Dirty, Clean
Okay, so the photo doesn't relate to the following post at all. Sue me.
Luke Williams from genius design firm frog design thinks he's worked out why the iPod's design is so often described as "clean." Why? It references materials used in bathrooms.
It makes a lot of sense, but I don't know that I buy into it 100%. But then I also haven't finished reading the article (lunch breaks aren't long enough).
Posted on Wednesday, September 14, 2005 and filed under Photos.
Comments
clean. sleek. germs just slide right off the pod.
but let me just say, scratches dont! my one day old nanopod has enough little scratches to catch and keep some bathroom germs
Posted by: cybele m on September 14, 2005
White, with a basic, uncomplicated shape and no ugly buttons or knobs to clutter the view = clean. There you go.
(The other, coloured ipods are dirty).
Posted by: Lucinda on September 14, 2005
I wouldn't - while the work done by Roland Barthes was a really important starting point for semiotic theory, the Jungian idea of the collective subconscious which Williams alludes to (while not openly referencing, I might add, which gives the impression Barthes had similar ideas, which he didn't), there's been heaps of stuff done since then. The results of subsequent work have seen shall we say a theoretical hesitation at the idea of a collective repository of images that are somehow universal. There's also a galactic leap between the psychology of perception, which is a massively complex area in its own right, and semiotics - the study of how signs circulate and generate meaning, which is much more what Barthes was talking about in his book Mythologies - which is really cool, by the way, and I urge everyone to read it. It's a lot more what de Saussure and the poststructuralist linguists were talking about when they made the claim - very broadly speaking - that signs produce meaning as the result of a differential relationship between themselves and every other sign floating about the place, rather than having any intrinsic meaning of their own.
So, to boil this down to something that's slightly useful, I would agree very basically with Mr Williams, while having some issues with his reading of some of the theory involved. I also think, following the political bent of most of the theorists cited above, that statements like "products are not mere objects of facility; they're objects of communication" ignores the troubling implications of the notion that social dialogue now takes place via products and meanings constructed by large corporations . ..
I still loves my ipod, though.
Posted by: Len on September 14, 2005
Whoa there! Spot the scholar in our midst...
I think I'll need come back and re-read your comment sometime a little later than 7.20am, Mister Len.
Posted by: Si on September 15, 2005
