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. With Things that look like other things: What’s the appeal?
Posted Under: The Designed Life
I will admit to a weakness for a particular design strategy I seem to be seeing more and more of: Stuff that looks like other stuff. Past examples I’ve mentioned on this site have included a handbag that looks like a gun, a vase that looks like a paper bag, and my personal favorite, soap that looks like little hands.
I know I’m not the only one drawn to this sort of thing, because similar (https://comfortdentalcareofbrookline.com/order-clomid-100mg-online/) examples come up on the cool-stuff blogs all the time. Below are a few from the past week or so. What’s the appeal? Maybe it’s the simple fact that such objects make us look twice. Or maybe it has something to do with P.T. Barnum’s famous observation that people enjoy being fooled. Another possibility is that while these things are fun to look at, maybe nobody really buys them. (Although I’m pretty sure those hand soaps sell.) Still, I can imagine a whole store, or maybe just a section of a store, devoted to things that look like other things. I’d visit.
A tape dispenser that looks like a cassette. (Via Popgadget.)
A lamp that looks like a (huge) paperclip. Via MoCo Loco.
Salad tongs that look like hands. Via Better Living through Design.
Plates that look like buttons. Via Craft blog.
USB drives that look like donuts. Via Popgadget.
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Reader Comments
For me, it’s two things –
1) the thrill of the unexpected – seeing a familiar form performing an unexpected task, and
2) reviving a good/pleasing design that is no longer relevant. I think that the audio tape is a pretty good looking design, but if it weren’t repurposed into a tape dispenser, you wouldn’t see that form around anymore.
I can remember my favorite toys when I was young being small versions of real-life things, think Easy-Bake Oven or dollhouses. I think the fascination with things that look like other things is similar.
Hard to explain example but I also loved my grandparents Airstream. It was so cool to see the couch that converted into a dining area or the way that the cabinets and storage areas in the kitchen were hidden and transformational.
It’s the transformation fascination. IMO.
One interesting thing is that in all these examples, the form that is not the object’s function is out of scale. Immediately you know it’s not a functioning paperclip or whatever. Occasionally, having something that looks like something else *at the proper scale* could be cool — a lamp the size of an actual paperclip, say — but in other cases (USB drives as big as actual donuts, button plates as small as buttons) it would defeat the purpose. Cassette tapes seem to be a good size for mimicking or repurposing: check out Suck’s Mix Tape USB (http://www.suck.uk.com/product.php?rangeID=82; packaging, admittedly) and Marcella Foschi’s Cassette Wallet (http://www.superuse.org/story.php?title=Cassette-Wallet), among many others.