6 things I learned from watching Objectified
A tasteful and pragmatic review of the documentary I finally watched, and you should too.
1. Toothpicks are amazing
There are only a few different types of toothpicks I can think of off the top of my head, but the low-key coolest toothpick is this one:
This style of toothpick was invented by the Japanese for use after eating. While the pick side is meant to pick out food or other culinary debris stuck between your teeth, the other end serves a function too. When broken off, this serrated edge becomes a bench for the pick side to rest on to avoid touching the table. While this make sense in the context of Japanese culture and dining etiquette, it isn’t used this way in America because we’re slobs who don’t care about germs on tables or sanitation overall.
2. Design for Edge Cases
Dan Formosa, co-founder of Smart Design, says he doesn’t care about the average user of products. The people he cares about are the extremes — the people with arthritis, the triathletes. By designing this way, the middle takes care of itself. Neat.
3. Good Grips are really good
The Good Grips brand kitchen tools are so comfortable with those thick, black rubber handles. That’s not how they started out though. Back in the day, Sam Farber, co-founder of OXO (the kitchen utensils and housewares manufacturer), wanted to develop a potato peeler that his wife could comfortably use. She had arthritis and had trouble holding the standard potato peeler at the time. No surprises there since it looks like a medieval torture device.
Thus, Good Grips products were born, and the potato peeler has never looked nor felt better. Same goes with its cousins, the can opener and the avocado slicer.
4. Arrows, as in the bow and arrow, are designed
The point of industrial design is designing for mass production and standardization. One of the first instances of this practice dates back to ancient China. In this age, each archer in Chinese armies made his own arrows. This was a problem for the first emperor who was trying to conquer more land. When an archer was killed in battle, another archer couldn’t pick up the fallen soldier’s arrows and keep shooting — these arrows wouldn’t fit his bow. As a result, the emperor and his advisors devised a method of standardizing the arrows so they would fit any bow.
5. We buy for ouselves
Sounds obvious, but whenever we buy something, the real audience is ourselves. When you buy a product, you’re making a statement to yourself about yourself. For instance, if I buy a pair of Doc Marten’s boots, I’m making a statement to myself that I think I’m the type of person who would buy this shoe. This is something I want to wear. I acknowledge all the characteristics, my opinions of this product and possibly the opinions of others. In sum, this is the right shoe for me. (This should be on the label of every product.) The question you should be asking is “Why is this the right product for me?”
6. Digital cameras should’t really be rectangular
#tbt // When the digital camera was invented, it still operated on film. After you finished taking the millionth picture of your newborn, you had to take the camera to a Walmart or CVS and pay for the film to be developed. Thus, the camera took the shape of a big rectangular prism because the film canister was so large.
Now, these canisters are extinct, I can take as many pictures as I want, and the components in the digital camera are much smaller. Why do digital cameras still look pretty much the same? Why hasn’t the design of digital cameras changed? Why are we still designing the same way?
“Every object tells a story if you know how to read it.” — Henry Ford
