Project One - Peer Comments

Judith Torzillo

Jock Sinclair

Stasie Panagopoulos

Stella Ho

Simon De Graaf

"Design for Life" Tv Show Analysis

Philipe Starck

Recognised as one of the most influential designers of the time, Design for Life follows 12 designers as they attempt to find the lastest new design talent in Britain. The chosen 12 are then given an insight into the world of Philipe. It is an attempt to give these contestants a mentor like never before, they are asked to question every single aspect of a product and to shape and change it to answer each question correctly and to the best ability. The winner of the show will then get a contract of 6 months to work at the Starck design agency in Paris.

One of the first products looked at is the one-seater car, it is one of the designers answers to fuel efficiency. Where the user only uses fuel for their own needs not for the other three as well (which may or may not be seated in the car at the time). The first critical comment made on this is that if all four people needed to travel and they can be clipped together, more units need to be produced to cover this. therefore saying the energy saved in fuel is made up with the cost of producing the extra units.

The next task was to look at bad design, it was interesting to see that we had to complete a similar task (Confusing Design) in our class. The choice of the Ipod Nano covers, did not sit well with Starck and he went on to argue that those sort of covers protect a product which has already been designed to be used without a cover. He referred to it as a product which didn't need to exist.

I think the effectiveness of this show to advertise design as a career was quite effective. it allowed the public to see a high end designer at work with his students, teaching.... mentoring if you will about design. I enjoyed the show throughly and found that it left me with alot also... in the snese that I did learn from watching, about design and how top designers look at work.

Video Reflection - Objectified

Have you ever wondering how objects are made... with this film by Gary Hustwit you will be sure to find out how vast the area of Industrial Design is.

There are alot of issues covered in the film, and it is achieved through a variety of video interviews with some of our times most influential industrial designers. Even though alot of the key issues are covered using technical design jargon and at times almost impossible to understand for us layman, it does attempt to leave the viewer with a sense of accomplishment. In that they have been educated on a subject not ever covered in the news or any other media.

I think all in all Objectified is about the education of what design is, and what it does for us. It is difficult to scale such a vast field down to a measly 75 mins (approx) but I think it is achieved well. It is obviously only the tip of a expansive and ever changing market, but the film achieves a sense of knowledge. It offers an educated and at times visually intriguing look into design.