The Significance of a Designed Product - Essay Example

?The Significance of a Designed Product Introduction Design is one of the most important key elements in the creation or invention of a piece of product. In the sphere of physical products, product design is the action that makes over an array of product requirements towards a pattern of the geometry and material assets of a certain product such as an artifact or any other useful physical creation. Designers of products fashion and identify the method by which the individual component of the product is organized in a manner that makes it unified or integrated; other elements such as form, texture, color, and the visual illustrations of the exterior of the product combine together to contribute to the whole concept of the physical product; the materials to be used, the production procedure are also taken into consideration; the agent of attaching every part together into a single whole as well as the specified geometrical patterns and material designs are taken into account during the product design (Ulrich and Pearson 1998; Morris 2009). Normally, product designing is being carried out by engineers and highly-skilled designers and usually engages with the people in the marketing, business, or even in military in order to gather inputs that would help build the physical product. Product design is a component of a much comprehensive term called “product development”, which comprises the creation or organization of the product requisites, the basic idea of the product, and product evaluation. Product has long been resorted to as a means of systematically creating a physical product. As a matter of fact, it is being employed during the earlier eras to help plan the overall design and functions of artifacts. The significance of a designed product can be dated back as to the Mozambique period or even earlier. Thus, there is a rich historical importance the ties up product design and artifacts together. Today, the influence of product design has thrived even more. Product design is widely used in STEM fields, especially in the natural sciences and engineering. Today, many technology companies around the world are investing huge amounts in product design in order for them to increase their value in the market (Chitale and Gupta 2005). They are also using product design to influence or indirectly manipulate revenues. However, this revenue-focused design is largely applicable to computer products and not significantly on artifacts. This paper focuses on the significance of product design or designed product in the creation of artifacts. In particular, we will focus on a piece of furniture known as the “Throne of the Weapons” – an influential design made to order by Bishop Dinis Sengulane of the Christian Council of Mozambique, and was designed and created by Kester. Thus, the “Throne of the Weapons” is also called “The Kester’s Chair.” We will look at the nooks and crannies of the design of this amazing piece of artifact and draw inferences and insights on how product design helped work out the entirety of the product. History of the “Throne of the Weapons” The “Throne of the Weapons” is a piece of artifact built by Kester from abandoned firearms. He created the sculpture by attaching different types of firearms together. Since 2002, the sculpture is under the care of the British Museum. Many considers it as the British Museum’s most expressive piece of art judging from the perspective that the object has been presented in a more extensive myriad of ways than any other piece of artifact (BBC 2013). The majority of the sculpture’s composition is composed of decommissioned weapons from the Mozambique Civil war that took place between 1977 and 1992 (BBC 2013 2013). Just for a historical background, the Mozambique War killed nearly a million lives and internally dislocated 5 million people. Thus, in essence, apart from its form is the significance of its historical background: the sculpture resembles both the unnatural catastrophe of the war and the victory of the people. The sculpture’s builder, Kester, was born Cristovao Estavao Canhavato (BBC 2013). Kester already developed an early interest in engineering construction. He has a close connection to Bishop Dinis Sengulane because his education, which happened at the Artist Collective, was assisted by a Christian group spearheaded by the Bishop (Western Australia Museum n.d.). It was that connection that made the creation of the sculpture possible when the Bishop appointed Kester to realize the artifact (Western Australia Museum n.d.). The “Throne of the Weapons” has actually been engraved with the artist’s sign; nevertheless, based on the observations of the curators, the sculpture has also been invaded and partially damaged by termites; hence, the sculpture, in part, lost some of its important features including the artist’s signature (British Museum 2013). One interesting feature of the sculpture is the artist’s inclusion of “smiling faces” on the parts of the artifact. He did this despite the fact that some of his relatives had been physically blighted by those weapons. Physical Description of the “Throne of the Weapons” The sculpture possesses various features, but of course the most remarkable description of it would be its unusual composition: the unorthodoxy in the use of firearms or deadly weapons as its materials. As aforementioned, Kester put smiles on the sculpture to resemble positive spirit despite the notorious image of the weapons. At the topmost end of the of the right hand rifle is an image of a face that appears similarly to the image evoked in the famous painting “Scream”. The artist clarified that it was not him who intentionally put the image there; he said that he had only found it (BBC 2013). At arm’s length view, holes and random inscription can be seen on it. The holes and the spots are actually remainders of the bands and fastening used to easily carry the rifles. Kester, also a devote Christian, manifested his faith in the way he designed the back of the throne. The back of the sculpture is patterned after the Gothic architectural images commonly found among religious structures, particularly old Roman Catholic churches. The materials (the rifles) used by Kester to build the throne was provided by the Transforming Arms into Tool, an organization responsible for gleaning decommissioned rifles. Aside from disused weapons, the organization also provided Kester with other bits of sculptures. A large number of the weapons are AK-47 assault rifles that were built from Eastern Europe, North Korea and Portugal. The back