Talk:Philippe Starck
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The Juicy Salif, in fact, has since become an affordable and popular cult item
In my view this is an expensive and completely disfunctional piece of kitchenware. It's not cheap either - since when has 40GBP been affordable for a lemon squeezer? Its legs are too close together, so you don't find many ordinary containers will fit below it to catch the juice - and it doesn't come with its own. Its high centre of gravity make it unstable especially when applying any force to actually squeeze a lemon on it. It doesn't catch the pips, so they end up in the juice, and its shape makes the juice run off at odd angles and often miss the container, assuming you've found one to put there. You may as well squeeze the lemon in your hand. Or buy one of those highly functional and very cheap (like 1GBP) plastic squeezers that actually work and usually come with their own built-in container and pip catcher. To me, the first rule of design is Form Follows Function - but this seems too everyday, pedestrian and sensible for many modern designers. They seem to feel that form is everything, and never mind the function. Recently a "top designer" (actually Marc Newson - I just looked it up) unveiled his idea of a flying car. Nothing wrong with speculating about the future, but it pays not one iota of attention to any principle of aerodynamics - it could never fly in other words. It was basically a Jetsons-looking car thingy with stub wings. It seemed to get the media very excited but it's really a joke. Have people become so enthralled by "designer" names that something looking cool is all that matters? The Starck juicer looks cool alright, like a 50s alien spaceship or something - but it's totally useless. I'd have more respect if he sold it honestly as a model of a 50s alien spaceship (paperweight?) instead of trying to pretend it's useful. And 'pretend' is the operative word - it's utterly pretentious. Graham 11:24, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Fine, but how does this impact the article? If you want to add alternative POV, you have only to edit the article :) Dysprosia 11:32, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
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- It doesn't impact the article as such, and it's highly POV, obviously, so that's why it's on the talk page. Maybe if it stimulates a debate some consensus might emerge about how criticisms of Starck or perhaps of "new design" in general can be addressed in the article. I wouldn't really know how to do it, there's something about Starck that gets right up my nose, so I'm the last one to be able to do it neutrally! Graham 11:39, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Starck?? Oh please...
Okay, I do find that he does challenge convention as an aesthetics designer.. but the true mark of a product designer is one who finds design solutions to existing problems. Starck adds more problems to existing products in purely in the search for aesthetic exotica. I have no problems with making things look great in theory, but they should be just that. In practise, you NEED to make sure that a product is practical to use.. anything else is just smacks of pretentiousness and you are not really engaging all sides of the brain to produce a suitable practical AND positively aesthetic product.
Lets face it. Starck products sell, because it is Starck. But often, you find that people that are likely to spend £40 on a juicer that causes more problems than it solve are also quite pretentious. The likes of Seymour and Powell, who find real solutions to problems, as well as design positively aesthetic products is much more preferable. Design exercises are great for exploring ideas but you cannot seriously think that everything that looks good is easy to use??
Ross Product Design University of Central England (BIAD/TIC)
