From the MPR Collection Life by Design:
"The word 'design' used to be relegated to the conversations of academics and engineers, but now it pops up in housekeeping magazines and department store aisles. Although most of us don't learn about it in school, design -- both good and bad -- has a tremendous impact on our lives."
I'll say. There's been a delicious, fresh awareness of design in our lives. Aside from what we're fed from advertising and daily discoveries, what I want to know is how would you define design? How would you improve the design of your coffeemaker or cellphone? Refine the design: Suggest ways to improve everyday products now, and let's see if we can't build the perfect coffeemaker that addresses form and function.
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Julia Schrenkler
Minnesota Public Radio Interactive Producer
- MPR News: What exactly is design?
- Read how other people define design and share your own perspective
- Refine the design: Suggest ways to improve everyday products
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Comments: 36
Flat roofs may be a lovely integral part of the design, but they just don't work well in the kind of weather received by the upper midwest.
I think the "fashion versus function" question becomes easier with age, though. As Gilda Radner once observed: "I base my fashion sense on what doesn't itch". Another example is choice of automobile. I now base it on what will work best for my needs, rather than how "cool" I will look driving it. Therefore, the mature Auntie no longer pines for that racy little Mazda RX7.
Your story about the old Revereware kettle reminded me how some functional things can become beautiful to our own eye simply by proximity and use.
Frick, man, help me out! Set down the bat and pick up the keyboard. Dream up your best shot at a coffeemaker and drop that design. We'll get it pronto.
(All right, the cord/electrical might be a tad scary, but I'll betcha anything it still works great, and it's gorgeous!)
The resevoir where the water must be filled fromt he right side. The carafe only has the measuring lines on one side.
I know lefties are the minority, but in the morning I just want to make coffee without a hassle.
The toaster is fine as in sharp, but does it offer settings for people to decide how dark or light they want their toast? It sort of looks like there's a crumb tray. Is that a pain to use?
Pat can I quote you on that design idea?
Julia doesn't like my designs!
WAAAAAAH!
Have you seen The Frankfurt Kitchen at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts?
The improvement I'd like to see in coffee makers is the ability to make a decent tasting pot of coffee. The water temperature and/or flow rate always seems to be wrong. We still have our Chemex but the filters are a little hard to come by. Besides, you have to heat the water yourself. :)
How about a cell phone that doesn't have the ringer volume button in a place where it's so easy to change the volume accidentally when it's in your pocket. Not that big a deal for me since I hardly ever give out my cell number and incoming call volume is, strangely enough, very low.
Julia, I find that when design fails us we often reverse until it suits properly. As a coffee freak I went through many many types of coffee maker. The one that works best? 2 Corelle teapots, one for measuring hot water and one for brewing the coffee, and a Melitta filter top. Perfect coffee, in our house, is run through a French drip pot and then Melitta-filtered. I settle for almost-perfect coffee, most days, and just use the Melitta-top. (And my ancient Revereware kettle, Auntie.)
You might want to try it, Pat. It's a bit more time-consuming, but not terribly handed, as far as I can tell.
When I was a kid, we had a cool, hip toaster. The ads called it "the toaster with a brain!" - and it was supposed to "know" when the toast was done to perfection.
One day, I was sitting at the table waiting for my Pop Tarts to pop, and suddenly smoke came pouring out of the toaster. I unplugged it and yelled for my dad. As the smoke cleared, I said "I think our toaster had a lobotomy."
That cracked him up.
tee hee!
Michael Graves' stuff is usually pretty good, but he occasionally hits a dud. I was looking for a nice, serviceable laptop bag recently. His had a brushed nickle handle.
Um, Target's headquarters is in Minnesota. A couple hours in a cold car in the dead of winter and that metal handle would freeze the skin right off your sweaty hand!
Come to think of it, a zucchini is a pretty good piece of design in itself. It's probably tasteless to go into a lot of detail about it's multi-function features. This is a family thread.
We got a Michael Graves hand can opener that quickly was retired to the back of a drawer. It's heavy enough to do some serious damage to an intruder but doesn't do a good job of opening cans.
Whaa? I don't get it.
OTOH, maybe not everyone thinks of zucchini as a food.
Above is a nose hair trimmer.
My coffeemaker - and yes, it's a Mr. Coffee:
It works well, and I like the design...programmable, internal water filter, and you can customize the coffee strength...
My biggest gripe with the design of equipment in my life is the lack of user-serviceable parts. It is good to design things this way in that it makes it easy to mass-produce replacement modules. It is bad, however, because we end up replacing modules instead of core components. A loose solder-joint on a circuit board behind your car's dash isn't fixed in an hour of labor and fifteen cents of parts -- it's an hour of labor and a $900 replacement board. And the old one goes to the landfill. The entire mass-production, consumer culture is a dangerous design.