Ok this post is a little esoteric but hey, that's how I get down sometimes. Have you seen the commercials for the new T-Mobile Sidekick? The one that's designed by D-Wade?
Yeah, I've got multiple issues with this.
1. What is D-Wade's actual contribution to this phone? The commercials, I'm pretty sure, say he "designed" it. Now I'm sure #3 is quite intelligent, but somehow I have trouble seeing him pondering a user flow diagram in Visio on the plane between series. But ok, the weblink above is more forgiving - it says he "played an integral part in the design" of the Sidekick. So did he pick the colors? Are gold and cream D-Wade's signature colors or something? Did he choose the control layout? Well, his model is laid out exactly the same as the normal ones. Or, and this is the scenario I find most likely, did he get paid some money to be in a commercial holding a Sidekick which some actual designers colored to appeal to the NBA-hip-hop-success lifestyle demographic and to look good next to D-Wade in a white suit?
2. Isn't the claim that D-Wade designed this phone interesting commentary on the general public's perception of designers? Does this perception of design as needing no specialized knowledge speak to the troubling tendency of users to blame themselves for errors (cause you know, it's not like designers should be going out of their way to make it easy or anything)? Or am I reading too much into this?
3. If normal people freak out for a phone "designed" by D-Wade, would actual designers freak out for a [whatever] designed by some superstar designer? I guess this already happens somewhat in the consumer products sphere but I'm curious if someone in the software universe would have that kind of pull (Other than Apple of course).
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Is this similar to the concept behind the LaCie External Hard Drives designed by Porsche (see: http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10383)? I mean, I guess they are sleek and whatever, but I'm not going to external hard drive to work or the store ...
or, even worse (!) the Dolce & Gabbana RAZR: http://direct.motorola.com/hellomoto/dolcegabbana/
are they trying to concatenate design and fashion in a technology context?
Hummm ... I react to two points. I think that a D&G RAZR is far more palletable. They (D&G) are a fasion brand and this is what the do, turn $10 of denim into $500 jeans ... You may not like it, you may not buy it, you might not be able to afford it ... but they are selling fasion and "artisitic design"
I think that D-Wade might have picked some colors or something and could be a designer in the same sense that D&G is ... but I doubt it.
While there is a move afoot to drive more design into everyday objects, I think that this represents the overall problem with it. The perception that design is just the fasion and fluff.
I'll also add that we OEM the Sidekick to T-Mobile and D-Wades is the same as any other in terms of use.
Personally, I think the external hard drive is the more interesting design object here. While I agree with Aaron that D&G's value addition is their fashion reputation and style, I don't really think they're "designing" the D&G razr. It's just a normal razr painted gold with D&G wallpapers and whatnot (now, the eelskin carrying case, available separately, might be a different story).
The Porsche external HD is more interesting to me personally, as this is an object whose design decisions were made by a designer who has some experience in a similar context. I guess I'm claiming that fashion doesn't map to cellphones, but cars map to hard drives. =)
And I dunno, maybe fashion could map to cellphones in some way, but I'd want to see more than just picking the color before I'd buy it...
good point. engineer is to car in a similar way that engineer is to hard drive. i'm sorry lacie, i was overly flip.
how fashion might map to cell phones in a more intrinsic way is an interesting question, a pithy answer to which is probably worth some cash and some street cred. or, does the emperor inevitably have no clothes in that context? i don't know.
this brings me back to my original question - the difference between fashion and design. they don't have to go hand in hand, which for the latter, is less damaging than it is the other way around.
The D-Wade phone looks like a beautiful cream and gold flippy-outie supercharged piece of horse sh!#. You can bet that as much user testing went into it as went into the Moto Razr.
As for the D-Wade involvement, that's just marketing at work. I guess people that like basketball also like flashy cream colored phones.
Your point about designers designing for other designers, it made me think of that cone shaped vacuum that was supposed to be sleek and stylish - oh, and a vacuum. I think he modeled it after a dunce cap (that was actually in the commercial!!). I'll just say that it sure did suck.
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