Design, explained.

John Hodgman, comedian and resident expert, "explains" the design of three iconic modern objects. (From The Design Studio session at TED2012, guest-curated by Chee Pearlman and David Rockwell.)

Today I'm going to unpack for you

three examples of iconic design,

and it makes perfect sense

that I should be the one to do it

because I have a Bachelor's degree in Literature.

(Laughter)

But I'm also a famous

minor television personality

and an avid collector of

Design Within Reach catalogs,

so I pretty much know

everything there is.

Now, I'm sure you

recognize this object;

many of you probably saw it

as you were landing your private zeppelins

at Los Angeles International Airport

over the past couple of days.

This is known as the Theme Building;

that is its name for reasons

that are still very murky.

And it is perhaps

the best example we have in Los Angeles

of ancient extraterrestrial architecture.

It was first excavated in 1961

as they were building LAX,

although scientists believe that

it dates back to the year 2000

Before Common Era,

when it was used as

a busy transdimensional space port

by the ancient astronauts

who first colonized this planet

and raised our species

from savagery by giving us

the gift of written language

and technology and

the gift of revolving restaurants.

It is thought to have been

a replacement for the older space ports

located, of course, at Stonehenge

and considered to be

quite an improvement

due to the uncluttered design,

the lack of druids hanging around all the time

and obviously, the much better

access to parking.

When it was uncovered,

it ushered in a new era

of streamlined, archaically futuristic design

called Googie,

which came to be synonymous with

the Jet Age, a misnomer.

After all, the ancient astronauts who used it

did not travel by jet very often,

preferring instead to travel by feathered serpent

powered by crystal skulls.

(Applause)

(Music)

Ah yes, a table.

We use these every day.

And on top of it,

the juicy salif.

This is a design by Philippe Starck,

who I believe is in the audience at this very moment.

And you can tell it is a Starck design

by its precision, its playfulness,

its innovation and

its promise of imminent violence.

(Laughter)

It is a design that challenges your intuition --

it is not what you think it is when you first see it.

It is not a fork designed

to grab three hors d'oeuvres at a time,

which would be useful out in the lobby,

I would say.

And despite its obvious

influence by the ancient astronauts

and its space agey-ness and tripodism,

it is not something

designed to attach to your brain

and suck out your thoughts.

It is in fact a citrus juicer

and when I say that,

you never see it as anything else again.

It is also not a monument to design,

it is a monument to design's utility.

You can take it home with you,

unlike the Theme Building,

which will stay where it is forever.

This is affordable

and can come home with you

and, as such, it can sit

on your kitchen counter --

it can't go in your drawers;

trust me, I found that out the hard way --

and make your kitchen counter into

a monument to design.

One other thing about it,

if you do have one at home,

let me tell you one of the features you may not know:

when you fall asleep,

it comes alive

and it walks around your house

and goes through your mail

and watches you as you sleep.

(Applause)

Okay, what is this object?

I have no idea. I don't know what that thing is.

It looks terrible. Is it a little hot plate?

I don't get it.

Does anyone know? Chi?

It's an ... iPhone. iPhone.

Oh yes, that's right, I remember those;

I had my whole bathroom tiles

redone with those back in the good old days.

No, I have an iPhone. Of course I do.

Here is my well-loved iPhone.

I do so many things on this little device.

I like to read books on it.

More than that, I like to buy books on it

that I never have to feel guilty about not reading

because they go in here and I never look at them again

and it's perfect.

I use it every day to

measure the weight of an ox,

for example.

Every now and then,

I admit that I complete

a phone call on it occasionally.

And yet I forget about it all the time.

This is a design

that once you saw it,

you forgot about it.

It is easy to forget the gasp-inducement

that occurred in 2007 when you first

touched this thing because it became

so quickly pervasive

and because of how instantly

we adopted these gestures

and made it an extension of our life.

Unlike the Theme Building,

this is not alien technology.

Or I should say,

what it did was it took technology

which, unlike people in this room,

to many other people in the world,

still feels very alien,

and made it immediately and instantly feel

familiar and intimate.

And unlike the juicy salif,

it does not threaten

to attach itself to your brain,

rather, it simply

attaches itself to your brain.

(Laughter)

And you didn't even notice it happened.

So there you go. My name is John Hodgman.

I just explained design.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)