Objectified

Objectified (2009) is a design documentary you can watch online on iFILM. Over 75 minutes, filmmaker Gary Hustwit walks you through the objects we touch without thinking — a toothbrush, a chair, a laptop, a pair of pruning shears — and asks who decided they should look and feel exactly this way.

The people answering are the ones who actually draw these things. Jonathan Ive explains how Apple's products take shape. Dieter Rams lays out the rules he built his career on. Marc Newson, the Bouroullec brothers, Karim Rashid and Naoto Fukasawa all turn up, a whole generation deciding how the plastic, metal and wood around us behaves in the hand.

This is the middle chapter of Hustwit's design trilogy, sitting between Helvetica, about a typeface, and Urbanized, about cities. It's calm and unhurried, with no manufactured drama, yet it leaves you unable to look at an everyday object the same way again. A genuine pick for designers and anyone curious about how things get made. Stream Objectified (2009) online on iFILM.