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Industrial Design Analise
Industrial Design Analise
The juicy Salif is a citrus squeezer that looks alien, ominous and
retro futuristic. What about squeezing fruits relates to that aesthetic?
Absolutely nothing. But it's still one of Alessi's most commercially
successful products. It completely subverts your expectations
around what a kitchen product should be. And because of that, it's
hard to look away. Confusion leads to curiosity and curiosity leads to
an urge to buy it. This is an industrial design analysis with design
theory. A study was actually done on the juice itself by the
Laboratory of Ergonomics and Usability in Rio de Janeiro. As you'd
expect, it scored pretty poorly in terms of actually extracting juice
from citrus fruit, especially when you compare it with other similar
products. According to the study, 28 percent of people who owned
the juicy Salif never even used it for squeezing juice. And I think
that's a key statistic here. They used it purely as an aesthetic
sculptural display item. The juicy salve is probably the greatest
present day example of style over substance. As a juicer, its utility is
average at best, but as a conversation piece, it rates 10 out of 10.
It's like a little alien came to visit your house and because of that, it
grabs a lot of attention. Well, I wouldn't immediately endorse the
mass manufacturing of beautiful objects that have no utility mass
production uses a lot of resources and it can be hard on our planet.
However, there's still a lot that we can learn about desirability in
product design from the juicy salathe. So ideally, products should be
both beautiful and useful. But sometimes a product is so beautiful
that you just have to have it. The juicy Salif, at least for some
people, is one of those products. It's also one of those products
that's become an icon. You buy it because of what it represents. It's
pretty much a giant inside joke among everyone in the design
community. Basically, it was an Internet meme before the Internet
was really even a thing or Internet memes or even a thing. So let's
break this down and figure out why the juicy sell elicits such a strong
emotional response. What I like to do is think of a few words that I
associate with this design and sort of break down why I make those
associations. If you want, pause the video here and think of a couple
of words that you associate with this design and we can compare.
So to me, the UCSF communicates an ominous alien and retro
futuristic aesthetic. Let's start with what makes it look ominous. First
of all, there's no indication of function or how it works. In fact, its
function is intentionally kept vague. I mentioned this in my piece five
design review video. And even though these products look very
different, they have some similarities in terms of the philosophy
behind the design. There are no visual indicators that hint at how the
object might work. The only indication of its function is the rigid
surface at the top. Since a lot of other hand users have that
functional element as well. This ambiguous functionality makes the
object just a little bit ominous. You're not quite sure what it is, which
creates a certain sense of uneasiness. There's also no overt
indication of how it was manufactured. We're used to seeing party
lines or witness marks as artifacts of the manufacturing process.
There's none of that here. Any time you're not sure about what
something is, it evokes a sense of curiosity. You want to interact
with a product in order to understand it. This ominous feeling
eventually translates to curiosity. If you see this product in a store,
you're very likely to go up to it and touch it. And as many of you
already know, customers who physically interact with a product are
significantly more likely to purchase it. This is still the case now,
even with the prevalence of online shopping. But it was especially
the case in the early 1990s when this design was initially released.
That ominous feeling is also heightened by all of these acute angles
in the silhouette. These acute angles create a competing sense of
direction for your eyes. That's one reason why we associate pointy
with evil. Now, of course, pointy or spiky things are dangerous,
which is probably one other reason why we think of them as evil or
bad. But they also don't give a clear path here to visually move
through the silhouette. It's confusing to look at Cynic's designed as a
great video of this principle. Which Illington description? Just as a
contrasting example, look at this car. It's pretty clear how your eyes
should move through the silhouette. One line clearly flows to the
next with a juicy Salaf. There's this sort of downward directionality to
the form, but there are also all of these jagged edges that interrupt
the otherwise hyper streamlined shape, that contrast between hyper
streamlining and angular edges. It's just kind of jarring visually. And
the fact that it's chrome actually plays that up even more. Not only is
the streamlined silhouette interrupted by these jagged shapes, but
all of the reflections inside of the object create even more weird,
jagged shapes, creating even more visual noise that contrasts
against the clean exterior silhouette. Another thing is that, at least to
me, the proportions seem just a little bit off. So example where this
form intersection happens, it's not quite at the one third mark and
not quite at the halfway mark. The main part of the device that you
actually squeeze the juice on is just a little bit stretched out to me.
