All the colors of a rainbow

Architect David Rockwell maneuvered through the exhibit of artfully displayed everyday objects until he reached the area titled “Dynamic.” Here, he paused to pontificate on the beauty of a bright yellow vacuum cleaner. “It has an original point of view,” he said, noting the transparent dust-collection area. “It exposes function, and it takes that function and makes it a unique and surprising form.”

Clearly, Rockwell’s eye transcended those of even the design-fluent who mingled at the Monday night opening of “Line on Design” -- hosted by Chrysler, Conde Nast, the Design Industry Foundation Fighting AIDS (DIFFA) and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles -- in the lobby of the Pacific Design Center. One man adjusted his severe black eyeglass frames and said, “I don’t know what to make of this.”

The exhibit, which remains open to the public through Dec. 17, is one of a series of events that DIFFA hosts throughout the country each year to increase HIV/AIDS awareness. It was modeled after a slick advertising supplement that Chrysler published in nine Conde Nast magazines this month, and features five categories of design: color, comfort, craft, dynamic and technology.

As he toured the displays, Rockwell, who is also DIFFA’s chairman, explained that the Hermes saddle “exposes the craftsman’s hand.” The woman modeling her own long black hair represents “the dynamic of movement.” And the chair made of felt “takes a material we’re familiar with ... and creates a shape that’s kind of cocooning.”

Wallace Wyss, whose engraved name tag declared him a representative from KUCR-FM (88.3) “Autotalk,” complained that an impossibly thin digital camera on display had “out-cuted itself. It looks like a wrapper that you would throw away.”

As he spoke, actress Kelly Lynch posed for a photographer near the vertical tubes filled with gray, lavender and turquoise M&Ms.; She said later, “The gray ones were very ... Prada.”

Headphones were provided, offering recorded explanations. At the “Dynamic” display, a woman’s voice discussed a Hoshino bass guitar. “It works just like any other guitar,” she said. “But it looks much cooler.”