Form and Content : Objectified

Objectified is a film that seeks to link everyday products to their designers. For designers, the form and content of products come together to tell a story because “every object has a story, if you know how to read it” (Henry Ford). Designers create indentations on handles of branch cutter are generated to provide grip, and redesign the blunt, serrated ends of toothpicks to provide a rest for the picks and indicate that it has been used. Designers design for an audience and functionality, always questioning and innovating. Objectified explains the reasoning behind designer innovations and inventions.

Photo taken from Alibaba.com

The film insinuates that, unlike designers, consumers are creatures of consumption and assumption who only seeks form. Consumers are always in want of the latest models and always making assumptions of an object at first sight; how it should feel; how it should work; what it should be able to do; how heavy it is, and how much it should cost. In a way, the film demonstrates that consumers,  only seek the form of a product; taking in its color, architecture, shape, and texture, and if they should find it aesthetically pleasing, purchase it only to throw it out when the newer models comes along, generating waste. It would not have occurred to the American consumer that the serrated toothpick ends were meant be broken and used to signal its usage or to pose it as a rest for the pick. In a world of consumerism, very second, millions of what can only be categorized as “stuff” is manufactured, designed, invented, innovated, discarded, and dumped into dumpsters. Consumers go through “stuff” as fast as they are created. Whatever is designed today may well be made of cardboard as commented by designer Karim Rashid, because it will be found in the trash bins somewhere in the world tomorrow.

Objectified demonstrates that to consumers, what you see is what you get because they don’t look for the story of a product, and to designers, there is more to a product than meets the eye because they connect to the product to provide a story. In addition, Gary Hustwit uses designer explanations, the work field, and designer perspectives in Objectified to show that there is a reason for every product, and a product for every reason.

LINKS: toothpicks  Objectified