Do you ever find yourself unconsciously redesigning the stuff around you? Kitchen appliances, cars, logos, street lamps, book covers, other people’s homes? I do. Whenever I walk into someone’s house for the first time, I’m usually rearranging the furniture and changing the paint color as I say hello. Not that my friends have bad taste, I just go into that mode by force of professional habit.
Most manufacturers make little effort to make their products as beautiful as use will allow even though Apple has gloriously proved how much customers appreciate good design and are willing pay for it. And by good design I mean ease of use as well as physical beauty.
For example, Twinings TEA BAGS are they packed sideways and with the label backwards in the box. And why are they so hard to open without tearing the teabag and getting tea-dust floating in your cup? There’s another tea-bag design that elegantly incorporates the paper tag into the outer packet so you just rip the tag out and the package is open without tearing and spilling. Nice design but unfortunately the tea sucks.
The excessive and loud beeping on MICROWAVE OVENS is beyond comprehension. There's no need for any beeps at all, let alone the FIVE shrill ones on mine. And, more illogical still, a recently bought EGG TIMER, something that really does need a loud alarm, has a barely audible buzz that goes on for six seconds. But it’s a handsome object, round and easy to use.
And FURNITURE! Have you noticed how hideous most affordable furniture is? Couches, armchairs and beds are huge, thick, over-stuffed and infested with too many cushions. MATRESSES have become so enormously thick (to accommodate the results of excessive potato chip consumption) that fitted sheets for thinner mattresses are too big and leave us with rumple-marks.
We must demand better design.
Like this, for example:
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DESIGN, ART, FUNCTION, FORM, BEAUTY
