Objectified: 12 Quotes
If you’re even remotely involved in the design industry and you haven’t yet watched Gary Hustwit’s Objectified, we highly recommend getting a hold of a copy – it’s a critical film for the design minded.
Objectified interviews some of the most forward-thinking designers of the current time and carries a fascinating dialogue about where design has been and where it’s going. More importantly, the documentary does a brilliant job of holding up a mirror to a society fooling itself.
We enjoyed the film immensely. There are so many amazing designers interviewed, conjured and discussed that we just couldn’t help putting together a list of our top Objectified quotes, here goes:
1. Every object tells a story if you know how to read it.
–Henry Ford quoted by Andrew Blauvelt, Design Curator Walker Art Center
2. A big definition of who you are as a designer is the way you look at the world.
-Jonathan Ive, Senior VP Industrial Design at Apple
3. We now have a new generation of products where the form bears absolutely no relation to the function. Look at something like the iphone and think of all the things it does. “Form follows function” has been annihilated by the microchip.
-Alice Rawsthorn, Design Editor of International Herald Tribune
4. That’s what we’re really always looking for whenever we design, ways we can improve the way people do things without them even knowing or thinking about it.
-Davin Stowell, CEO & Founder of Smart Design
5. That’s what particularly bothers me today, the arbitrariness and thoughtlessness with which many things are produced and brought to market. Not only in the sector of consumer goods, but also in architecture, in advertising. We have too many unnecessary things everywhere.
-Dieter Rams, Former Design Director of Braun
6. We’re building all these really kitsch stage sets that have absolutely nothing to do with the age we live in.
-Karim Rashid, Designer in New York
7. So many of the products that we’re surrounded by want you to be very aware of just how clever the solution was.
-Jonathan Ive, Senior VP Industrial Design at Apple
8. If one’s really honest with oneself, most of what you design ends up in a landfill somewhere.
-Tim Brown, CEO & President IDEO
9. Consider wearing something in rather than wearing it out.
- Bill Moggridge, co-founder IDEO
10. Today I see my role as a designer to help define what we should be creating for people, and the output is not necessarily obviously a design, it’s not obviously a product.
-Tim Brown, CEO & President IDEO
11. I see designers as also designing scenarios based on objects that will help people understand the consequences of their choices.
-Paola Antonelli, Design curator at the Museum of Modern Art, New York
12. The value, and especially the legitimization of design will be, in the future, measured more in terms of how it can enable us to survive on this planet.
-Dieter Rams
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By Richter, December 15, 2009 @ 9:40 am
#8 is a fact that very few of us are willing to face.
By Nate Lambdin, December 15, 2009 @ 10:27 am
Enjoyed the post thanks…
By Gus, December 15, 2009 @ 11:51 am
This is a great film and many of the people interviewed are definitely leading the charge of design into the future.
By JS, December 15, 2009 @ 2:18 pm
Great quotes.
I would have to disagree with number 3#. The iphone design is form following function, its just that those functions are taking place on a touchscreen(for the recorded I use a treo). And look at technology advanced cars such as the Prius and how the aerodynamics are determining its shape and look.
By andrew, December 16, 2009 @ 9:28 pm
I thought the same thing. I had been trying to think of something the iphone does that’s mutually exclusive with its form.
The microchip particularly is quintessentially form follows function. Nothing to spare. Irreducible. No ornament. Now try loosening a lug nut or serving spaghetti with it. It does what it looks like it does and vise versa.