S Writes:
My question to you concerns my passion for design, namely design of household items that exploit surface design like textiles, pillows, quilts, curtains, linens, and lamp shades – products that are subject to the dictates of aesthetics (the 'colors' or 'lines of the year'), rather than the merits of their functionality. ... I'm guessing my passion for surface and interior design is a different animal than design for objects whose functionality can be improved upon, since changing an objects surface design doesn't change or improve its functionality. But I could be wrong. Does 'new' (theoretically, improved) surface design 'count' in the same way as new, innovative 'functional' design? That is, does new surface design enhance a product and provide added value in the same way that enhanced functionality of a product design does?
***Yes, the element is aspiration. Surface design, superficial, aesthetic, whatever you want to call it matters very much. When my late great boss said, cheap material, lots of design, he was hitting on superficial. Iconography is the study of images and what they mean. There are esoteric images, with meanings only to a select group, or a secret society, such as the strange images all over USA currency, meaningful only to Masons, and then there are exoteric images everyone instantly understands, such as a hammer and sickle.
Let’s look at functional vs. aesthetical.
People have always loved toast, patiently held over the fire, and cooked to perfection. With electricity one clever person lined up 4 heating elements and invented the electric toaster. Lots of toast quickly met the aspirations of a housekeeper to please many at once. We do not recall this today, when perfect toast is cheap and plentiful.
So it is with surface treatment. Aesthetics communicates information, and color and texture are only two elements. There are volumes written on this, and for my part, a good designer already has these skills naturally. What the aesthetics communicate is why the customer buys.
The Ford Thunderbird, the Jaguar S and the Lincoln LS are the exact same car, made in the same factories by the same workers, with the same engine, drive train, brakes, shocks, etc, with only superficial aesthetical differences. But the buyer of each version possesses different aspirations: one the sportster, the other the serious go getter american, he other the cosmopolitan Brit... Aesthetics, if ordered to feeding aspirations, is big money.
The most common experience of aspirations met superficially is wall coating. What does the color (or surface) chosen say about the resident whose walls express a certain tonal quality? Design is both form and function, and sometimes form is the function.
Apparel fashion is very much tangled with all of this. The little black dress becomes a subtle power with a string of pearls. A little white dress with a string of black pearls disorients he who encounters it. Aesthetics is a key to competing on design.***
Although I'm very interested in it, I don't have any experience in surface design and I don't feel strongly that I need to be the surface designer of the beautiful materials these household items are made from, but I would LOVE to be the one to bring these objects to market.
***Division of labor: the one thing all of those mighty design talents lack is the ability to bring it to market. Bring it to market is your role and value, it is part of what you get paid for.***
Although apparel is a very close second, I can't think of any objects I love more than these domestic objects that have been around and unimproved upon in forever. I guess I'm wondering if there's a place for me in the import business where I can deal in these products whose major appeal is aesthetic design rather than innovative functionality. Aren't the beautiful, 'unimproved' household objects (and apparel) sold by Nordstrom's, Macy's, and Z-Gallerie purchased by their buyers who buy from sales reps who in turn buy from importers? Although I haven't checked into it, being an independent sales rep sounds interesting, but I'm not sure I'd want to work as a buyer for a large corporation.
***Such store buyers cannot warrant the time to source and process a purchase form o overseas of say $5000 with of goods, even if they can sell them for $20,000, assuming they can, since at this point saleability is an unknown, given the item is new. (No one ever knows what will sell, any who believes he can predict such is delusional.) For the same five days worth of work, they can process a million worth of goods, although only $200,000 in net profits.
You can buy $5000 worth of goods and sell for ten that the stores sell for $20,000, making $10,000 profit. The simply cannot locate the resources for what is a net $5000 margin. And to add to the complexity, no store would take $20K retail of new to test. You can and will gladly work 5 days for $5000.
The stores first orders, test orders, to you, are small. Over time, years in fact, you improve the item with iterations to the point that it becomes worth the stores while to go directly and buy their own version from the factory, since the volumes are now worth it.
One element that surprises me perennially is how people are frozen in fear of events that do not and cannot occur in business. “Won’t they steal my idea...?” and “they can just go around me...” Neither happens in the real world, at least at the specialty level.***
0 comments:
Post a Comment