.