Obectified

       In the documentary film Objectified, director Gary Hustwit draws our attention to the many designed objects around us. By investigating many of the well known designers and company such as Apple Inc. and Muji Inc., we gained the chance to understand how objects were designed and what were the designers concerns regarding the interaction between the objects and people. The interaction between people and the designed objects is important. As in the book Design Basic, author David V. Launer talks about the interaction between people and design as regarded to its form and content. The “Form” of an object is its appearance. It has to do with optic and haptic elements. “Optic” elements affect our visual feeling, about our feeling about what a certain object is looked like to us. “Haptic” elements on the contrary has to do with our physical feeling, texture, about what we feeling when we touch the object. Both optic and haptic elements are concerns of the designers when they are designing a certain product. Besides the “Form”, the “Content” of an object is the interaction between us and the designed object. Form gives us the first impression of an object, it is also the vehicle that brings the content of the object to us. For one example in the film, one designer talks about the interaction between a designed object and the users that after the form brings you the first impression, it becomes the access to the content of the object that we no longer notice the existence of the object but the interaction. Like when we use a laptop or a pen, at first we will pay our attentions to its form, to how these objects looks, but after we start to use them, be focus no longer on the film but the content that the form becomes something that helps our experience to enjoy the content. Both form and content is important and inseparable. Form helps us to access the content and the contents gives the meaning of the form.

image from: http://swisslegacy.com/