The Engadget Show: Inside the mind of designer Philippe Starck
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted Nov 13th 2009 3:50PM
posted Nov 13th 2009 3:50PM
Bonus round: Catch a game of word association with Starck right here!
Host: Thomas Ricker
Directed by: Daniel Gallenkamp
Edited by: Chad Mumm and Michael Slavens
Music by: Bit Shifter
Titles by: Julien Nantiec
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Philippe Starck interview
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He's the one with that silly boring external hard drive design isn't he?
'Video not available'.
@ Thomas Ricker
Way to frame the interview around Apple. Every other question was like "How much do you actually love Apple?" - He's a designer, of course he'll love Apple, ask him something else.
@saad, He brought up Apple, I didn't. He had the iPhone on his desk, I didn't put it there. The only time I brought Apple into the discussion without provocation was when I mentioned Ive in the word association game.
Ima let you finish but FIRST is the coolest word of all time! OF ALL TIME!
haha but really, I downloading now waiting to enjoy some goodness that is the engadget show.
I believe the word you were searching for was 'second'
Interview Steve Jobs for the next one. Please.
Interview Steve Jobs for the next one. Please.
Stupid Engadget comment system!
Wow, Russell Crowe has let himself go over the years.
Ricker looks like he goes to fight club. :)
I might, but if I did I couldn't talk about it.
I thought this guy died in the season finale of warehouse 13
I thought this guy died on the season finale of warehouse 13
1. I Get "Video not available"
2. I don't see it in zunemarket place too...
now I can see the video,
Am I the only one who is seeing a "Video not available" msg?
It's being worked on. Might be a good idea to just use the download links till we iron things out.
What happened to the interviewers hair did he have a bad design day - tape cuts out half way through
He looks like a old zen master :p
Nice iPhone you got there Mr. Starck.
You designed my shower faucet. Form over function is rarely a good thing when it comes to the first thing you use in the morning ;)
Well, second first thing. Lol.
It's just a dude's opinion... He knows some and knows none; don't take him too seriously. They all fudge it, I promise.
In the world of art and design, the more bullshit you say the more successful you are. It goes with the territory.
I hope Stark is not actually as arrogant as he sounds in the interview.
word
I cant believe how flawed some of Starck's reactions were.
Reactions can't be flawed. Facts can be, but reactions and opinions for that matter, can not be flawed. His reaction is his genuine human nature. You don't have to agree with his reactions however.
Ok, his opinions are invalid.
You lost me at "Apple fanboy"
keep repeating 4:14 to 4:17... boyfan
These designers can be so deep sometimes.
Lost a bit of respect for the man seeing what a fanboy he is, no designer should be a fanboy of anyone else, need to have your own ideas, yes it's fine to admire another way of thinking, but downright Jobs fanboyism isn't how someone like Starck should be behaving.
I'm sorry. But yes Apple has some serious flaws (iphone: no physical keyboard, price /mac: price, no games) BUT Apple is the best company in electronics/ computing today, You have to be utterly stupid to not even admit to that...
- Macbook Pro (unibody) design stolen by the Dell Adamo and hp envy
- iPhone design influenced almost every phone made after it was released
- All in one iMac, idea incorporated into other manufacturers computers
- iPods, small form factor and design influenced many other products
BUT they design isn't everything, and some Apple products are sacrificing important features for design
by best company, I meant best in design obviously. Nothing else
But I didn't say anything about Apple's designs, I have a MacbookPro and an iTouch myself, I'm talking about the way Starck is talking about Jobs.
(Slaps head)
............ I want my 5 minutes back, that interview was pointless
Gave you an insight in what named designers are about, that's useful to know in discussion (or flaming)
Forgive the snottiness of my statements.. but:
About the guy, if you want me to take you serious at all lose the jacket.
And people don't put their life and ideas in those boxes but their distrust of the reliability of their HD's, and their porn of course.
Oh and news flash: HD's will also break.
Too many extraneous buttons on the jacket!
It's so prêt-à-porter and has lettering, standard advertisement lettering, but it's in an 'in' color I guess.
Does he ever take that jacket off? Every time I see him, he is wearing it.
Did you just say " Jacket off ? " : )
The only two guys in Paris who haven't been to a hair stylist in two years? What are the odds? I wonder if he posts on Engadget as a fanboy?
