Where Content and Form Intersect

In our film screening of the movie "Objectified" Thursday, many ideas about design were approached, but one of the biggest ideas in my mind was the interaction between content and form in design.  Looking within the movie itself, it became apparent that we overlook many everyday items in our lives and the functionality of their designs.  This idea was put forth in such a way that the content was able to hit home while the forms in which they did so were sexy and appealing to keep the viewer interested.  The movie was great and really allowed me to open my eyes to different ideas within the design realm, but I would like to take it a bit farther and talk about a specific example they used to talk about the interaction of form and design.

During the beginning of the film, they had different designers talk about the interaction of form and design and where they intersect and where we are headed.  With our newest technologies leading us into the realm of visual stimulation by screen, most of our designing must be software design for a product to become well liked.  In Objectified, they talked about how they designed one of the first laptops and how they were so proud that it was strong and durable and had a little scoop on the back end that would reject any foreign objects that slipped down into the hinge so that it did not get jammed and all this was great design, but when they went to use the laptop, people saw straight past this exterior design of the laptop and focused on the ease of use of the software.  Instead of the form being the main focus in their design, it should have been the content and more in todays society we have been finding this to be true.  This is the case with cell phones, computers, mp3 players, GPS devices, etc.

Looks like it is time to head into the age of computers and learn how to design content!