First Project! (OBJECTIFIED: RESPONSE)

 So I'm not the brightest bulb- I will be the first person to admit that- and realize that I never published this entry because I am a professional grade dum dum (the scientific term, look it up). 

Although initially, I didn't mind using Tinkercad, the more that I was using it the more I was finding myself frustrated with the limitations of the program. I tried out several different ideas that I initially had for this project (ex. an iMac, a pair of gardening shears, etc.) but kept running into road bumps and I will be DAMNED before I let myself make something as ugly as some of my other attempts were turning out. 

I did enjoy the documentary a lot. I ended up watching it over the course of a couple of days while I get ready in the morning. It sort of made me think of when I was a kid and watching "How It's Made" on t.v while rushing to get ready for school. 

The moment that stuck out to me as both a point of interest but also, where I was going to look to salvage my project after my other attempts failed was about 55min into the film when Japanese designers began to talk about the cultural differences between the east and west when approaching the process. 

Maybe it stuck out to me because I'm Asian and a lot of the principles that they were talking about resonated with me and how I was always taught to look at the aesthetics of these everyday designs. Maybe it stuck out to me because they had a segment in a MUJI store and I go hog-wild for MUJI products.

Anyways, I made the wall-mount CD player that they show for about 3 seconds (LOL) because I have one at home. 

A view from the left side (oooh, ahhhh)

            

And a view from the right side (oooh, ahhhh)

The design was really simple, to be completely honest, I thought it was going to be more of a challenge to try to make so I was a little disappointed that it wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it was going to be. 

I did think a lot about the concepts that were discussed during the documentary thought while working on this. The Japanese designers talking about how MUJI has a specific, purposefully simple design for their products made me think how easy it must be to impart the Diderot effect on their consumers. I was immediately hit with the realization right after while looking in my own study that I'm the exact sucker who fell for it. 

It also made me think of that meme with Marie Kondo about simplicity in your living space:

Tinkercad was not sparking joy with me for this project.

So while I was busy thinking about specific principles that I only know the existence of because of TikTok, I jumped from thinking about the Diderot effect to something that was mentioned earlier in the documentary about how products can be designed to degrade- Planned Obsolescence.

From the consumer standpoint, that sucks. How dare companies do that to us? I'm a broke University student, spare me my life! On the other hand, it makes sense. If they made everything so that it theoretically lasts forever, it's not feasible for the companies. That and I can't imagine it would be particularly good for the overall global economy if that were the case. 

I decided to take a closer look at my CD player (which has been collecting dust since 2015, whoops) and realized that although it CAN be plugged into the wall to run, it also runs on batteries. So I don't need to have that wire visible if I don't want it to be. 

It kind of felt like I had come full circle to have discovered this while thinking about the concept of Planned Obsolescence. 

Batteries from Japan are actually cute colours like this and not hideous black and brown (this is a direct shot at Duracell, their products are fugly)

It felt a little weird to take that back panel off on the real product, but in this model, it was super satisfying because I feel like I was getting a little stir-crazy looking at all of the white.

It also gave me a chance to play a little more with doing cut-outs from other shapes which is probably my favourite part of the program and the only thing that I found particularly redeeming for keeping me sane during this process. 

Overall, I had a good time with this project. I enjoyed watching the documentary a lot more than I did making something related to it, but a lot of the ideas discussed did spark me to try and do a little more investigating on the general concepts that they talked about in my own time because I was genuinely curious which is always fun (and nerdy as my sister has pointed out) for me. 

Anyways, on to the next project!