And the spindly legs are precariously thin, as if they're just barely
supporting the weight of the main juicing bulb. All of these things in
combination create this certain sense of uneasiness. Obviously,
you're not fearing for your life when you see this juicer. I mean, it's a
juicer, for God's sake, but it definitely elicits a reaction. So between
the ominous lack of manmade cues, the contrasting silhouette and
material choice and the odd proportions, it's just an object that
piques your interest because it's a little bit odd. On that note, it also
looks quite alien and has a similar feel to the monolith in 2001, A
Space Odyssey. To be clear, these objects could not be any more
different in terms of the way they look, but they both elicit a certain
similar reaction. This is actually a great example of how you can
communicate a similar idea using two completely different aesthetic
methods. This random black monolith just randomly appears out of
nowhere with no known function or shape. It's clearly not man made.
Clearly, it's from another world. It's mysterious and strange and with
a juicy salif the fact that there are no obvious manufactory within.
Marks is one major thing that contributes to its alien look and feel,
the shape is also very reminiscent of tripods or fighting machines
from the famous H.G. Wells novel War of the Worlds. This later
became a movie in 2005. The destructive alien craft sits on long,
spindly legs, just like the juice of. So despite the obvious alien
reference, the general shape is actually inspired by a squid. Philippe
Starck was supposedly on the Amalfi Coast, munching on some
calamari and squeezing Lebanon to his dish when inspiration struck.
Now, I don't know if you've looked at a squid recently, but here's a
quick refresher. These things are weird looking. So if his inspiration
was an alien looking creature like the squid, it stands to reason that
the end result feels very unfamiliar and foreign. The cephalopod
evolutionary line is one that is just completely different from ours,
and it certainly shows in their physical attributes they've adapted a
completely different kind of intelligence that's very foreign to us. And
the fact that the juicy self is inspired by this is probably the thing that
makes it look so alien. The next interesting thing about this design is
that while it does feel ominous, it also feels retro inspired. And I think
this is actually critical to us accepting it as a product, because if it
looks completely alien and off the wall, I don't think anybody would
buy it. But because the juicy Salif is inspired a lot by this retro,
futuristic aesthetic, it's a lot more acceptable and accessible. The
juicy Salaf is probably inspired by the streamlining and art deco style
that you'd see in the 1930s and 1940s. Raymond Loewy is probably
the most prolific designer who championed this aesthetic. The style
is sort of derived from the art deco style, minus the ornamentation. It
was all about pure, uninterrupted lines that felt streamlined and
dynamic. The materials were also very pure and streamlined,
utilizing smooth, surfacing and polished metals. I'm not really sure
why a pencil sharpener needs to be aerodynamic, but that's beside
the point. Get at point like pencil sharpener, sharpening pencils. So
the real point is that it just gives these otherwise mundane objects a
lot of visual movement. This is presumably what designers from the
1930s thought the world might look like 100 years in the future.
Hence the term retro futurism. The juicy Soloff most definitely
borrows from the style. And this is interesting because on one hand
it feels very ominous and otherworldly, which is what we've been
talking about a lot up till this point. On the other hand, the design is
clearly inspired from an industrial design style that's almost a
century old. This makes it feel both alien and familiar. And I think
that this paradox is what helps to make the object so captivating. If it
was just ominous and alien looking, no one would want it in their
house. But the fact that it's just a tiny bit familiar helps us to accept
it. Overall, criticizing the U.S. for its lack of functional utility is
missing the point. Squeezing juice is a secondary function of the
juicy Salif. Philippe Starck himself probably said it best. Oh, can we
find the right balance between the function giant jillions of function?
Hatzolah The primary function of the juicy self is to start
conversations just like the hot mess that's about to happen in the
comments of this video. Well, thanks for watching, guys. If you enjoy
the video, feel free to leave it like and subscribe. Definitely helps me
out. And I'll see you around until next time.
TRADUÇÃO