On The Power of Industrial Design & Filmmaking
“Science fiction is reality ahead of schedule.” Syd Mead (the prestigious designer and neo-futurist concept artist) has always made a way to inspire us toward what is real through filmmaking and industrial design. It is at this precise intersection — industrial design and filmmaking — where moviegoers engage established cultural norms, explore foundational pillars of identity, purpose, and beauty, as well as expand our understanding of global crises, history, art, and the endless possibilities of imagined futures. All while sitting in front of a screen. It’s pretty incredible when you think about it.
Going to the movies, crossing state lines for certain IMAX showings (read: Oppenheimer), or eating popcorn at home in your favorite spot is a quintessential summer activity. Of course, on the other side of the screen, entire crews of designers and artists have worked diligently to sync everyday objects with unimagined worlds that could very well end up playing an iconic role in your life. Yes, movies shape our worldviews, but have you considered the impact that industrial design and filmmaking play in your everyday life?
The power of industrial design in filmmaking lies in its ability to transcend the fictional. Virtually no other art form allows for such an interplay between fiction and reality.
It’s the furniture, automobiles, technologies, inventions, appliances — all these and more that make any movie feel real. The power of industrial design in filmmaking lies in it’s ability to often transcend the fictional. Virtually no other art form allows for such an interplay between fiction and reality. Consider some of these incredible examples:
- Barbie, the now wildly popular movie ($1.192 billion), has produced toys that nearly every girl in America has owned* and I would argue nearly every kid in America has played with at some point in their life; many of the dolls include accessories, furniture, or vehicles that now appear in the movie
- The Star Wars galaxy of film and television shows continues to produce clothing, toys of all varieties, games, and even an entire walkable “city,” Black Spire Outpost in Galaxy’s Edge, where you can interact with many of the world’s well designed products, furniture, architecture, and more
- The Matrix, Blade Runner, Back To The Future, and many similar movies are full of well-designed “sets” featuring everyday objects and technologies, augmented or altered, which have either found their way into our own world with the passing of time or remain concepts that inspire real design today
And it’s not just the future-oriented filmmakers and designers who blur the lines of what we can experience in real life. Artists and firms working with retro designs or long-established products have the remarkable vision of breathing new life into iconic products in order to retroactively capture our imagination today.
It’s often easy to overlook, but consider these examples:
- Who doesn’t love seeing Miles Morales (Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse) reach for his cassette player, a stylized Sony Walkman that belonged to his father — something many of us once had and, perhaps, wish we could still find.
- The skateboards, cassette players, backpacks, and more from Stranger Things are instantly recognizable, despite being designed many decades in the past. They populate an entirely fictional world, yet sit on the shelves in stores all across the US today.
When you break it all down, it’s fascinating to see how iconic industrial designs can serve as waymarkers for our collective journey through everyday life and into the future; as artists and thinkers, these designs can help us imagine new ways of making, building, and crafting products for today. Sometimes, these otherworldly designs can also inspire us to create a better, more sustainable future for ourselves and for generations to come because significant, meaningful industrial designs are often thought-provoking, symbolic, and visually compelling.
Iconic industrial designs can serve as waymarkers for our collective journey through everyday life and into the future; as artists and thinkers, these designs can help us imagine new ways of making, building, and crafting products for today.
The designs we create, establish, and place on the sets of filmmaking have the power to shape how we think and act in the world. This, in turn, influences the many kinds of designs we will invent and put to use — and that’s a good reminder of how powerful a creative idea really is.