Starck is an accomplished designer. He has had more influence on real objects than most of us could ever dream of.
@3:25 "i dont give a shite" hahaha
Yeah ok, mechanical devices are unreliable. My car has been on the road and has been driven almost every day for 13 years. I'd like to see an iphone last that long.
I thought this french accent is only used by bad actors.
Did he fart when he was holding the n97?
My my, a lot of these comments are just noise. Whats that saying? If you haven't got anything nice to say...
Good thing he's french, and somewhat snobbish, that way he might not read the comments and feel bad, or feel he wasted his time talking to engadget.
bad quality interview...
keep repeating 4:14 to 4:17... boyfan
These designers can be so deep sometimes.
All you people bashing the guy probably have no idea who this guy is.
He's probably the most famous industrial designer out there...
His word means a lot and he's dead on , on everything he says about Apple.
Free commercial airtime for S+arck? Sometimes you should also decide to not broadcast an interview if you find out it is not contributing anything new and is all sell-sell-sell.
I know who Starck is. I admire his accomplishments but he isn't the authority on design. Noone is qualified for that. Even Jon Ives isn't and I respect the dude a great deal.
famous Designers are just human and their rationale and decisions can be utterly wrong as often as less known designers. There is no authority. The creative world is like distributed computing. There's no single machine that informs and updates all. And any designer or artist who tells you otherwise is nothing more than sheep, no matter how successful they are. Design skills play only a very small part in how successful a creative person becomes. Most of that is hard work and sharp business acumen. The actual talent is much less important. Sounds like everything else in life right?
I personally do not believe that designers should be a fanboi of anybody. They need to remain objective and critical. Once you've become a fanboi, those very important and essential qualities that make a designer/artist is lost and/or incomplete.
... "Mechnical parts will break" is not objective for a designer and I am surprised someone with that much experience can use that as a justification against. As designers, our job are to make sure that what we propose will work. If we propose a hinge, it must work. If it doesn't work as intended then it's bad design. In N97's case, it's been designed wonderfully and of the 10 million in use, I certainly havn't heard of the hinge being even on the list of problems; in fact, the hinge was reviewed as a general plus on the device.
As a person you can still admire specific items or person(s) but professionally we have to leave that at the door. Designers, especially, tend to not know the difference. Have a chat with your designer and Agency friends if you know some. Listen carefully to what they say. Even being in the industry you will notice that they can't differentiate truth from spin (even when they create spin), hype from reality and are just as easy to be manipulated by someone elses' ads/marketing when they should clearly know the difference.
Then there's the fanboi love of apple that completely destroys their credibility. I have peers who justfy to me why the carbonate body used in my iMac is warping out at the base of the screen (enough so that I can clip 4 pens on it and slip in a stack of papers) as acceptable. Nothing more than sheep. Solely being beautiful does not make a good design; particularly so in industrial design.
We have to be critical of everything. That's what makes us designers. When we lose that ability to be critical then we aren't designers. We're just people who know how to use the tools. Sort of like how programmers spin themselves off as web DESIGNERS because they can write code and put up a page. Some have made the legitimate leap to become one while most are still just developers. Most people won't know the difference or care much; but within our own industry and for our own personal growth, it's important to know.
There's a difference between being a fanboy of a company, like apple, and a fanboy of a design(s) by apple, that's done by someone who happens to work at apple at the time it was designed.
And in the broader sense, can you be 'objective' in an artistic field? Isn't that mutually exclusive?
Looks like his threads are industrial designed. ( Is that zune brown?) What did this guy do, get up out of bed, throw the 1st thing he found on the floor, and come in for a interview?
LaCie drives look nice...too bad they got hot and fry out after six moths. The difference between LaCie and Apple is that Apple has design AND technology whereas LaCie just has design. That's why all the pro photographers I know have gone to Drobo from LaCie.
man. gotta admit i'd only turn gay for a straight french man talking in english. just talking. no matter the age. sometimes we'd just cuddle. ok i'm gonna call my psychiatrist now. thx bai
moderniTY (yeah gimme morrre).
Sheesh, I do believe you folks weirded that poor man out.
am i the only one who noticed the gun on his desk?!
BTW if the hinge breaks, it is not a bad "design", just bad engineering... I hate designers (being ind. designer myself) pretending they know technical stuff when they even don't know haw to draw properly (like Starck)