Form Follows Function: Tips to Improve Your Product Designs

Form follows function. This quote is all about designing for your user. You must understand what your user needs to be successful in whatever task you are helping them with. Product and industrial design is all about balancing the needs of your user with constraints around manufacturing, cost, and deadlines. This video has tips that will help you to strategically design your products in a way that is deliberate and strategic...so that your forms follow your products' function.

John Mauriello has been working professionally as an industrial designer since 2010. He is an Adjunct Professor of industrial design at California College of the Arts.

B-roll footage courtesy of wired and google hardware team.

[ai_is_a_great_place]

I have no involvement with the industrial design industry, but I'm still 100% fascinated by all these videos!!!

[vibhutijain]

I am a Montessori educator and our pedagogy emphasizes a lot on functional material that leads to purposeful activities. This video was insightful for me to understand the concept of form follows function further, thank you.

[WorkingViews]

It's interesting watching these videos from a woodworker and fabricator perspective. Designing without intimate knowledge of the medium is pointless generally. If more people had access to the tools and design knowledge, the world would absolutely be a better place. Great videos! Very helpful.

[Design.Theory]

Hey all, for anyone wondering, this is the full quote from Louis Sullivan: "Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple-blossom, the toiling work-horse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun,  form ever follows function, and this is the law. Where function does not change, form does not change. The granite rocks, the ever-brooding hills, remain for ages; the lightning lives, comes into shape, and dies, in a twinkling.

It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law."

[BlackSnowCrew]

After each video I've learned something new! Thanks a lot!

[_kieranlewis_]

Big fan of your videos mate, Im a 2nd year ID student and Im learning a lot from you. Would love to see some longer videos, I dont think you could go in to too much detail with the us designers watching haha. Keep it up and good luck!

[sonictimm]

I find that industrial design resources are usually more helpful than game design resources when trying to design a game.
Usually the games I make with more constraints on the design often come out better. More constraints often leads to a simpler design, which makes games easier to learn. Since the core pieces of a simple game are easier to develop, it also gives the developers more time to iterate, test, add bells and whistles on top of a game that is already fun.

[ThurstanHethorn]

Note: the ‘usb c’ example is actually a reversible form of micro usb type b, which I’m not sure why it wasn’t more common

[Myxgrassxisxgreenest]

The clip shown for illustrating USB-C at 3:33 actually shows a reversible USB Micro-B. You can identify it by the slots. If you look very closely you can also make out that the edges of the connector slopes to a point instead of being rounded. Not that it matters, but it is a fun little piece of trivia.

[SamuelRodriguez]

You need more subs man this is amazing work. Been looking for a channel like this for a long long time.

[MrsRemi]

Amazing content! I have only watched this and the design language video so far but I have subscribed and put your other videos on my watch later. Thank you for the helpful tips!!

[superstarof]

Your videos literally kickstart my design sessions!

[shubhigautam]

Would love to see a video on your Design Research process!

[vinimooraess]

“You know that the pizza is round”
*procceeds to draw square box*

[neelpadia]

As always Great video.
Looking forward to see more of such videos.

[smoll.miniatures]

I love how your idea of a round pizza box is square 😂

[soumyachandrakar]

Great work and really informative. You deserve far more subscribers!

[crtzmo]

Wonderful video! I found your channel via the excellent AirPods Max analysis — I think i am on the third or fourth video already. Last Thursday I gave a lecture/presentation to undergraduate art school students on visual language development and problem-solving, and I did notice some parallels (although yours were concise and very well worded), but the thing that jumped out of this video for me was the shout-out for the design research book, which I will definitely check out and share with the students who attended the presentation. Well done, and see you on Instagram!

[Artickmonkey]

Super cool video! Thanks a lot.
Can’t find the books names in the description though, hope you’ll add them ;)

[oldcowbb]

the most canonically example of convention over function is qwerty keyboard