Hasta La Ideas

Make no mistake, the “deconstruction” in the new book Deconstructing Product Design owes as much to Derrida as it does to David Macauley. William Lidwell and Gerry Manacsa take 100 (mostly) iconic products and hold them up to the scrutiny of a panel of modern design thinkers. For a hard-core industrial designer, deconstruction as disassembly might have been more interesting than deconstruction as critical analysis. Although it could have revealed some hidden engineering mysteries, our desire to see Segways in pieces and Tickle Me Elmo eviscerated may have to wait for another book.

Instead of laying waste to products with screwdrivers and crowbars, a wide range of occasionally famous, sometimes beautiful and frequently innovative products are subjected to the verbal barbs and jabs of unexpectedly-funny designers and engineers. In a very brief introduction the authors explain their criteria for choosing the 100 products they included: (1) does the product exemplify good design in at least one respect, and (2) does the product illustrate at least one key principle of design? Perhaps the best articulated spread of the book comes next, a two-page overview of the pages to come, complete with thumbnail text, picture frames and notes which provides a framework for understanding the product pages without resorting to a long-winded explanation.

The bulk of the book consists of 200 pages of product photography and accompanying analysis. Each product is shot against a white background and so evenly-lit as to suggest a rendering rather than a photo. For some objects, such as the LC4 Chaise Lounge and the Pot-in-Pot cooler, the funny textures suggest rendering, while for others, such as Elmo himself, the red fur seems naturalistic enough to have been photographed. Rather than glossy product photography, however, the images serve only to remind the viewer of the form factors of already familiar objects. Far more interesting is the historical background and analysis provided by the authors (e.g. early prototypes of Apple’s mouse used the ball from a stick of Ban Roll-On deodorant) and reading the color commentary from design thinkers (and Core77 contributors!) such as interaction designer Jon Kolko, product designer Scott Henderson and design researcher Steve Portigal. Across the bottom of each spread a variety of experts weigh in on the product with an assortment of critical commentary, fond reminiscence and occasional bursts of humor. This reviewer’s favorite comment was from Lyle Sander, and experience designer, who noted that it would be “unsportsmanlike to order pizza” with the sculpturally phallic BeoCom2 phone.

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