Task 6d: Objectified

The featured film “Objectified” explains to us what we do everyday. We make assumption of everything by the first impression we see things without us even realizing we are, such as how heavy it is, how strong it is, it is what we expect the object to be. The video shows us the reason of designs by designers considering how the product is made from its raw materials, and how it connects with the user.

The word mass production gives people an impression of poor quality designs, or even no design at all, mass production might just be for the profit of a company. But in fact everything is being designed, without design, products would not even have its original shape, there are no objects that are not being designed, there is only good design and bad design. In fact, good designs should look as simple as it should be, keeping a design simple doesn’t mean there is no design to it, it takes a lot of work to keep product design as simple as it can be, products should be designed as simple as possible without unnecessary parts to confuse the user, therefore it can be mass produced. For example, the Apple Company emphasises the importance of simple, the design of apple products are simple which gives a clean feeling and it’s a pleasure for users to use.

Consumers do not realize there are always connections between products and themselves, which is what the designers are intended to do, to design products that people use it all the time but without realizing it, this is the interaction between human and products.

Hella Jongerius made a point that products should be unique. Instead of repeating the products over and over again, consumers will buy the products without really needing the product, which I agree in a commercial point of view, but if consumers are purchasing new things that are not necessary to them, it just means more pollution to the environment.

However, the main message I get from this video is the same as my belief, which is to keep things simple, sometimes people try hard to design some fancy cool stuffs, and try to be smart and design something ridicules. Someone taught me about the “KISS rule” before, which I still follow even now, which is “Keep it simple, stupid!” because the simpler things are, the less mistake people gets.