- Gary Hustwit did not set the titles and captions in this film in Helvetica, as you might have anticipated.
- The main problem with this movie is that it is very, very broad. Typography is a nice little niche in the grand scheme of design in our world and because of this you can still interview dozens of people with dozens of opinions to paint a dense picture of how type affects our daily lives. Industrial design is significantly broader because there are all kinds of subsets within that area and so it feels like he was only able to touch on tiny, tiny bits before jumping off to the next thing. Given the 75 minute run time, one would have hoped we could have spent a little bit longer on some ideas.
- Part of the running themes in both Helvetica and Objectified is the idea of ubiquity, of these things which impact us being so utterly invisible to the average person. They briefly talked about the term “democratization of design”, meaning that good design should be available to everyone regardless of price point, and as part of this they briefly started showcasing Ikea goods. (The sad part is they introduced Ikea by showing this non-descript blue plastic cup and instantaneously I knew where that segment was headed. I am lame.) But then that was it. Random shots of people shopping in the market section of the store, a couple of product shots, and that was really it. If we’re talking about ubiquity and good design being invisible, then Ikea is the gold standard for this sort of thing. Anyone can walk into Ikea, pick out five random things, and make them look good together. It’s easy and, more importantly, you don’t have to think about it. It’s just there and it can make anyone look like they have moderately good taste regardless of their budget. It’s a fantastic case study of the democratization of design. Ikea is to industrial design what Helvetica is to typography: it’s ubiquitous and it’s pretty hard to screw up when you’re using it. People like to bitch and complain about it, but they’re always happy to come back to the Expedit bookcase when they fail to find another solution to their design problem. Maybe that’s because as much as you might loathe it, it just works.
At the opposite end of this, of course, they failed to make the same sort of connections about high-end design and its trickle-down effect. Someone briefly mentions Eames as a source of classic, fabulous design but then they leave it at that. Nothing about the influence that has on other types of design, nothing about knock-offs that come about as an attempt to create cheap, mass-produced alternatives for the populace at large. The Devil Wears Prada actually makes this point rather well in that scene where Anne Hathaway scoffs at two turquoise belts indistinguishable to her non-fashionista eyes and then Meryl Streep verbally eviscerates her by explaining how the cheap (in price and quality) blue sweater she is wearing was directly related to the seemingly arbitrary colour choices being made by designers and design afficionados at the highest, most elite levels.
- They did at times touch on issues of sustainability and how 90% of our design efforts are spent on creating products that only 10% of the world can use but, again, there wasn’t really an opportunity for an in depth discussion on this. As a side note, there’s an exhibition called Design for the Other 90% that I stumbled upon several months ago that seems appropriate to link here.
- This movie really brought out the iPhone Starbucks OCAD crew.
- I think there’s a prerequisite that you have to have a German designer in movies like this. I feel like most things are improved by the presence of Germans.
- Hustwit mentioned that he’d be doing a third design-related film in the future and joked that it’s a trilogy, not unlike Star Wars, and that this means Objectified is his Empire Strikes Back. Sadly, like most sequels, Objectified doesn’t quite live up to its predecessor. It’s the sophmore curse, and I think this movie is mostly hindered by a lack of focus that comes with trying to cover too much territory in too short a time span. I don’t know what Hustwit might have narrowed his focus on, though, for a more in depth look at one area. This will still be enjoyable on DVD, at any rate.
Objectified
Doesn’t reach the impossibly high bar set by Helvetica, but still watchable.
IMDB Plot Synopsis An in-depth look at industrial art and how it impacts our lives, including interviews with designers from London, Tokyo, Paris, New York and more.