portion of the throne installs a G3 rifle – a powerful weapon designed in Germany. The AK47 rifles that were designed by the Russians were used as a motif to resemble the Mozambique flag (New York Times 2005). Scrutinizing the front part, you will find the AK47 rifles made by the North Koreans. Product Design and Archaeology The product design and archaeology of the “Throne of the Weapons” is something that is expected of its kind. It is important to note that the materials being used to build this remarkable piece of artifact have irregular shapes. The different types of rifles that constitute the sculpture pre-determined its design. The artist first considered how it would be feasible to put all the materials together – materials with irregular shapes and random features – without sacrificing form, quality and essence. From an artistic perspective, the product archaeology of the sculpture may depend largely on not just the bits and pieces that compose it but the historical significance of the pieces of sculpture features that form the artifact’s requirements. Certainly, from the business perspective, when analyzing the product design of this sculpture, careful deliberation on the number of fasteners, linkers, toggles, buckles, etc. should be carried out in order to ensure proper estimation of the costs and properly project the potential revenue (Ulrich and Pearson 1998; Kaplan 1990). However, since the “Throne of the Weapons” is not a thing of commerce but more of a thing to induce of the past, it makes more sense to look at its product design in an artistic perspective. It is true that the throne is not a loner in a spectrum of historical artifacts used or intentionally built to resemble or tell something about the past, a social movement, an obsession, a development, etc. But it can be observed that there is nothing more than just the sole intention to describe the events in the Mozambique war is expressed in the sculpture. The throne suggests many evocations encompassing an array of discipline that prove substantial to the discussion of its design. Need Against Want The leading framework of the throne expresses certain degrees of economic and political implications. Weapons used as material is not just a product of wildest imagination but of a grim determination to represent something. As aforementioned, disused or decommissioned rifles were used to build the throne but much of it tells about political and economic conditions. By closely observing the sculpture, the first thing that would come to mind would be the themes of violence, hatred, power, and conquest; however, getting deeper into the core of the sculpture’s embedded value, it would bring us to the inference that it was the lavishness in political and military practices that stirred the creation of the sculpture. Remember that the rifles were abandoned ones; but that doesn’t mean no one had ever wanted to use them but there was too much to be carried by the number of militants gunning the fields. The point is this: viewers are invited to see the emotional and historical context of the artwork but rarely perceived are the realities behind it – there were intention to impose military might by tapping economic influence to stir political and military chaos. The objectives are not disclosed but the proof of fulsomeness resonates. Sustainability and Correct Choice In the current economic trends, the gist of the throne may not appeal to many modern consumers, at least, in the context of commercialization and in view of the triggers of marketing. How do we relate the perspective in which the throne is regarded a semblance of historical happenings to how people think about product designs nowadays? Without a doubt, not a large proportion of the world’s population is inclined to sculptures. Majority of the world population is hyped by the emerging contexts of design; and oftentimes the “brand name” takes it home. As Mark Delaney commented most of today’s “products are symptomatic of design’s continuing obsession with fashion and novelty; neither particularly beautiful nor artistically insightful” (Clark and Brody 2009). Delaney’s contention is insightful of how aesthetically linked are the artworks with artistic content and those which only promotes fashion and novelty. Candidly, it is difficult to judge at the cause or rationale behind the creation of a particular artifact or “product” so it remains a though-provoking inquiry how do people see artistic creations? What is their basis for inferring that this product or that product is worthless or valuable, artistic or a product of fad? In covering the subjects of sustainability and correctness of choice, design would surely matter much. In this regard, design is not construed as the geometrical patterns or the shapes – although they matter significantly as well – but it is in the materials used in the product. Think about it this way: if the throne were not made of rifles, do you think it would have the same meaning to the public? The answer would be an obvious negative considering the fact that rifles are not supposed to be used as element for creating chairs. If this is indeed true of an argument, what about Philippe Starck’s “The Gun Lamp”, which was displayed at the Milan Fair in 2008? Is not it made of a weapon as well? If there is a difference between the two, where can we draw the difference? Philippe Starck’s infamous Gun Lamp obviously is made of or a rife-inspired product. Needless to say, it presents an outstanding craftsmanship in the way the materials are chosen and the concept of integrating lamp and rifle. For the nerds of poetic, it may resemble light and darkness, Yin Yang, or good and evil but in the minds of those belonging to the advanced economies, it is merely a fashion. That is probably the bigger difference between the two: the concept of time. However, this is not to say that older artifacts are more artistic or meaningful than the present ones, it is just that in advanced economies, less attention is bent on the artistic meaning of the product. What producers or product makers are concerned about nowadays is how well the designs of their product cope up to the rapidly changing preference of the modern consumers (Boothroyd and Dewhurst 1989). That is the fact. Like what I have mentioned earlier, few people nowadays are into old artifacts filled with historical and artistic value. This triggered the transformation of the standard of sustainability and correctness of choice through time, from the emerging economies to the advanced economies. If before product designs are developed for a nobler