Last minute tickets meant we got to see the Irish screening of Gary Hustwit’s Objectified documentary film in the IFI, Dublin on the 2nd June. Screened as part of the IFI’s Stranger than Fiction festival James Kelly, artistic director of the festival introduced the film and director, Gary Hustwit, spoke briefly about his reasons for making it.

It followed on from the immensely popular Helvetica and fans of Gary’s work will be pleased to know there’s a third documentary to be released at a future unspecified date linking all three movies together as a trilogy. 

Objectified is a documentary about industrial design and it focuses on the creative process behind the many manufactured objects surrounding us; objects so ordinary that we probably have never even considered the design element that goes into it ( e.g. the toothbrush, alarm clock, light switch, tap,a spoon).

The documentary looks at who these designers, whose output is so influential in our everyday life, are and what information they take into account to make  objects the way they do. And, as a consumer, what is our relationship to this ephemera and what does that say about us? And, how does good design make our lives better?

Having no prior knowledge of design I was fascinated by a number of points raised in the documentary.

According to Dieter Rams (formerly of Braun and author of the  design must be honest and authentic, relevant and useful. It’s about identifying problems people don’t even know they have and fixing them. One designer commented that they create with extremes in mind e.g. a hand-held  object like a pliers has to be usable by everyone even a consumer with limited hand mobility.

Another new concept for me was “interaction design” a term coined by Bill Moggride of IDEO (and creator of an early laptop, the “Grid Compass”). Basically, it refers to the interaction of the consumer with technology. Objects frequently point to cultural and society norms e.g. the Japanese toothpick.

Sustainability has become a huge element designers now incorporate into their work. So many of the objects we use we don’t actually need and they are ending up in landfills; the documentary filmed part of a creative brainstorming session at IDEO as they considered the challenge of how to make the very disposable toothbrush into a more sustainable object.

For me, understanding and considering a little more of the design elements made the ordinary a little extraordinary.
All of the  designers interviewed were very articulate; Gary Hustwit explains “that most designers are incredibly skillful at explaining what they do to a non-designer, probably because they spend so much time justifying their work to clueless clients.”

And the final comment goes to Johnathan Ive (pictured)creator of many of the iconic designs associated with Apple who featured a number of times in Objectified. He commented that One of the curses of being a designer is we can’t look at anything without thinking, ‘Why is it like that, and not like this.’ In that way, we are constantly designing.

The IFI have offered IDI members a special price of €9 (which includes the daily membership fee) for the screening of Objectified on Friday June 19th at 14.00.

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