Everyone wants to stand out from each other which is why everyone wants to get the latest thing hoping that they will, even for one second, have something different from the norm but in the end, who are these people actually proving themselves to and how is this affecting the way designers design for a society full of this exact state of mind? The Documentary was an eye opener.
Each designer had a different point of view on what design should be today or how they should go around designing for society. All were legitimate and had an explanation to back their reasoning but a few really caught my attention. From my understanding after watching this video, society has a large impact on the way designers think about a product and manufacturers on what method they choose to produce products with. Today, the goal of Industrial Design is to mass produce and to standardize products universally. This is increasingly true as Henry Ford said “every object tells a story, if you know how to read it” By standardizing products, it can be sold worldwide without wasting time to redesign and remanufacture.
“Good design should be innovative, useful, honest, unobstructive, understandable, consistent in every detail, environmentally friendly and require as little design as possible” – Dieter Rams
I think this is very true of what design should be and it is something that I wish to follow as I develop as a designer. What Dieter has said covers a lot of what our current society requires in design as it appeals to consumers to have a “designed” product but at the same time, it can be used correctly. As Marc Newson said “Companies add value because something has been “designed” when designed items should cost less”. The world is all about making money now so it has become increasingly obvious that things are going to cost more when there is a name attached to it due to the fact that it seems more thought has been put into it. As consumers in this society, we look at names rather than design now. Names equal to reliability but even then there are some harsh products being manufactured.
“Design so people consider it without noticing....people should be calm and think that it is a considerate piece of design rather than think about the struggles the engineers and designers had to come up with the solution” – Jonathan Ive, Apple
Jonathan Ive refers to the light on the front edge of the computer that tells its user that the computer is on even if the lid is shut. Something so simple creates a larger impact on the everyday user than most people think. We like to go through everyday without needing to complain about why something doesn’t work the way we want it to. As a society, we like to complain about many things that irritate us so designers have learnt to deal with every problem down to the smallest details to make our lives much less complex and much smoother.
“...addressing future generations of what they think of a car. Like an avatar showing the outside world of themselves through the car” – Chris Bangle, BMW
We buy products because we are expressing who we are through them whether it is by brand or by look, we choose them because we think they represent us. Chris Bangle also makes a statement about how we are the only ones who we have something to prove to when we buy products. We buy a car because we think it suits us. Society is all about personalizing that even the faces of cars have changed and we inadvertently choose the one that we think suits us best.
No comments:
Post a Comment