purpose, today, products plans are carefully built to address the fancies of the consuming public. Even if Starck decides not to sell the Gun Lamp, to impose that it is not made for anything commercial, it subtly poses of a budding vogue that would soon become the benchmark of all up-and-coming artifacts. A very interesting argument was made by Clark and Brody (2009), “the controversial nature of Starck’s latest work reinforces how the design industry can provoke and stimulate the consciousness.” This suggests varying angles of points of view: (1) it could mean that designs are excellent means to provoke human imagination: this is true since time immemorial; however, the imagination or the “consciousness” that is being talked about no longer relates to that of the emerging economies era. The transformation of product designs through time has also changed the way people view designs: the standards of aesthetics and model of art, in people’s minds, are already set in the modern context. (2) It could also go in favor of the emerging economies, that is, viewers become more concerned or particular about the artistic significance of the artifact. More than just looking at the product at face value, they become more inquisitive of what’s the reason behind the creation of the product, the materials used, the different themes that can be drawn from the artifacts and so many others (Ulrich and Eppinger 1995). Notwithstanding such observations, it all boils down to the correctness of choice and how this choice would feed sustainability in the long run because that’s what the course of product design is bring us. Lost Generations This may sound cliche in this discussion as the constantly and rapidly evolving world of product design has utterly transformed the people’s preference to products. This is probably the most important part of this discussion because this covers the reality of the upshot of the evolution of product design. The interpretation of “lost generations” should not be construed in a superficial manner such that it will be interpreted as a massive killing or genocidal activity of some groups of people or a sort of a massive catastrophe, wiping out the a large proportion of the world’s population. The context of “lost generations” can be viewed from an abstract perspective of artifacts and its designs. The evolvement of product design apparently changed the fondness and paradigm of people to artworks. Consider this: “The Throne of the Weapons” is considered by the British Museum as an “eloquent object”, which means that it expresses nearly boundless messages subject to the individual interpretation of the viewer. However, this piece of art cropped up during the emerging economies era, wherein the benchmark of product design was still heavily rooted from philosophical notions of things(Ullman 1992). People during these economies were more adept in analyzing the underpinnings of the artifacts more than just looking at the perfection of the patterns, visuals, inscriptions, etc. The advent of information explosion and industrialization that modernized the people’s way of thinking completely altered the touchstone of art criticism. People have become more concerned about trends and economic progress the reason why product designs have also entwined with this development. From various points in the world, product designs became more commerce-based rather than art-based (Ostwald 1992). For instance, the growing industry of fashion in West End and New York is just one example of how the transformation began to eclipse the old paradigm of designs. Product designs in the advanced economies, just like during the emerging economies era, place considerable attention to the type of materials that they use; the difference is that the choice of materials in the modern form of product designs do not intend to resemble anything; the choice of materials are pedantically observed in order to target the audience: their taste, craving, their wants. Today, things just go so fast including the condition of people’s thinking: the fad in fashion, science and technology has continuously has continuously rose to a level in which there is not room to appreciate the underlying meaning of the products, if they do have one. Comparing Starck’s “The Gun Lamp” and Kester’s the “Throne of the Weapons”, one way to see them is that they are both works of arts; they are both products of imagination but what causes the varying degree of attention and celebration that is being given to each of them? You will see that it is the state of time: one is from the emerging economies era and the other belongs to the modern era, to the advanced economy. The point is that industrialization changed the focus of the people: people have become trendier, more commerce-focused. As a result, the state of product design grew progressively with the conditions of the economy and society; thus, changing the people’s perspectives about designs and how they should affect them artistically. This is the complete gist of the so-called “lost generations”. It is in no way referring to the massive claiming of lives but it is the eclipsing of the modern way of thinking and the contemporary state of product design that ridded the old ways of appreciating artifacts or products for that matter. Conclusion Product design is very important; but that importance today may only be a connotation of commerce and profitability. As we can see, the product design of the thorn and the Gun Lamp has varying objectives. For the thorn, product design is intended to convey a message; for the Gun Lamp, or for any other speculative artifacts or “modern” products, product design means something else: selling. Bibliographic Entry Boothroyd, G. and Dewhurst, P., 1989. Product design for assembly. Wakefield: Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc. Clark, H. and Brody, D. eds., 2009. Design studies: a reader. London: Bloombury Academic. Chitale, A.K. and Gupta, R.C., 2005. Product design and manufacturing. New Delhi: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd. British Broadcasting Corporation, 2013. A history of the world – object: throne of weapons. [online].BBC. Available at [Accessed 5 December 2013] British Museum, 2013. Throne of the weapons. [online]. BBC. Available at [Accessed 5 December 2013]. Kaplan, R.S. ed., 1990. Measures for manufacturing excellence. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press. Morris, R., 2009. The fundamentals of product design. Worthing: AVA Publishing. Ostwald, P.F., 1992. Engineering cost estimating.3rd ed. 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