Objectified's Form and Content

Objectified is a documentary film focusing on the designs of our every day objects and the way objects in general have impacted our society today.  Gary Hustwit, the director, examines fruit peelers, Apple products, etc. He doesn't only focus on objects with obvious and visible impacts on society, but only focuses on other more simple and casual designs that we sometime forget as design and as having an impact on our lives.
Hustwit expertly uses form and content in his film to project his bigger idea about design and its impact on society. With the manipulation of camera angles and close ups, he really emphasizes the design of the object, such as the function of it and the work process involved in producing said objects.
A team designer Hustwit focused on were the Bouroullec brothers, Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec. The point reason behind interviewing them was to emphasize the difficulty that designers can face while designing something. Sometimes they have problems with communicating with their clients, other times it's difficulty between the designers themselves.
Another designer Hustwit focused on was Marc Newson. When interviewing Newson, Hustwit doesn't showcase the design process that Newson engages in, but rather films the various objects around Newson's room. For example, when Newson speaks about the various materials he picked up along the way since he thought they were interesting, the camera would zoom in on the same items as to allow the viewer to also see the reason why Newson had kept such an object or material.
Like pointed out earlier, Hustwit didn't only focus on big name designers, but he also focused on the no name designers, such as people who worked together to shape that toothbrush one uses every night as they brush their teeth. People may not think about it, but a lot of design goes into creating the toothbrush, from the brush itself, to the handle. When Hustwit focused on the objects, he focused his camera work on the objects itself, and less on the designers as they discussed each other their creations. But when he wanted to focus on design as a bigger idea, he would interview big name designers and have them discuss their thoughts and ideas about where design was headed, in general.
Objectified examines designs in our everyday life. By working with these different designers and manufacturers, Hustwit's mastery of the interaction of form and content interestingly presents our society as one that has been "objectified."

photo courtesy of psfk.com

Cars

Mustang. Porsche. Honda. Nissan. Hyundai. Ford. The list goes on and on. There are many different brands, models, and types. But what makes cars so attractive? Why are people constantly producing cars and releasing new designs every year? There are many things to take into consideration, such as the engine and mileage, but lets take a look at the visible design of the car's outer layer and the potential of those designs in attracting customers.

photo courtesy of treehugger.com

Focusing on this specific model of a car, what makes this car more attractive, visually, than other cars? Things to consider are the color, the shape and size of the car, the way certain parts of the car is shaped, and the relative size of each part of the car to the whole of the car in general.  To begin, the way the light bounces off the car is an important factor since it adds visual effects--effects that the car produces when in static motion. The lighting produces the idea that the car is fast and swift and looks "cool." Many people look for "cool" looking cars, and as the car sits at the dealership, the car must say "I'm cool, fast, and right for you" as quick and easy as possible.  The shapes of the windows and headlights contributes to the "cool, fast, and right for you" idea. Rather than having bulking square windows, that are aesthetically unpleasing, people would prefer smooth looking windows that are more pleasing.  The size and structure of the wheels follows the same reasoning. Rather than have big thick wheels, the wheels on this car is smaller since it adds to the effect of being "cool and fast." When people think of speed, being fast and swift, the image conjured in their mind is probably some blurry image of the object in action. So the smaller wheels, to some extent, contributes to this factor. We've discussed the individual aspects of the car, so considering now the shape of the car as a whole, people can see that it's an oddly shaped ovally rectangle.  This weird shape adds to the effect of being a speedy car and is taken from that image one would think of when someone thinks of a speeding car. All these different elements help sell this car and makes the car attractive.

Before and After

Payless recently redesigned their logo, emphasizing more on the word "payless" and less on the entire phrase "payless shoe source." Not only that, they even added a little icon/symbol to the logo. In their old logo, shown on the left, it simply reads "Payless Shoe Source;" there's nothing that pops out about the logo, apart from the solid "o"'s. The font was a very standard font, possibly a Times. The yellow color of the letters did add a little spunk to the logo, but nonetheless, the old logo of Payless was stale and didn't attract a lot of attention.  The new logo, on the other hand, looks more modern and hip, and emphasizes the word "Payless." Overtime, people refer to Payless Shoe Source as "Payless." No one really refers to the store using its entire name, so the new emphasis on the "Payless" reflects that attitude. Not only does it reflect this attitude of society, but it attempts to attract buyers buy focusing on "Payless." Consumers are always looking to "payless" and get more. This emphasis is done through a large size of the word, as compared to the other two words, which are located in a small corner of the design, right below the word "less." Not only is a new design layout used, a new font is used. This new font is less standardized. It's still nothing fancy or crazy, like Zumiez, but the letters look less restricted and more free flowing.  The designers shifted away from the yellow color and instead decided to employ the use of orange and a sky blue.   The sky blue is incorporated through the new circle logo. The sky blue color here plays off well with the orange, since it adds a new twist. If the new logo had been entirely in orange, it would not have been any better than the old one, since there's nothing new with just a change of font and an rearrangement of the words. Adding the new circle symbol and the small color of blue adds a modern and funky twist that works!
  
Logos are always changing.  By changing the logo, the company itself is saying that something's changed about themselves, whether they've adapted better styles, or is just better than the old.  Sometimes a change in logo is needed--just to attract more attention, since they old logo has gotten familiar.  Sometimes the change works well, like this Payless one. Sometimes they don't, slike the Gap one that released recently, but was quickly revoked.

(photo courtesy of wikipedia.org and mytidewatermoms.com)