Objectified Documentary Screening!!!

Adam Craft (InspireID) and Gary Hustwit (Director) @ Arizona Screening

After what seems like six months of anticipation, I finally got to see Objectified, a feature-length documentary about design and our relationship with the products that surround us. Director Gary Hustwit, who also produced I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, a film about the band Wilco, and directed Helvetica, a popular documentary about typography, graphic design and global visual culture, was in attendance. Objectified is composed of a series of interlaced interviews with great design minds. The movie is not only entertaining but offers some insights into the minds of prominent designers including Jonathan Ive (Apple), Karim Rashid (New York), Dan Formosa (Smart Design), David Kelly (IDEO), Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec (Paris), Mark Newson (London/Paris) and Chris Bangle (BMW Group).

Jonathan Ive, Senior Vice President of Industrial Design for Apple, offered a few interesting ideas on good design. One of the key points he makes is that designers often try to draw too much attention to a feature (lines, chamfers, textures, color, etc.) simply to force the user to look at their clever design contribution. As I was wrapping my head around Ive’s theories, I began to think about my own design approach differently. I contemplated what I would do differently if I approached each design iteration as a person or a personality. Do I want my product to be the annoying, gloating person who over-exaggerates and is often full of crap? Or do I want my design to reflect the confident, authentic person that everyone loves to be around? This is something I will take away from Objectified and incorporate into future concepts.

Jonathan Ive, Senior VP of Industrial Design, Apple

Equally entertaining for the non-design-minded, Objectified captures a behind-the-scenes look into design studios, and illustrates what design is about on a very emotional and pure level. It accurately conveys design as a process of thinking about problems, not solely as a profession of aesthetics. The movie is a great introduction to product design and I wish I would have seen it long ago when I was juggling the options of becoming an artist or an engineer. After a few years of engineering prerequisites, I discovered industrial design (with the help of my brother) and immediately changed my major. For the next four years, I let design school take over my life and never looked back. I think Objectified has the potential to turn non-designers into conscientious consumers, and maybe even inspire others to choose design for their career path.

After the show, I had the pleasure of hanging out for a Q&A session with Gary Hustwit(director) which later turned into drinks at a local restaurant. He was amazingly genuine and even offered me film and technical advice. Gary will soon begin working on a third design documentary, however, he would not give any details just yet.

Objectified Poster $20 USD

Quotes from the movie:

“Bad design is where the customer thinks it’s their fault that something doesn’t work…People should demand more from the things they own. They need to demand that things work.”
-David Kelly, IDEO

“If the average shelf life of a high-tech object is less than eleven months, why on Earth does anything have to be built to be permanent? It should be all 100% disposable.
-Karim Rashid

“Sustainability isn’t just sort of a glamorous process of using recycled materials to design something that may or may not be the color green. It’s about redesigning every single aspect of a company’s process, from sourcing materials to designing to production to shipping, and then eventually designing a way for those products to be disposed of responsibly.
-Alice Rawsthorn

“I wish people would be more critical of design, and of designers, who are responsible for designing some pretty nasty stuff.”
-Marc Newson

Tagged as: BMW Group, Dan Formosa, David Kelly, documentary, Gary Hustwit, IDEO, Industrial Design Movie, Jonathan Ive, Karim Rashid, Objectified, objectified documentary review, Smart Design