Although I’m determined to study for my Japanese class and do the home assignment, my another browser window with Google Reader displayed an attractive post from Core77, which ultimately sucked a whole hour from my precious Saturday night. It reads: Starck’s “Design for Life” now online. And let me say that, I’m absolutely *not* regret to have drained 60 minutes of my life watching this wonderful reality show from BBC.
Not that I’m particularly impressed by the reality show bit. However, I must admit that it’s the name “Philippe Starck” that caught my first attention when mindlessly skimming through the news feeds. Starck is a world famous designer who had created household products, electronics, hotel interior and a yacht. His projects are not limited to a particular specialty. But all the products have something in common: his design principles that focus on eco-friendliness, sustainability, practicability, and usability.
*spoiler alert*
An interesting bit in this episode is that, one of the contestants of the show presented “Joystick vs Power Sockets” as the metaphor of gender. The joystick represents the strength and focus of men in many aspects of life, but it lacks the freedom of movement. The power sockets, which has multiple flexible extension cords, represent the flexibility and balance that female has when connecting to different emotional and physical needs. Quite a nice thought – he is not telling you the obvious. He is telling a story.
*end of spoiler*
Moreover, Starck had presented at TED conference at 2007. You can see his talk “Philippe Starck thinks deep on design” on TED.com. If you’ve watched this talk, it is not difficult to find the coherent principles in this BBC “Design for Life” TV show.
By the way, another reason that I have vivid memory of this TED talk is because I had volunteered to review the traditional Chinese translation of it. Man am I proud of it! Click this link to view the traditional Chinese translation of “Philippe Starck thinks deep on design”.
Also, a serendipity I found is this Vimeo channel that contains lots of design video clips and shows. Link is http://vimeo.com/channels/designcollector
First episode of Design for Life from BBC
Design for Life from design on Vimeo.
Philippe Starck thinks deep on design from TED
