Objectified

By S@Z

Who knew that something as simple as on ordinary Post-it Note is really an ingenuous design. Designer Dieter Rams in the movie Objectified stated that good design is clear, understandable, innovative, useful, aesthetic, honest, unobtrusive, long-lived, consistent in every detail, environmentally friendly, and most importantly- good design is as little design as possible. That describes Post-it Notes to a tee. Director Gary Hustwit explores how good design improves everyday objects.

Mr Hustwit clearly has an interest in design because he has created a trilogy on the subject. Each dealing with a different aspect of graphic design: typography, industrial design, and urban planning. He said in an interview in Dwell magazine: "I like the idea of taking a closer look at the things we take for granted and changing the way people think about them, whether it’s type or objects or whatever (Dwell, 49)". This movie should not be offensive to any group of people. It causes you to think about the myriad of design decisions that go into producing consumer products.

My "ah ha" moment was that design is moving away from the tangible to the intangible. The form no longer follows function. It used to be that even if you had no idea what the object was (a spoon), you could make a good guess by the way it looks what it is used for. That is not the case with modern electronic tools. This has opened up a whole new world of design opportunities. Objectified is not as compelling as Helvetica, but it effectively uses images of designed products to illustrate the message the designers are trying to relate to the audience.
Dwell, LLC (March 2009). Dwell. Dwell, LLC. pp. 42–. ISSN 15305309. Retrieved 6 October 2012