Assignment
nr 5.
Film
review
by
KADRI
PENJAM & MARTIN RAAMAT
This
is a review of 2009 film called Objectified, directed by Cary
Hustwit. It is film about humans and design and how design affects
our everyday life. How designers behave and see the world has a lot
to do with in what culture they come - how they see colours, shapes
etc. This film has different designers who are introducing their
approaches to design through their culture and unique point on view.
Andrew
Blauvelt is first one who appears to comment design in this movie and
he starts with interesting way - although we know that design is no
something that just happens, still very few of us notion the hard
work behind it. “Every objects tells a story, if you know how
to read it” is an interesting approach how to look at objects.
We are used that films have stories, books, comics etc., but
design? It might surprise lot of people. We look at designed object,
and we already see what it tries to tell us - good design is when we
do not notice it has a huge design, rather we find all
functionalities and we can interact with it easily.
Designing
and object lives through a great procress before it reaches to
market. While developing the product, it has a constant trying,
comparing and improving phases. It is not just ready made with
simple sketches.
Coming
back of the essence of good design, then it is nicely put together in
this film when they interviewed Braun Kronberg. He stress that good
design has little design as possible, it is innovative, long lived
and useful. Design being long lived is quite hard to manage
considering e.g. nowadays electronic devices. But I guess design of a
stool or table proves that some design can long live and that is
something we should consider while designing. That is for sure one of
the aspects that makes a good design because with long liveability it
also reduces throwing products away.
Design
of an object is not all about how the object looks like, but also how
useful it is. Sometimes a product might look hideous and really
uncomfortable to use, but people buy it anyway because they need it.
This is the point that many companies realized and they understood
that if they add a better looking design to an object, it would sell
even better. Some people would even buy the product not for the
usability but only because of the design and it can be said that this
is the success of a good designer. This situation usually happens on
an emotional level, people really relate to a product and its design
and they immediately understand the functionality. This is how it is
supposed to be. Unfortunately there are also many product nowadays
that are designed so badly that customers simply can`t figure out how
to use them.
People
also tend to identify themselves or others in an object as it would
represent their character. For example the design of cars; every car
has special look and the front part, which is sometimes referred to
as a “face” of the car. People really like to compare the driver
and his car and how they fit together.
It
was also referred to in the movie that technology has evolved so
quickly in the last decades that we are living in a really bizarre
world of mixed and useless designs, meaning that some objects we use
are the latest achievements in technology, but some things we use
haven`t changed in centuries. For example we have the latest
smartphones but still use old and stiff wooden chairs at home that
are really uncomfortable and cause backaches. So the design of
objects should evolve by making the objects simpler, easier to use
and more comfortable.
In
the digital age, the physical shape of an object is not that
important anymore, it is more about the software and the user
interface that counts for the usability of the object. This means how
the people will interact with the object and all the possible
scenarios one might go through by using it. So it is really important
for the designer, particularly in the digital world to think about
all the possible things that might happen when using a computer
program. The main factors to consider while designing these kinds of
interactive systems are that all humans make mistakes and they
constantly need feedback from the system.
One
of the most important aspects in design nowadays is also
sustainability. It is a reality that most of the products that we buy
pretty soon end up in the trash, so the designs should be long
lasting and ideally recyclable. It is not only important what
materials to choose for a product to make it look good but also
what, if anything, can be done later with these materials, after the
disposal. However the sustainability of a design has a totally new
meaning in the digital world. If a company sells one million bad
chairs then these chairs will probably soon end up in the junkyard.
If a company sells a million copies of a faulty computer program,
then there is no physical waste and the design can be updated by
reprogramming the parts that have errors. While this may sound like a
revolutionary thing then it is actually quite a normal behaviour. If
a kid breaks his legs, then the doctors don`t say, "His leg is
broken, get a new son, because this one is useless now". Things
and also people can be fixed. So most likely the future will also
bring us products and designs that can be “reprogrammed” on the
spot without the need to throw anything away or buy something new,
creating a new kind of sustainability.
