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Chris Jacob
Just saw it yesterday and the thought about the software was the same reaction I had. I felt like they touched onit only slightly, then never mentioned it again at a deeper level. But otherwise an amazing film.
What amazes me is how many objects we interact with every day feel like they weren't designed on purpose at all. I can't count the number of times I've said, "Didn't the guy who made this ever try *using* it? How could these faults not be obvious?"
Digital clocks are probably the worst. I tried to write a book one time about good design and poor design, but I never got beyond my hatred for digital clocks. They've finally started getting a little better in the last 5 years or so.
That reminds me of the Sony digital alarm clock/radio at the "Hotel Del" in San Diego about 3 years ago. I, an engineer, could not figure it out. When I called the front desk for guidance, they said they could not operate them either!
I think most people forget that EVERYTHING manufactured is touched by a designer, not just overpriced objects which are marketed with the "Designer" moniker. I think sometime back in the 70's, MADison Avenue decided that tossing the term before the name of an object justified a 2-3X price multiplier. So-called "Designer Jeans" and anything from Nike and Disney are the epitome of this thinking.
I truly appreciate good design, but I hate it when the "Designer" label is used to justify overcharging consumers.
I saw Objectified last night at the San Francisco premiere (well, it was the first of two screenings that night with two more tonight, and then a return engagement next week or so, presumably sans director and Q&A with local celebs in the film). It's hard for those in design-related fields to be objective about Objectified. Comparisons to Helvetica are inevitable, and I really wished I had the experience I had watching Helvetica: I came to that movie with a rough idea about typography and Hustwit used that film to dive deeply into something and thereby highlight and provoke some real new thinking (for me, at least - I still think about the ideas in that movie). As he commented in the Q&A, that was a movie about going into the details to find the big picture and Objectified is a movie about looking at the big picture - all the stuff around us - and trying to find the details that illuminate it. But I've been in this field for 15 years and I've heard a lot of the stuff in the movie before. Sure, Moggridge's story about realizing the power of the interaction on-screen with his new laptop versus the box itself is a classic, and the "I designed a product and then found it in the trash" is an inevitable classic (didn't Dan Harden offer the same story in his IDSA 2002 opening keynote?) and no documentary would be complete without them (I found myself imagining film enthusiasts seeing a documentary about Scorcese and grooving or complaining about that same old story once again about Harvey Keitel). But oy, the self-deluding and sales-y posturing that some of the professionals offered up was making my stomach hurt. "We want to make ordinary life better" "We imbue everyday objects with special meaning" etc. etc. Oh, and the Bouroullec brothers explaining that designers know what people want better than they do. What is this, 1997? Certainly the movie does support the notion of the brilliant designer who generates solutions and little of the concept of the brilliant designer who translates hard-to-identify needs into wonderful solutions.
And that's where the audience thing comes up: why is this film shown as an AIGA/IDSA event? Because hasn't anyone from this community heard that stuff a zillion times? Do we believe it? Is this movie for us, or are we the alpha market that will help the movie gain further audience but (as I'm doing) talking about it?
Frankly, I was so turned off by the firms gently (no doubt due to some deft editing) talking about themselves as these bubbles where great stuff happens, as opposed to the actual field of design where people move on career arcs in a variety of different organizations that are, in my mind, pretty much the same. The scenes of designers interacting with each other at brainstorms or with prototypes or on-screen were very fake, offensively so. "How's about a removable handle? Well, oh, yes, that's a good idea" "We're not designing toothbrushes, we're looking at the future of dental care" all come right out of the marketing literature kool-aid and I was bummed that Hustwit couldn't sniff that out as false.
I think - and the movie sort of gets at this with Rob Walker's powerful (but too wryly delivered and too quick for me to fully process - I wanted a rewind button and a moment to digest) suggestion that what we already own is maybe good enough for most of us - that there's a Big Lie for design around We Create Meaningful Stuff. Guess what, you don't. As one person in the movie said "people care about a lot of things and maybe cleaning their teeth isn't one of them" most of the stuff that gets made is stuff that no one cares about. Most of the things we each own are not our grandfather's wonderful briefcase, as the opening breakfast montage makes clear - we've got a lot of stuff and very little of it has significant meaning. Or if you make a product that sells big, chances are that few people will attach much emotion to it, regardless of the category. BMWs and iPhone are rare design gigs. So design should stop lying to itself and its customers about this, because it's absolute crap. And I thought the film let that idea hang just a bit.
I thought the bit with Jonny Ive was brilliant (although he referred to CNC and bosses in a way that wouldn't help you if you didn't know what that referred to) because it gave me something new to think about (I sense a theme here :) - a company that has framed the design in the popular consciousness as being about cool, modern, sleek, and user experience is putting an enormous amount of effort into designing the way the thing gets made - a designed aspect of the product that is entirely invisible to the end-user. That's probably nothing new to people with experiencing in manufacturing, but it opened my world up a bit.
I liked Alice Rawsthorn's example of design being used to create standards, citing an ancient Chinese army that had archers who designed their own arrows and were not interchangable. This reminded me of what I blogged yesterday [www.portigal.com] where the Chinese government is trying to standardize the language used in names in order to simplify their database requirements.
The discussion was almost all about design - its future, sustainability, the other 90%, etc. - and not enough about the film itself. Hustwit relies on getting The Big Names and that seems to be the core of the film but he does something else amazing - he creates this visual glue between the interviews that is just so powerful. In Helvetica he turned the camera on the printed environment and showed us the impact of Helvetica that maybe we hadn't already experienced ourselves. Here he observes people, people in cars, people shopping for Apple products, people walking across the street, as well as the knick-knacks that populate our homes (as well as some amazing mechanical processes) that all point to a much keener eye than he takes credit for. In the montage of software interactions there's a quick shot of a VCR flashing 12:00 - of course, that's an obsolete example but it's THE classic interaction design cliche and I was so pleased to see it. As much as the talking heads make you think (or at least are intended to), the linking imagery really makes you feel and in both films that was my favorite part: the observation of our world, informed by some (hopefully) new ideas.
