What I find interesting about this is the significance each person places on something. Whether it is Mr. Bubble or, as Pesky just mentioned in Rewarding Experience, a poster or book or beer bottle or whatever. No matter how comprehensive our design briefs are or how thorough research is, there are triggers in people that we just can't pull. However, we can, through the choice of words, images, colors and textures aim to push those buttons and extract a reaction from the intended users. I think that is one of the more underrated characteristics of graphic designers; that we can — by understanding, visual awareness or simply by pure, dumb luck — help elicit such charged responses from people.

its humbling to think of our designs in the terms peter described - outside in the "real world" away from the brief, away from the explanation and written concept.

but, i honestly believe that we can, as designers, communicate foundational ideas in a universal way - visually.

lately, and maybe this should go under the macworld yummies thread, a great example is with apple. all the tech guys, all the chatter about how apple's products will "fail"; the iPod shuffle is old technology, you can't update the mac mini... blah, blah, blah. the thing is apple has built a perceived value. a beautiful simplicity in their design both with their products and their graphic design. its a universal language, and it works, around the world.

it seems to baffle some people. why does this apple marketing thing work? why do people perceive it as "cool". answer, everything is well designed. and this brings hope for us and our profession... maybe another reason apple's marketing works so well on us?

armin, damn, you're good...

if nike's said 'voit' on the side people wouldn't buy them. i can remember my mom buying me cheap shoes from kmart. the kind when you try them on and if you try them both on at the same time you can only move each foot about 3 inches at a time because of the plastic piece linking the two shoes together...it sucked. But i always knew going into kmart or walmart that i wouldn't find any nikes there.

What a subjective subject! Day-to-day living has become much more complex over the last few decades. As the population grows, many factors grow with it: global communication, personal opinions, need for individuality, capitalism and greed, and other things I haven't yet thought of. Because of all of those, we have more product choices than ever before, all of them claiming to be useful, all of them being preferred by *somebody*. And yes, this applies also to other designed matter... most things can be classified as 'products' in one way or another.

Products are differentiated one from another by (1) their features and (2) marketing efforts. We can only influence option #2 (unless we have serious connections!), most often by our design. We've carefully studied the product, its purpose, use, benefits, etc, and form a personal relationship with this product. A relationship with a product... that's an odd concept for those who aren't designers! But we try to connect with this object, whatever its purpose, to visually explain it in the best way that the end users can relate to. All we do is try to help the public perceive its qualities and value the way we understand them to be.

We cannot help where and by whom the product will be seen, what their reaction to the product will be, and what those users will say about it. A good percentage of the population may never even desire to use it in the first place. But what makes our design successful is if we've interpreted its qualities effectively, especially sensorially, for users and non-users alike.

People often do and use things they don't like; what makes a difference is if it measures up to those expectations we portray.

Does that mean that, as our work enters into the real world, all of our planning, ... does not make that much of a difference after all?

Maybe this should be titled The Public Life of Our Designs.

This is almost the best part - who wants to produce an artifact to just oogle it and see it on the shelf. How people respond to the is really part of the final research phase. It's a bit like being a fly on the wall and experiencing candid reactions. It doesn't get much more honest than that.

I used to go to news stands, or a coffee house when magazines I designed would drop - grab a java and sit back to watch what got picked up, what was ignored, and by whom. The same for retail environments that I've worked on - Do people stop, turn their heads, talk about it when they pass? It's great to sit nearby on a park bench, or to anonymously get in line and place an order, to see if it all works as it was intended.

The “uncontrolled” test is really the best one to see if you have effectively solved the problem.

One day I went into Target to see my finished designs in the real world, to enjoy the fruits of my labor. But what did I find? They had all been mishandled, crushed and fallen over. It was chaos! I died a little inside that day.

I must have looked like I had OCD, standing in a grocery aisle, frantically straightening and un-crinkling, straightening and un-crinkling.

Does it bother you to think that your hard work might be mishandled? If you found your work lining the bottom of a birdcage would it break your heart?

If you found your work lining the bottom of a birdcage would it break your heart?

Cradle to cradle, right? Better than at the bottom of a landfill, I suppose - although that sounds like the next stop after the bird cage. It would make a great story to hear the life of a product - from the product's perspective.

