One summer day, when I was seven or eight years old, I got the urge to make something. I wasn’t sure what. I found a small, sturdy piece of wood, some hooks and nails, glue, and a few unique postage stamps. In the end, my childhood creation became a key holder. My parents hung the minimally-designed object in the kitchen. They still hang their car keys on it, which means that for three decades the object I created has dutifully served its purpose.
From the wonderfully simple to the unfathomably complex, manufactured objects are everywhere. Because of their sheer abundance in our lives, however, it’s easy to engage with them in an unconscious and automatic manner.
Often, it’s only because of a particularly frustrating, gleeful, or nostalgic experience that we pause to think critically about an object. The poorly designed interface on a dishwasher can make us roll our eyes in dismay; the outstanding quality of headphones can put a smile on our faces.
The demands of life are many, so it’s hardly surprising that most of us would rather not expend our mental energy on things like the design process of a vegetable peeler or how our cherished smartphones come into being.
Nonetheless, the world of design is too important for any of us to approach with a blasé attitude. Our lifelong relationships with objects is a surprisingly profound one; they influence not only the well-being of our own lives but also the wider world around us (including future generations that will one day inhabit it).
Gary Hustwit’s 2009 documentary, Objectified, does a commendable job at reminding us of these important truths.
Featuring a dozen or so designers, writers, and curators, the film offers nuggets about the history of design, how designers think and what inspires them, what our design choices can say about us, and why good design is critical for sustainability. While some films about design carry an elitist or snobbish tone to them, that’s not the case here. Objectified has a fun and welcoming vibe to it, one that will surely make viewers more receptive to the topics its presents.
In the mere fifteen years since the film’s release, the subject matter feels increasingly relevant. We have access to nearly an endless array of products and devices, and more often than not, we can get them delivered to our doorstep in an astonishingly short amount of time. Yet the proliferation of manufactured objects—and the countless choices they present to us—can be just as much a curse as much as a blessing. Too often our lives become cluttered with objects, ones that add little meaning to our lives while at the same time draining our pocketbooks.
Some of the best segments in the film address these and related matters, like the absurd amount of poorly designed objects. Ever fiddled with a device and thought, “Is it just me?” Rest assured, it almost certainly isn’t just you.
One designer admits that, despite working in the field of design, he still experiences those universally frustrating moments of not understanding how to use a badly designed object. Another designer laments the lunacy of uncomfortable chairs entering the marketplace, despite the fact that human beings have been designing tuchus-supporting apparati for millennia. “There’s like no excuse whatsoever,” he says.
Prominent designer Dieter Rams expresses his deep and ongoing disappointment regarding “the arbitrariness and thoughtlessness with which many things are produced and brought to market.” He notes, similarly, that “We have too many unnecessary things everywhere.”
It would be hard to make a compelling argument against that.
One journalist in the film echoes these remarks in the context of sustainability: “It’s no longer possible for designers to ignore the implications of continuing to produce more and more new stuff.” It’s also imperative that designers commit to sustainable practices. Many designers “believe emotionally and intellectually in sustainability,” but the process of producing truly sustainable products is “a mammoth task.” It requires “redesigning every single aspect: from sourcing materials, to designing, to production, to shipping, and then eventually designing a way that those products can be disposed of responsibly.” A mammoth task, indeed.
On the issue of sourcing, the rampant expansion of cobalt mining comes especially to mind. The precious resource—essential to so many of our latest devices, including EVs—is tangled in a web of deeply moral issues. Near penniless workers—some just mere children—suffer exploitation, backbreaking labor, and serious health risks (including cancer). It is an exceedingly dark side to the incredible technology that fills our lives; it also serves as one of the strongest examples of why we should all make an effort to be more cognizant of the objects we use, buy, and support.
That takes effort, of course, and in an age where it’s already critical that we think carefully and thoughtfully about social media, AI, and other emerging technologies, that can be a lot. Yet in an age of 1st world abundance and technological wonders, that seems like a fair price to pay.
Spectatio 