Abstract – This paper talks about the study of design in contrast to the designer’s creativity and the consumer’s will based on a case study.
Adrian Forty”s “objects of Desire”, talks about the mindset of a designer while trying to create something, he has highlighted that the creativity of a designer as such is influenced by common myths which are related to his desire to create as per his interest and the path that a designer takes to reach the final product that he wants to see. However the approach that Forty thinks makes more sense is if a designer creates what is actually demanded by the end user and that those who do not follow this concept are actually under the “myth of their own omnipotence”.
This theory needs a debate on the fact that whether the personal creativity forms enough grounds for a designer to go ahead with something. So, primarily either there can be a similar product giving equal results or the designer’s intentions, other factors ensure the success of the design. Lets see this through a case study: Where a design is taken that has no precedent, is created individually and sold in considerable quantity. The case study is based on the creation of “Juicy Salif” Lemon Squeezer by Philippe Starck selling about half a million since launch.
Philippe as a young child was very keen to learn and explore a lot, his father being into aircraft design, gave Philippe the imagination of a designer to develop his creative ideas. This young Philippe grows to become a successful designer and collaborates with Alessi to work on Italian kitchenware and on a day while waiting for a pizza in a restaurant he realizes about the lemon squeeze problem. Philippe uses his imagination to design the squeezer, something with leg, amorphous etc. are thoughts that haunt him while he designs the squeezer strictly based on his own ideas.
Now the end product by Stark faces criticism as there were people who wont believe that it works. The idea is that the product is the design of the creative imagination used by the designer, input may be in the form of Stark’s child hood interests or his youth related imaginations e.g. Cartoons, Science Fiction etc. but the end product comes out to be the lemon squeezer.
Now its important to speculate how the end product would have been ultimately created; its made up of aluminum (which can be an inference drawn from aircraft design), similarly there might be multiple comments on the permanence of accessories like the rubber feet of the squeezer and there fore we will realize that the design may have multiple pros-and-cons to it relating to its features that can be debated.
On one hand where the use of aluminum gives the squeezer a modern look, on the other hand streamlining does the same however considering that it would have no function as buoyancy would not be required in a lemon squeezer any way. There can be another comment on the design which may consider the legs of the squeezer to make it unstable as an elevation of 10 degrees would be enough to make it drop; however there can be multiple advantaged of this height given to the object.
Its time now to represent the squeezer not as an object but as an idea to the consumer, selling needs to be done in such a manner that the designer’s creativity matchers to what the consumer feels, may be the light weight works in that case. Not only the feel of consumer it is also the political and cultural influence which might prove an important factor to let the squeezer emerge as an object of future thus attracting lot of consumers who might not have the same mindset as that of the designer but may somewhat agree to the usefulness of the design.
The discussion started from the tangent where we were to discuss that the designer cannot be solely held successful to create a design and neither can the design work if it does not suit the ideas or requirements of the consumer however looking at Stark’s example we must think that did it really matter whether what Stark thought when he was designing the lemon squeezer this case study reflects that the choice of product and its performance is equally responsible as the design for success.
As discussed the end product must show performance more than the design and a debate on that can be easily taken care of considering that the squeezer might initiate a lot of conversations based on the idea, culture design and lot of other factors that we have discussed however the product in itself becomes the result of so many expressions that it cannot be associated with the designer’s sole identity.
Stanely Fish and Roger Scruton might go head and give this reason that people associate their culture and goals before moving to a product and engaging themselves with it and there fore once again coming back to the same topic we can question the omnipotence of a designer, however looking at the strong discussion including the designer’s mindset and his imagination we can conclude that he is actually the sole creator of the object which came into existence due to the designer hence if not just omnipotent he is very close to the same. Lastly, it can be concluded that the designer’s personal creativity is not the only factor leading to the design and its also about the users creativity to choose the design as the product that he will use.
