The film Objectified takes an interesting look at the culture of consumerism. By looking at Objects, their designers, and their audience, Objectified analyzes people. Designer
Jonathan Ive says, "When you see an object you make many so assumptions about that object in seconds. What it does. How it will do it. How much it weighs." The same idea can be applied to looking at people. By looking at their choices in objects we make assumptions about them. Their age. Class. Style. Intelligence. Designer
Chris Bangle says that cars are like our avatars. We choose our objects to please ourselves and make a statement. People are defining themselves with their mixture of selection.
Designers represent people. They create for an audience, but also for themselves and their personal aesthetic. Each designer represents the group of people that have a similar aesthetic or need. As
Rob Walker says, companies want SKU's. They want more products to put on the shelf and sell. Because of this designers also have a responsibility to future generations. They have an ethical responsibility to create sustainably.
The film portrays piles of junked products, electronics, plastics, trash. To live in a consumer culture is to create trash. As a designer there are two choices if one wants to create ethically. As
Karim Rashid says, Make it cardboard, make it 100% disposable. Design is about what is new and now and since it constantly changes it should be easy to dispose of. Why keep revisiting the archetypes? Designer
Marc Newson looks at it a little differently. He says you should design something to last. Something is good design when it is classic eternal and doesn't go out of style. These two opposing views make pose an interesting question. What will the consumers do? The role of designers is to answer this question.
Objectified uses designers philosophies, shots of products, and people using products to ask the question... "What is the purpose of design?" "Where should design be headed?" Form and Content interact in this film by portraying images of new products being manufactured for masses of people and depicting the future resting place of the new products by showing older versions broken down and heading to a landfill. The film uses these juxtaposed processes to portray the content. What are objects? What is the responsibility of the designer? The consumer? What are you (the viewer) going to do with this information?
Watch this video on the evolution of cell phones. Scroll down.
http://cellphones.techfresh.net/evolution-of-mobile-phones/
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