S T O RY TE L L I NG
I wrote, “The fifty-year-old Jumping Snake machine feeds, cuts, and coils the wire spring. An employee pops it off, stuffs it into a plastic snakeskin-print sleeve and into an aluminum can labeled ‘Fancy Salted Mixed Nuts’ or ‘Delicious After Dinner Mints.’” That description makes the New Jersey factory a few towns over from where Soren’s parents settled when they immigrated from the Netherlands in 1881 feel more real to the reader. And this makes its later demise sting all the more. By 2004, I learned, the company was dwindling. Expired patents—Sam Adams secured 37 in his lifetime— combined with overseas manufacturing were putting the squeeze on the company. On April 1, 2009 (yes, April Fool’s Day), the company was acquired, and today the factory building houses a retail operation that sells pianos, largely made overseas. I pass around the Snake Mint Can as I prep the Penn Design students to write their “15 Minutes of Research” essay. It requires a journalistic point of view. Just as when they design a new product, they need to step outside of themselves and ask, “Why does this matter? How do I design this story so it will have impact? Why would anyone but me care about it?” I give them a list of questions to guide their research: Who was the product’s muse? Its maker? Can you find out any details about its materials, manufacture, competitors? How do people interact with it? Do people use it differently from its intended function? What does this object communicate about the era, region and culture in which it originated? Is it good design? What’s at stake here?
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Storied Objects I’ve noticed that successful designers do four things well: 1. Do the research to figure out what will make a product meaningful. 2. Write the story of the product experience before they begin to develop the product. 3. Communicate the product’s promise through its look, feel, functionality and personality. 4. Create a product experience that fulfills the product’s promise. As one of my Bresslergroup colleagues has said, designers are no longer designing just the toaster—they’re designing the toasting experience. That experience is most successful when it has a well-crafted narrative arc. The Penn Design students’ final task is to write an Instagram post about their object. First we compare and contrast a couple of Instagram accounts featuring everyday objects and discuss how their outlooks and voices differ. Then we pull out our phones, take pictures and write. The student with the block of wood gets a closeup of a lovely knot: “Eye of the storm. #objectstories #wood #woodgrain #jobillo.” Another snaps her small ceramic bowl against the white table and writes, “A bowl that once belonged to a respected Jesuit scholar and now holds the ChapStick® of the woman who found it. #objectstories #legacy #imaginedpast.” Intriguing, right? How about you? What object would you bring? How would you tell its story? n