Last night, after several long nights at work, what do I do when I get home? I end up watching a design documentary.

Objectified is a documentary about our life we share with manufactured items, an the designers who make those objects. (On Netflix Instant View for those who are interested.) What did I gain out of it? First off, getting to listen to this statement in the original German, awesome.

Good design is innovative.

Good design makes a product useful.

Good design is aesthetic.

Good design helps us to understand a product.

Good design is unobtrusive.

Good design is honest.

Good design is durable.

Good design is consequent to the last detail.

Good design is concerned with the environment.

Good design is as little design as possible.

- Dieter Rams

There was more to it, about how design needs business for it to be able to thrive, how design is often confused with fine art and how very few companies know how to correctly manage and use design. Morsels I chewed on late last night...

The second was on the environmental impact of design. There's a lot I can go into on this, but at the very least I gotta say I'm glad we work on mostly recycled paper, and that with direct we target our audience very closely to make sure we're sending to people who actually want the information we have to offer. We could be designing televisions.

If you're a fan of Helvetica, you'd like this one as well. (It helps if you have a secret glee about ID, like me.) Enjoy.