Simplicity

What a word! My ex employer used it in its branding tag line. My ex-manager from another company used it as his own personal tag line. It was once a forgotten word when the world looked to the lavish Victorian style, and later challenged again by the Arts and Crafts movement. Simplicity has been making a strong and steady come back, from contemporary art like Bauhaus and Minimalism to Braun and Apple. Everyone suddenly realized that "new" big thing in design and everyone swears by it, but very few get the idea.

One of the most basic principle that simplicity assumes is being essential. Of course, simplicity does not equal to essential. After all, styling itself is a luxury. However, when we take a look at shelves in stores today, the first thing we see are not the products, but something that is mostly meaningless and probably damaging, which is packaging.

I have friends who are packaging designers, so I can imagine two scenarios. Either that they will hate me for saying this, or that they feel the guilt and need for change. Well, I think packaging, for the most part, are unnecessary. Take produce as an example. Since when do we need to package each bundle of scallions in a plastic bag? When do we need styrofoam trays and plastic wraps to package meat? Or foam wraps for fruits like pears? Other than the egg tray, I can hardly find an example of produce that needs packaging. Then the world got a bit smarter and designers start to think about how to minimize packaging, or make it meaningful. Well, one obvious example is the Puma "Clever Little Bag" designed by Fuseproject. (I'm surprised that the firm's owner didn't just take all the credit on this one.) So it's basically a bag that is being given a box form using cardboard support.

Here's the link to this project: http://www.fuseproject.com/products-47

So the bag still needs to be made. Trees still needs to be chop down. Extra space will still be wasted on shipping because of the "box" form therefore efficiency is not optimized, therefore wasting fuel. The cardboard then needs to be thrown out for recycling (note that the waste material needs to be transported to the recycling center, requiring fuel), and so does the bag (the recycling process for the bag takes quite a bit more energy than recycling cardboard). So in the end, the packaging, as clever as they claimed to be, is still as stupid as ever, probably worse.

It's true that the bag can be used for other purposes, but consumers who made the choice to make that purchase didn't spend their money to buy a bag. They want the shoes. Or why not just give them the shoes? Why even bother wasting brain cells on coming up with a "clever" bag? You know, every person who I've met who claim themselves to be this or that end up proving to be the opposite. I will save my brain cells and not think too much into what this clever bag will prove itself to me.

In the world of consumerism, we are bombarded by everything sensual. Huge billboards with flashing graphics, colorful posters on product shelves, catchy tunes on radios and tvs ads, artificial scents released in theme parks... all to create certain assumptions in our minds about what we want, therefore stimulate consumption.

On another level, packaging design often are excessive because of the amount of messaging that the companies try to put on it. Brand logo, product name, ingredients/components, warning labels, instructions, bar codes, price tags etc. Imagine trying to package a pair of chopsticks.... Some are require by the law, some are there to evade liability. Some are out of greed and bad decision making.

Today as I was shopping at Carrefour somewhere in Taipei, I saw something incredible. First of all, I went to Carrefour for its good prices. Quality is another question, but since the item I was looking for is less quality-dependent, it made sense for me to shop there. Then I saw a bag of parts.... wait, where's its box? Where's the big product name with a hot model holding it? Where's the layers of cardboard box and clear window to tease me? Where's the bright colors to fill my vision? Where are the warning labels to scare me away?

None was there. It was just a bunch of parts packed in a transparent plastic bag with a really insignificant cardboard label that also functioned as a hook for the display shelf. I was quite surprised, because if you don't already know what the final product should look like, or if you are not paying attention to be looking for this specific item, you probably won't even know it's there. But why should you? If you never came to the store to look for it, if you never had the need for it, why should you know it's there? Won't that be a waste of everyone's time?

In a way, I wished that the plastic bag isn't even used, because in case of return, the bag would have been torn apart, so it will be a piece of thrash anyways. I also wished that no packaging designer was fired over this decision.

On a cultural level, it is interesting that consumers have been pampered to a point that we expect excessive packaging and messages, that without it, seems wrong or disrespectful, or cheap. It seems that the consumers need to be told every single thing about what it is, like saying a spoon is a spoon, to make the purchase justifiable.

This product that I saw was particular interesting because not many folks outside of Taiwan and China will know what it is, which is interesting in the stand point of "making sure that even the dumbest individual can figure out everything this product does" mentality. Say an Eskimo comes to Taiwan and looks at it, he will have no idea what it is, let alone the product being disassembled. Does it matter? May be it does because it may arouse the Eskimo to want to try it. May be it won't. It probably won't. So when we sell items that are so "every-day" to the locals, such as shoes, spoons, pens, hammer, screw driver, paper clips, staplers, tape holders, computer mouse, mouse pads, cups, mugs, shirts, fruits blah blah blah... do we really need to be told what they are?

I am not stupid (according to my mentioned experience, the opposite must be true), I don't think I need to be told the obvious so I feel that I am making the right decision. All I need to know is how it looks like, price point and anything about it that is different from what defines its fundamental identity as a product. If it's a spoon that also functions as a 9mm semi auto, sure I'd love to know that. However if it's a spoon that is "modern" as opposed to "classic", I think I can take some risk on that.

The bag of parts I saw at the store in its fabulous packaging.


What it would look like when assembled. (This photo is not taken by me, I don't own its copyright.)


This is what you can do with it. (Video linked from youtube, I don't own the copyright)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NfUBIUapSE