Unobjectified

Objectified trailer

Last night I had the opportunity to watch Objectified and listen to a Q&A with its director, Gary Huswit. It was a packed house at the Wexner, and I'm truly grateful to have such a wonderful institution here in Columbus.

The film is fairly good, and the big-named designers & thinkers certainly gave the film some weight. I was particularly happy to see Rob Walker in the film.

Huswit's Q&A shed light on some of the film's technicalities and processes. I admired his take on pre-prepared interview questions--he doesn't do them. Instead, Huswit comes to the designer with themes, and they have a discussion.

I also enjoyed parts of the film (e.g. Newson talking about materials) because it was one of the things that I enjoyed most about working at Fitch--finding & bringing in new materials and professional material representatives to Fitch's Columbus studio.

However, there were parts of the movie that just didn't jive with me. Really, I couldn't put my finger on it until I read Steve Portigal's comment on Core77. Specifically, it was the ideation sessions for IDEO. Although they may illustrate part of the design process, they really came off as an orchestrated advertisement. Good for IDEO, but not necessarily good for objectivity.