I took a break two days ago from my work to watch one of the DVD’s in the house. The cover wasn’t interesting but it was the only DVD I had not seen in our collection. I guess the wife or one of my sisters bought it a while back as one of those buy-4-for-$20 deals you get at Blockbuster.
I didn’t expect anything from “She's the Man” (starring Amanda Bynes) because I recognized that one of the cast members on the DVD cover is the guy from Step It, a teenie-bopper flop about dancers in the city of Baltimore.
However, despite some sub-par acting, I was surprised to find myself enjoying the film. Maybe this was because the film is heavily based on Shakepeare’s Twelfth Night – although not as good as Kurosawa’s Ran, another re-telling of a Shakespearean tale (King Lear). And while we’re at it, maybe Western culture’s fascination with Hamlet made the similar Lion King story so successful.
I won’t go into the story line here of She's the Man, but I do want to mention this as an example of topoi, or what the Greeks called “place/topic.” Topoi is a device used to see the possible range of meaning regarding a particular subject and to consider the ambiguity of the subject rather than its fixity of meaning. As I watched She's the Man, I really appreciated the changing of the old Shakespearean story to fit our times – it at least makes it somewhat interesting for teenage girls. This changing of the nature of old English comedy, at least in form, is an example of topoi.
As designers, we are constantly and primarily concerned with the invention of things as opposed to the discovery of things. Whether it’s remaking Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and calling it Bridget Jones Diary, or changing the nature of a product, the use of topoi can be a powerful tool in the service of a designer.
Example in Design:
Cleret Squeegee
This is the Cleret Squeegee designed by Ziba Design. It has won numerous awards and is part of the Smithsonian’s Permanent Design Collection. My adviser Dick Buchanan uses this product all the time as a great example of how rethinking the nature of a squeegee (one of the most underappreciated tools on earth) can produce invention.