Great Design

Great Design I

• A great design needs to be user friendly and easy to use for everyone
• Over the years designs of products have become much more complex and tough to use
• Products such has the Apple iPod, TiVo, and Google are all considered great designs because of their easy to use interface
• Remote controls for the newest TV’s are not what it used to be. Now a days; remote controls have hundreds of buttons saying different things that no one really used or understands, where as in the old days, remote controls had only a few buttons that have words the clearly state their functions.

 Great Design II

• There are a few things beyond a products beauty. Beauty of a product is referred to as: “Lipstick on a chicken”
• When designers sit and try to sketch, and develop their ideas to make that one single perfect product, they must think about everything. They have many conflicts and have to make sacrifices, forcing them to change and change, until everything seems balanced out.
• Just designing a garbage can can be a great hassle, because it must be heavy, yet light. It must be big, yet small. It must be closed at the top so the garbage doesn’t fall out, but it also needs to be open so it is easy for the pedestrians to throw in the trash.
• Beauty does add a slight bit of design to a product, but it doesn’t make it anywhere near great.
• Mobile and house phones, have become much more complicated to use over the years, because they used to have only a few buttons and now there a lot of buttons, that many people just don’t know what to do with
• Lastly a great product needs to be cheap to make, and yet look and work superbly
• “Good design adds value, faster than it adds cost” – Thomas C. Gale, Chrysler automobile designer


Great Design III

• Apparently products or any other form of media and entertainment don’t have to be perfect, to be bestsellers. Take the iPod, a simple yet attractive mp3 player that lets you listen to music, browse your photos, and watch movies. The design of the product is so attractive that consumers just want to by it to feel like they are in style. There are better devices such as the Creative “Zen” or Microsoft’s “Zune”. But no one really pays attention to them because the iPod is the number one.
• Brad Pitt is an attractive male actor, that can’t really act. But he made a few hit films that put him high up the charts and since then all the girl’s think he looks great, and all the guy’s think he is a true fighter (for example: Fight Club). Brad Pitt is a lot like the Apple iPod, because with all of his fame and great looks he isn’t so much of a great actor.
• That is why companies face a lot of problems. How can they advertise their products to make them bestsellers?
• There are many great designs, but sometimes one that work a little worse and look a lot better reach the top and become number one.