Within Reach: From an Octopus to a Citrus Juicer

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Product design­ers create, among other things, everything we use in our lives to live, work, eat, have fun, and live together. Product design focuses on the external char­ac­ter­ist­ics we perceive—the outward appear­ance of an object—such as its shape, size, color, weight, mater­ial, texture, func­tion­al­ity, and the message the object is meant to convey. To define this message, design­ers consider how we use or should use the object. But other factors also play a role. For example, design­ers think about the values and ideas shared by a culture or a specific group that the product should express.

Design­ers do not only work on product design; more and more of them are explor­ing very differ­ent kinds of tasks. They develop prac­tices that raise new ques­tions about the soci­ety we live in, the tech­no­lo­gies that shape our daily lives, the things around us, as well as the polit­ical systems and laws that govern every­day life.

Here, we focus on product design and take a closer look at a very ordin­ary every­day object. You can most likely find it at home: the citrus juicer. Go into your kitchen and observe the shape of this object and how it is designed. Is it a two-part juicer or a single piece? How is it inten­ded to press and collect the juice? Do you find it prac­tical to use? Is it easy to clean? And do you like its shape, mater­ial, or colors?

These are the kinds of ques­tions design­ers ask them­selves when devel­op­ing a creation. They do not work alone: from the very begin­ning, they often discuss with brands or compan­ies that will produce the object. They also receive help from special­ists such as artis­ans, engin­eers, mater­ial experts, market­ing experts, or others depend­ing on the project. These people help design the product so that it meets the require­ments set by the client or by the designer them­selves.

While many objects often look quite similar, design­ers enjoy exper­i­ment­ing with forms to convey a message and make their creations desir­able. A good example is the object shown above. Did you guess it was a citrus juicer? Its creator is the famous French designer Phil­ippe Starck.

There is a fun story behind it—at least, that’s how it is told. He was eating octopus in a restaur­ant in Italy when the shape of the animal inspired him to imagine this unusual juicer. He also happened to need some­thing to squeeze the lemon he was eating with his dish. Phil­ippe Starck sketched his idea directly on a paper napkin and sent it to his friend Alberto Alessi, the director of the famous Italian design brand Alessi. Alberto appre­ci­ated the project and decided to publish it—that is, to produce and sell it. The final model was made of cast aluminum poured into a mold and meas­ures 29 cm in height.

Alberto Alessi was right: the juicer became one of the brand’s most famous and best-selling objects. It is even considered a star of contem­por­ary design, admired for its bold and original form. Phil­ippe Starck completely rein­ven­ted what such an object could look like. The original napkin, stained and greasy, on which he drew the sketch, is even preserved in the Alessi Museum in Italy!

However, when it was released in the early 1990s, this every­day object was criti­cized for not being very prac­tical. You may have noticed that, unlike most juicers, it does not include a container to collect the juice. Instead, the user places a glass between the legs of this unusual object. This design raises ques­tions about func­tion­al­ity—that is, how the object is used. Phil­ippe Starck delib­er­ately chal­lenged the idea that design should prior­it­ize func­tion before form. He even said that his juicer was not meant to squeeze lemons but to start conver­sa­tions, as it sparks curi­os­ity. It is almost like a sculp­ture. One can easily imagine how it might become a talk­ing point in a kitchen, intriguing guests. Through this object, he aimed to bring a sense of imagin­a­tion and poetry into every­day life, trans­form­ing an ordin­ary moment into a special exper­i­ence.

This article was writ­ten in collab­or­a­tion with Carré Pointu, the little seri­ously funny news­pa­per.