Kleid: Does your field test indicate a more durable card stock could be needed, or different shipping configuration is required?

And isn't this too part of an effective design solution? Post mortem reports to/from clients are a great way to demonstrate your thoroughness and can also generate new work, plus they are a good form to self-evaluate for the next time.

... We cannot help... what their reaction to the product will be, and what those users will say about it.

Isn't that part of our role as a consultant and the reason one design firm might be selected over another?

I died a little inside that day.

I feel your pain. I too had a similar experience. I designed the packaging for a series of novelty door beads. The packages were clear plastic boxes with die-cut printed graphics designed for the inside of the box. When I saw the finished product at ShopKo I was shocked to see that the graphics were printed on paper that was thin and fragile, taped to the outside of the clear boxes. The products were in chaos on the shelf with obvious signs that people had dug through the boxes to find those that were undamaged. I worked with non-designers at the North American office in California during the design phase. From there it was transferred to the home office in Taiwan. Something got lost in translation. I spoke with another designer who worked with the same client on a novelty lamp. The lamp shade featured an illustration of a loon in a pond with cattails in the background. The loon was redrawn as a bird native to Taiwan and the cattails were changed to bamboo. The lamp lived an extremely short Midwestern shelf life due to it's odd illustration style.

> ... We cannot help... what their reaction to the product will be, and what those users will say about it.

> Isn't that part of our role as a consultant and the reason one design firm might be selected over another?

Yes, it should. In a perfect world where people don't stress, where every single person within a defined audience thinks exactly alike, where everybody sleeps 8 hours and brushes three times a day, where everybody has the same amount of wealth, knowledge and time. Then, maybe we could predict more closely how people will react and interact with our finished products. But we deal with real people who no matter how much we target them will veer off the tangent ever so slightly that we can't anticipate how they will react. But that's part of the beauty, innit?

An example: You create this amazing web site, beautiful photography, sophisticated typography, Norman-approved usability… Perfect. A user logs in, starts browsing, the phone rings, bad news. That's it. The interaction is over.

... We cannot help... what their reaction to the product will be, and what those users will say about it.

> Isn't that part of our role as a consultant and the reason one design firm might be selected over another?

we can provide it up to some point, but then every individual puts its own individual spin on the design. come to think of it, its almost like submitting our work to a matchmaker.

I’m just saying that we should endeavor to anticipate the worst case scenarios in building effective solutions. It seems counterproductive to put great time and energy into a solution that has production flaws. Our responsibility should go beyond delivery of digital files. There is some shared responsibility between the client and designer here, at least for the designer to advise the client. We manage production whenever possible. The choice to cut corners and diminsh the shelf presence of the product should be the client’s alone. You can lead a horse to water...

There will always be unforeseeable interruptions that can only be corrected through manipulation of the space time continuum. I’ve yet to see a formula or process that can anticipate those variables. It is a bit like watching helplessly as your are set free among the world. It’s always tough to see them mangled on a shelf.

I meant - It is a bit like watching helplessly as your babies are set free among the world. It’s always tough to see them mangled on a shelf.

Damn - I need a proofreader.

I think you have stumbled on one of the least addressed questions within the world of design. Once we sweat, sketch, kern, choose the right colors, spellcheck and flightcheck, we send the file off to the printer and "whew!!" we're done! We feel a sense of completion and await anxiously to see the final product hanging from the rack in your local Target etc. However, what we have essentially produced is trash. The product our beautiful packaging protects is what is kept, and our weeks/months of hard work ends up burned (polluting our air) or leaching dioxins (from petroleum based inks) into our land. I believe it was Scott Ewen (Emigre) that said "We make the world's most beautiful trash."

I feel, as designers, we only pay to the attention to the birth of our projects and never the death. Thinking of both are of equal value. Yes this is inherently related to McDonough/Braungart's "Cradle 2 Cradle" concept, but regardless it, as yet, an untapped area of graphic design. Why do we as designers ignore the death of our work? Is it our socio-economic climate? Why as product or graphic designers should we really worry about it? If the object we make breaks, fades, or is surpassed technologically by something else we can always go get a new one. This is the United States for God's sakes. We have all the money. Who cares? But the real concern comes when we are forced by either an economic or environmental disaster to change our practices as this method of thinking becomes antiquated.

