Design
But Does it Work ?
By KENNETH J. RGBINSON
THE American magazine In- dustrial Design has just pub- lished its annual review of
• The editors admit they can't hope to know 11 all the products chosen are efficient. They judge them solely on such things as the designer's ingenuity, his choice of materials, his success in making a product easy to use and his ability to produce something which has 'sheer visual finesse and appropriateness.'
IS this a happy state of affairs? Of course it isn't. But the old tag about form following function just doesn't hold good for many of the complicated things a designer has to work on today. If he is called in to design a coffee pot, a chair or a lampshade he is entirely responsible
for the finished article- and if he makes:it work: well it will probably look good too, But if he is asked to provide the casing for a television set or a camera he can always say it isn't his fault if the thing goes wrong. There's; been- another,, designer on the job before him— a technical expert -and it may he the•tirst man's work that has failed.
But what is failure of a product? 5o Much is said and written nowadays about the efficiency of consumer goods that people are bejpg led to expect more than is reasonable from so,rue..of ,the things they buy. For instance, they4et:httlii Of a cheap camera which has been t'sqPinntorafed to them for the excellence of its design.i-and then . complain because it doesn't . take such good pictures as the old one Auntie Gertie passed on to them. The designer of the new -camera has probably clone all he can with it, by giving it a good appearance and arranging the controls so they fit snugly into the hand. But he can't put a first-class lens into a cheap camera. Nor can the ,• designer of an eightcenpenny ball-point pen give. you a Ailetime of carefree writing. You wouldn't expect him to. Yet, if you saw in a consumer magazine that a cheap pen became a little eccentric after trailing its ink for a few miles in a testing machine, you would probably feel un- happy about buying it.
What I'm saying is that a well-designed product won't necessarily give you long service. An enamel saucepan may be designed to be as good to lopk at and as easy to pour from as a copper- bottomed one, but you would only expect it to last a fraction of the time. And let's face it, some of us are built in such a way that the most carefully considered design will come apart the moment we use it. I heard recently of a man who was furious because some stainless steel cutlery he had read about in Design magazine was soon badly stained. 'What's more,' he said, 'I've taken such good care of it—left it in detergent every night.'
But supposing a well-designed product by a reputable firm really goes wrong? Doesn't the firm admit its mistake and replace the product? Nine times out -of ten it does, because the failure is due to a flaw in one item off the assembly line. It's a different matter when the fault is in the design of the product. Not so long ago a television set was taken off the market because its innards were not up to standard. Yet its • casing, by another designer, was a most distinguished piece of work. This,-as the editOrs of Industrial Design say, doesn't do much good to the cause of good design; I agree with the editors that although those of us who try to preach about good design being practical, have to take a lot on trust (after all, we can't afford to set up elaborate testing labora- tories); the designer must never take anything for granted. If he is asked to work on a refrigerator, for example, he must find out about the engineer- ing work that his design will be grafted on to. In fact, he ought to consider himself just as much responsible . as the engineer if the refrigerator blows up or falls apart.
Talking of which, one of the most alarming non-breakable products featured in Industrial Design's round-up is a skull-shaped object fitted vvitb a 'geodetic suspension system'—a network of nylon suspension straps and shock-absorbent material nestling beneath a shell of, energy- absorbing plastic. This is a football helmet, de- signed to disperse a 2,000-lb.-per-inch blow over .the whole head, and to protect the other man as wen. It can't happen here (unless our players é tough), we do not use helmets for football, but suppose it won't be long before we are using so of the other American designs of the year. The include a ninety-second hot dog machine (six at time); a two-inch-tube television set for the 0V5 coat pocket, and a plastics foam-filled tyre 1h . can't burst. My favourite—though I'm not ag enough to use it—is a light switch you can opera with your elbows.
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