Design For Life

A TV show about a group of chosen designers getting a chance to work for Philippe Starck, one of the most famous product designers in the world at the moment in his company for 6 months. Starck gives out challenges to the chosen designers and see how they think and design. And after each challenge, the two designers that Starck thinks is the worst will have to leave.

‘When you design, you don’t think of design, you think about life.’ The first challenge that was given to the designers was to buy two products from a market with 100 Euros. They are to buy two products that show function or ecology or gender. I think this exercise really shows how the designers think, how far they think. From what I see and think. I liked how Nebil explained the products that he bought from the market. He bought a joystick as male for the gender and the multiple sockets as the female. In every designed product, there is a gender in it which makes it look more attractive to a certain gender. I think the reason why Starck thinks that Mabil did the best is because he actually explains how the form of the product itself gives out a female / male feel.

The second challenge task that was given to the designers is to design a product that benefits humanity, without any other information, I think this challenge is really hard as it gives the designer free range in designing whatever they want. Although I think it is really fun to design stuff without any constrain, but because there are no constrain, it is really hard to start off with and it’s really hard to know what Starck expects from them. I think the best way to get ideas are from walking around the street or going to museums to see what people needs, need to know what the target market lives. I think what Nebil did, sitting there just getting ideas out of his brain is not such a good way to create a new product. I also learnt that when presenting your product, everything you do should be well considered like what you wore should not have any conflict with what message your product is showing like what Elsa did.

Going onto the third challenge, they were told to design a product that is ethical, ecological, democratic, for daily use and is non electronic. I think it is important to know everything you needed to know before starting design, like how they all are not sure what the first draft should have and the presentations seems to be really unclear. And I think how Starck thinks that letting them going in a group will normalize the standard for everyone.

I realize it’s really important to know how the target market lives, how they interact with products that you are designing. Like how Mike who is designing a product for blind people, he blind folds himself for the whole day in order to let him feel what it’s like to be blind.

The designers were brought to a branding company and comments are given to their product names and design, the branding of the product is actually really important, it gives information on your product. I think how they did let their target market to choose the logo and name is a good thing to do.

After watching how Ilsa present, I learnt that when presenting, you should make your presentation as straight forward as possible, so that it won’t confuse the client or make him feel bored.

I really liked how the prototype is being made and looked so nice like Ilsa’s product.

When designing a product it is important to make sure that the design can be manufactured. Or else if you get to the manufacture point and you realize it cannot be manufactured or the material is way too expensive, then you’ve failed to design.

No matter how good the product is the advertisement is really important to sell your product.