Does "Super Normal Design" Goes Against The Mainstreaming Of Design?

What is “Super Normal Design”?  This is the first time I’ve heard about the term. As an economist I am more familiar with “Super Normal Profits”.  When design guru Naoto Fukasawa admitted to feeling "a bit shocked and a little depressed" on discovering that the aluminum stools he had designed were plonked on the floor for people to sit on at a Milan Furniture Fair, rather than displayed on plinths like other new products. He was worried that no one would notice them. Later that day Fukasawa, received a call from the British designer Jasper Morrison, who raved about the stools and congratulated him on having designed something so subtle, yet distinctive. They coined the term to describe the stools - "super normal."

A few months later they decided to put together a collection of products, which were similarly enjoyable to use and to look at without resorting to stylistic gimmicks. Not so much of anti-style but more of ordinary looking. The pieces they chose -ranging from inexpensive items like a paper clip and Bic biro and workspace designed by the French brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Vitra.  They see this as a celebration of “normality” in design.

"Too many designers try to make their work seem special by making it as noticeable as possible that the historic purpose of conceiving things that are easier to make and better to live with has been side- tracked," he says. "The objects that really make a difference to our lives are often the least noticeable ones, that don't try to grab our attention. They're the things that add something to the atmosphere of our homes and that we'd miss the most if they disappeared. That's why they're 'super normal.'"  Reported IHT.

I started to think how many objects together are made without much design thought or any attempt to achieve anything other than a good ordinary tool, happen to be successful? It raises the question of what constitutes a good design. How many great designs are lacking noticeability?  Does it goes the current trend of using design to create “branded differentiation?’ The current business climate of hyper competition forces company to use design to create maximum noticeability by means of color, shape and function.  Design can make everyday things special. Isn’t that part of the job of “design”? Isn’t a designer’s worse nightmare when his client tells them his designs are “ordinary”?

Questions for us:

- Can “normal” just come to mean “unstimulating” or more about “low key” design?

- Can “normal” be also “unique”? Are they mutually exclusive?

- What’s the equivalent of “normal” design in interactive design? Is it about an elegant and efficient approach to design?

- Is this a lifecycle issue where one needs to be very special before it earns its right to design for “normal”?

Comments

[patrick]

Idris - your point reminds me of a similar symptom that influences CEOS perception in that marketing lays as a source of ineffectiveness in product development and go-to market strategies due to aesthetics driven branding. This is observable to the extent that emerging web-based services just opt for 'super normal' visual identities - so as to make sure that translucence enables optimal service visibility, even at the risk of being considered generic.
Surely this is a trend in product or service development, just as much as since everything is a beta version these days and users find that totally acceptable. Why shouldn't be acceptable? /patrick

[Joanna Yates]

Does this make sense at all? Super simple sometimes is nice, like Muji,.but if everything is like that it is a boring world. Is it a designer's dream or nightmare?

[Morgan Gerard]

If Fukasawa didn't want people's arses on his design he shouldn't have made a stool. Stools are for sitting on.

Or are they? These questions mark a very basic target of what it means (and how it's done) to 'use' or to be a 'user'.

The stool example speaks to a chasm of social applicability that exists between some designers and some 'users': some won't use (physically) the stool to sit but to appreciate and/or display the cultural capital they value as much (more?) as a place to rest a bum.

Nothwithstanding obvious influences on a purchase (price, shape, size, materials, colour, 'design'), how the design/product is incorporated as 'normal' into the user's life(style/cycle) is key.

'Functional' is not unstimulating. Perhaps those who appreciate the slow lifestyle take more time to appreciate designs in their life which best serve a 'purpose' that's more about situated functionality than it is prestige and/or display.

'Low key' is 'fitting in'. This reminds me of the discussion on brands as visible (displayed, very apparent to a house guest) and invisible (hidden, repackaged, but nonetheless used regularly).

The challenge for interactive is to gauge the normals of ordinariness, chart the interstitial spaces between elegance and efficiency, and appreciate the many levels of stimulation that 'users' pace their lives through.

[Jennifer Silva]

What is "ordinariness"? Isn't a designer's job is to avoid it. Ordinary means lack of design or lack of design subtleties. Objects can be "invisible", but should not be "ordinary". This is the view of a former architect now industrial designer. I want to hear different people's thoughts here.

[Morgan Gerard]

'Ordinariness' is subjective. What's ordinary for me is extraordinary for others, dull for others still.

[Josh Varian]

Hi Idris, I am a industrial designer with a prestige shop in SF. Of 'Low key' is 'fitting in'. Does 'low key' needs to be 'ordinary'? You can have 'loud' design that 'fits' in well.
Back to what' 'ordinariess'? It is the when design elements are hidden and complexity or personality elements are hidden but yet they are there. Like the Jens Hansen's chairs. But they are designed to be 'ordinary' and end up being loud of its popularity.

Is 'ordinary" subjective?
BTW My team here loves your blog.