Don Norman’s Video Response and Dieter Rams Reading Response

 In Don Norman’s video, he talks about making things visually appealing. Although in my goal of becoming successful in the field of industrial design, I personally want to focus first on the functionality then bring in the visual aspect does, does fall short at first; I feel that when all things are said and done, every aspect of the design field is about making things visually appealing.

When looking at my object (a colored Goldfish box) it is hard to find a correlation between good design and the development of this box. When looking a little deeper at the assumed reasons for designing the this product the way is has been made, it can be assumed it is to directly to appeal to their target market; children. Children are apt to choose large and colorful objects rather than plain dull and small objects. When thinking about the target market of children, it is easy to understand why the designers chose the design that they did. It appeals to the masses and it is easy to mass-produce efficiently.

From a designers perspective, this Goldfish box is not the slightest bit appealing other then the graphic work and even that is in shambles in my opinion; but understanding the target market is what ultimately makes a product successful and in that case I do believe this product has succeeded. In the Dieter Ram’s 10 Principals of Design, the first commandment is that design is always innovative. This relates heavily to the design film entitled Design of the Future. In both pieces it strives to achieve the goal of communication that design has no boundaries. When innovating technology, most of the time only size will chance; but why?

When Cannon begins to develop a new camera design, why do the buttons and lens always remain in the same place.. why can’t design increase at the same rate as technology, why has no one pushed the boundaries?

         This first point in the Dieter Rams reading really got me thinking about truly innovative design and I don’t necessarily think the world has even come close to the possibilities that the future of design can hold, it just has to be discovered.