Ordinary Objects, Uncommon Designs

When the British poet John Keats observed that “a thing of beauty is a joy forever,” he wasn’t thinking about toilet brushes and bottle stoppers, but that’s because he was writing in the 19th century.

Today we’re living in an era of such visual literacy that design touches every aspect of our lives, a development dramatized by this year’s awards for excellence from the Industrial Designers Society of America.

The prestigious awards draw attention to some of the best and brightest product designers at work today.

“This is an exciting time for design,” said jury chairwoman Patricia Moore, a professor of design at Arizona State University. “The bar keeps being raised, and, thanks to computers, the speed from idea to production is mind-boggling. We’re not sitting there tied to a drafting table any longer, and manufacturers are really focusing on lifestyle needs.”

Her 16-member panel awarded 161 gold, silver and bronze awards, selected from more than 1,000 entries in 10 categories, including computers, furniture, cars and medical equipment.

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“In consumer products, what we see is the ongoing flowering of the humble, low-end product,” said Kristina Goodrich, executive director of the society, which is based in Great Falls, Va.

That means that every nook and cranny of daily life have been reconsidered, she said. Despite the high level of technology in the average household today, many of the winning products integrate beauty with mundane function. “For instance, there is a bottle stopper-opener which is a simple, beautiful design,” Goodrich said. Designed by Refac/Human Factors for OXO Good Grips, it has a bulbous handle that works for any grip and can be turned to maximize torque for opening.

Equally simple is Black & Decker’s whimsical Mouse Sander for detail-sanding. “It’s hand-held, with a point at the front, like an iron, for getting into corners,” said Goodrich. “It was designed to appeal to women, and everybody is buying it. That’s the appeal of good design--everybody grabs it up.”

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The ultimate example of beautifying an everyday object is Smart Design’s “really lovely toilet brush,” said Goodrich. Also for OXO Good Grips, the brush is not only aesthetically pleasing, but is functional to the last detail, including a flexible neck joint that makes new use of a plastic-and-rubber material, a brush that conforms to the shape of the toilet bowl, and a clamshell case that stays open until the brush is returned to it, then closes automatically.

The richness in color that runs through the products reflects, in part, the continuing influence of Apple Computer, whose 1998 iMac turned the personal computer from a beige box into an art object. Its success has unleashed a wave of jewel-tone, translucent plastics in the housewares industry, said Goodrich.

“We got a lot of colored plastic entries. In some ways, it offers companies a cheap way around design and the imitators have gone amok, but we gave awards to those who really used it appropriately.”

For instance, an award went to Hauser Inc., of Westlake Village, which designed the Worm Light for Nyko Technologies’ Game Boy. The small light plugs into a power port on the hand-held device so video games can be played at night (the contemporary equivalent, noted the jury, of reading comic books with a flashlight under the covers). The Worm Lights coordinate with the neon-bright colors of some Game Boys.

Not all plastic is colorful, noted Goodrich. “Apple is introducing us to translucence,” she said. The award-winning iSub woofer, which sits beside the iMac to enhance sound, is housed in clear plastic that “sort of hovers or floats, like sound does.”