In my Master's thesis, I am examining how we can incorporate a more circular way of thinking into our design education. So we design to be reused or reborn as our creation's natural life comes to an end. As we celebrate the birth of our ideas and objects, we should equally feel obligated to feel a sense of joy when they die and either are disassembled to make something else or as McDonough said "become food for our Earth." After all a good 40% of our landfills is paper. We can point the finger at ourselves for this. We create this "beautiful trash".

I think you have stumbled on one of the least addressed questions within the world of design

eric, actually, my post is not intended to deal with the issues that you bring up. that would be an entirely different post.

i was trying to point out that an individual consumer takes ownership of our design-work and in essence becomes co-author of our work, without really intending it and usually without doing so actively. and from our perspective, its one element within our work that we cannot control.

i was trying to point out that an individual consumer takes ownership of our design-work and in essence becomes co-author of our work, without really intending it and usually without doing so actively. and from our perspective, its one element within our work that we cannot control.

My bad man, but in that case, to that point I would argue that (in the case of packaging) their co-authorship becomes mainly writing that design's demise. (However, it was already pre-destined for that from its inception.) The consumer's interaction with the packaging is affected by his/her via personal choice and cultural bkgd. They open it a certain way, their perception of its value is intrinsically linked to the store they purchase it at, and their perception of it also can be altered by how its displayed in the store. I see your point that whatever meaning we intended for our piece can be damaged or altered by how the consumer perceives it based on his/her background and locale of purchase. But I still argue that if the consumer co-authors the piece in the marketplace, s/he writes its ending. More often than not, that ending is that of the landfill. From our initial moment of ideation to HTPing files to the printer, we, as designers, have determined our package's eventual fate by not thinking about it. If we provided subtle or obvious options within our package design, then the consumer (as a co-author) can possibly foresee this plot twist and help decide a safer/more sustainable fate for our work.

My comments about MacWorld Yummies are not unrelated.

One day I went into Target to see my finished designs in the real world, to enjoy the fruits of my labor. But what did I find? They had all been mishandled, crushed and fallen over. It was chaos! I died a little inside that day.

when i worked in direct media marketing, a friend of mine was the guy that designed burger king's burger wrappers. i asked him once how he felt about spending such time on this, and he said, "there's nothing cooler to me than seeing my work crumpled up in the trash."

which at first was appaling to me. i know better than to fall in love with anything i do because it will undoubtedly be mangled somewhere along the line... but i usually make things that are meant to be kept somewhere. my work at the marketing firm changed my perceptions about that.

I believe it was Scott Ewen (Emigre) that said "We make the world's most beautiful trash."

well said.

This reminds me of a cinematic misinterpretation: V'Ger from the Star Trek movie. With distance, a different context, and a lot of personal interpretation, objects and products can take on all sorts of fascinating lives that we can never give them. Sometimes it's their use by a consumer: a grandmother who keeps her jewelry in a Folger's jar, a crate used for a soap box derby car, or jelly jars used as kids' glasses, all of which can form strong emotional bonds for reasons completely unrelated to the design. Other times it's the sort of abuses listed in earlier posts. And sometimes it's an unfortunate coincidence. I'm always fascinated by these anecdotes.

Anybody know of an instance where consumer mis/reinterpretation actually fed back into the next iteration of the design?

Anybody know of an instance where consumer mis/reinterpretation actually fed back into the next iteration of the design?

We had a client who turned an original Mac SE into a mini fish tank in their lobby. I have a Planters Peanuts and antique Hills Bros cans on my desk for pen holders. I think there were stats from HOW Magazine a few years ago that out of tens of thousands of competition entries, over four thousand were sent from designers using shiny anti static shield bags. I'm sure those look pretty in the landfill.

Then there’s the Recycled Paper Vase.

But I don't think any of these do what you ask. However, the translucent iMac would make an improved fish tank over the original.

That vase reminded me of this cardboard seat:

Link: http://www.3rliving.com/YellowStool.html