@Jesus: I'd already enjoy a visit to Dublin, but seeing as now is the perfect time to get date-raped by Jesus, I'd be foolish to not pick up a ticket immediately.
And people never give a second thought to the unsung hero of our time: the plastic (disposable) coffee cup lid. A properly designed lid will allow you to slurp your piping hot street-side Joe without it leaking over the sides of your mouth, no matter how oddly contorted your pie hole is, shield your philtrum from the scalding liquid that splashes up after every sip, and seal tightly enough around the lip of your flimsy paper cup so you don't spill your precious caffeine on your nice clean button-up office attire.
@Kaiser-Machead: No one discusses the unsung creaters of the fleshlight, or the plastic tip at the end of shoelaces ("flugalbinders"), or who invented the peep show, but that's just it. We only really care when its something that interests the us.
Mainly I just care that my fleshlight works..... I mean I've heard that before. Yup. Someone somewhere told me about it once. I don't have one. That's just ridiculous, stop asking.
05/18/09
04/23/09
04/22/09
Digital clocks are probably the worst. I tried to write a book one time about good design and poor design, but I never got beyond my hatred for digital clocks. They've finally started getting a little better in the last 5 years or so.
04/23/09
That reminds me of the Sony digital alarm clock/radio at the "Hotel Del" in San Diego about 3 years ago. I, an engineer, could not figure it out. When I called the front desk for guidance, they said they could not operate them either!
04/23/09
Just stick with my mobile's alarm clock, which, interestingly, is rather well designed...
04/22/09
I truly appreciate good design, but I hate it when the "Designer" label is used to justify overcharging consumers.
04/22/09
And that's where the audience thing comes up: why is this film shown as an AIGA/IDSA event? Because hasn't anyone from this community heard that stuff a zillion times? Do we believe it? Is this movie for us, or are we the alpha market that will help the movie gain further audience but (as I'm doing) talking about it?
Frankly, I was so turned off by the firms gently (no doubt due to some deft editing) talking about themselves as these bubbles where great stuff happens, as opposed to the actual field of design where people move on career arcs in a variety of different organizations that are, in my mind, pretty much the same. The scenes of designers interacting with each other at brainstorms or with prototypes or on-screen were very fake, offensively so. "How's about a removable handle? Well, oh, yes, that's a good idea" "We're not designing toothbrushes, we're looking at the future of dental care" all come right out of the marketing literature kool-aid and I was bummed that Hustwit couldn't sniff that out as false.
I think - and the movie sort of gets at this with Rob Walker's powerful (but too wryly delivered and too quick for me to fully process - I wanted a rewind button and a moment to digest) suggestion that what we already own is maybe good enough for most of us - that there's a Big Lie for design around We Create Meaningful Stuff. Guess what, you don't. As one person in the movie said "people care about a lot of things and maybe cleaning their teeth isn't one of them" most of the stuff that gets made is stuff that no one cares about. Most of the things we each own are not our grandfather's wonderful briefcase, as the opening breakfast montage makes clear - we've got a lot of stuff and very little of it has significant meaning. Or if you make a product that sells big, chances are that few people will attach much emotion to it, regardless of the category. BMWs and iPhone are rare design gigs. So design should stop lying to itself and its customers about this, because it's absolute crap. And I thought the film let that idea hang just a bit.
I thought the bit with Jonny Ive was brilliant (although he referred to CNC and bosses in a way that wouldn't help you if you didn't know what that referred to) because it gave me something new to think about (I sense a theme here :) - a company that has framed the design in the popular consciousness as being about cool, modern, sleek, and user experience is putting an enormous amount of effort into designing the way the thing gets made - a designed aspect of the product that is entirely invisible to the end-user. That's probably nothing new to people with experiencing in manufacturing, but it opened my world up a bit.
I liked Alice Rawsthorn's example of design being used to create standards, citing an ancient Chinese army that had archers who designed their own arrows and were not interchangable. This reminded me of what I blogged yesterday [www.portigal.com] where the Chinese government is trying to standardize the language used in names in order to simplify their database requirements.
The discussion was almost all about design - its future, sustainability, the other 90%, etc. - and not enough about the film itself. Hustwit relies on getting The Big Names and that seems to be the core of the film but he does something else amazing - he creates this visual glue between the interviews that is just so powerful. In Helvetica he turned the camera on the printed environment and showed us the impact of Helvetica that maybe we hadn't already experienced ourselves. Here he observes people, people in cars, people shopping for Apple products, people walking across the street, as well as the knick-knacks that populate our homes (as well as some amazing mechanical processes) that all point to a much keener eye than he takes credit for. In the montage of software interactions there's a quick shot of a VCR flashing 12:00 - of course, that's an obsolete example but it's THE classic interaction design cliche and I was so pleased to see it. As much as the talking heads make you think (or at least are intended to), the linking imagery really makes you feel and in both films that was my favorite part: the observation of our world, informed by some (hopefully) new ideas.
04/22/09
04/22/09
11/07/09
04/22/09
04/22/09
Anyone going to see the screening in Dublin, Ireland?
We could meet up and go together (I could date-rape you too, there's always that risk, but come one, we all like a bit of risk).
04/23/09
04/22/09
04/22/09
Sorry, I'm drinking coffee.
04/23/09
Mainly I just care that my fleshlight works..... I mean I've heard that before. Yup. Someone somewhere told me about it once. I don't have one. That's just ridiculous, stop asking.