I decided to watch the movie Objectified which was directed by Gary Hustwit in 2009. The message he is trying to express throughout this movie is the relationship we have all created with the objects that our in our everyday life and the attachment we have to them. The designer’s job is to improve the daily life of individuals, without them even realizing it is happening. This design process has made people crave the new and best design, even more than we need to. Gary tries to point out the designers are understanding what people want, more than even the people know. This has created a relationship between the designer and the consumers.
This director also produced the movie Helvetica in 2007 and it had a similar feel to it. They interviewed and got perspective from different people around the world that have an expertise on the topic. This brought a unique aspect to the video, where we see different cultures and how they produce and design their products. I did not believe this film did the best job showing the situation of people of minority. The reason I feel this way is something they state in the movie. That when designing products they are looking to capture the attention of only 10% of the population, the percentage of the world that already has too much. For example, the person that has the iPhone 5s, but needs to have the iPhone 6 the second it comes out because of the attraction of the new design. I wish they would have talked about designing products and objects that support people in third world countries to help try improve their everyday life.
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| People wait in line for hours for the new phone debut. Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/theq/663154431/in/photolist-59WfSJ-T1v48-oveVee-d7dP4Y-21AQH6-oifLv7-eXpLBD-21FWnZ-nHkE71-54gVdF-22i17a-dL5iGs-dStGhR-8awJ3Q-cQPKPy-21DTu8-21J3ho-knoQkZ-jy3GV3-53Rqq6-fejXsj-54fB2N-p2VbZ1-53WyPh-57PQ3s-dcHeR9-ocRsYr-dHHkmf-238KDX-86yCHW-238MkR-otFRbm-22i2Ve-dSzueF-21wJBe-dSdGcs-57PJGp-ekiqsb-22nrx1-23d8aS-22noG9-23d7aj-23da3C-22nq53-22i2tM-78ifeY-55npuD-55npsP-7CqLbu-549L1g CC Public Domain |
I do believe this director’s background played a role in the production of the film. I feel as though in everything we produce there is going to be a biased in what you believe. The people he choose to interview, what information to include, and the outline of the film were all decisions he had to make. I think we see this often when we are reading textbooks, no matter who the author is you need to look out for bias. I also think he likes creating films explaining the different things that our affecting our everyday lives without us even realizing it. Many people may not think about how text and objects affect their life, but after watching the videos produced by Gary Hustwit, they may have a different opinion.
When thinking about this film I had a hard time thinking about who would misinterpret or be offended by this film. The main thing I could think about was the people that are of a lower class and are not worried about the look and feel of things, but instead they are just trying to purchase things that are affordable and will help improve their life. During the movie they pointed out when you have a smart, simple and sophisticated design it should cost less because that is what the design is meant to do, but because it was designed it will actually cost more.
This movie added to my visual literacy by showing the amount of work that goes into designing something and knowing this trickles down to the idea of how much time it takes to design anything that is visually appealing to someone. I also really liked the idea that designers are not designing for what is currently happening, they are looking at what is going to happen next. I think this is very similar to visual literacy because it is important to always know where we are going, especially with the ads that are produced. I always relate things back to Apple products, but I know that during the design of the iPhone they also need to think about how they are going to advertise and communicate the new design to persuade people they need this new phone, even though the differences from the last iPhone are minimal. We could all still have the iPhone 4 and have a perfect working phone. The artistic and visual means used throughout this film were the different steps of the design process. It was very interesting to see what all of the steps entailed and some of the things they used were diagrams, 3d models, prototypes and computer software to help their design process.
One of the biggest things I took away from this film, is the fact that designers need to consider what is going to happen to their product after people are done using it or the next big item comes out. One of the designers mentioned he had never thought about the fact that most of the objects he has designed are now sitting in landfills. I had never thought about this either, but I think it is a very big concern that we need to think about. With the average shelf life of an item an item used with being around 11 months, designers need to be designing their products to be reused or easily disposed of.
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| A lot of thought goes into designing even something as simple as a chair. Source:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Library_Chair_dakota_jackson.jpg CC Public Domain |
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