This squid-scorpion-spider inspired metal tripod is a lemon squeezer or perhaps one of the most important product designs of all time. Invented by the legendary French designer Philippe Starck, this juicer coined as the Juicy Salif is a pain to use and a heavily celebrated art piece that has found a place in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. As one can clearly see, the juicer is radically different from existing products in the market which are typically powered by electricity, offer a dedicated area for the juice to be stored as well as a tube to extract the juice out from the machine. I’m sure you would consider these features as fundamental elements to maximise the extraction of the juice from the lemons.
So why does the Juicy Salif strip itself from all these qualities and resort to looking like an Arachnid made of aluminium? Well, it's due to our very own modern needs and our recent instincts to value aesthetics over efficiency. As famously stated by Starck, “My juicer is not meant to squeeze lemons; it is meant to start conversations,”. This very quote embodies the significance of the juicer: a symbol for societal change.
To put it simply, we have achieved a stage wherein we prefer less reliable, less effective, less compact devices and more elegant, more dainty and more useless products - literally products with lesser functionality. They can be beautiful in their own right: in their creative use of materials, slender form and delicate shape. But that begs the question - what was the purpose of designing products in the first place?
To be appreciated in museums? Absolutely not. To be kept on a shelf at home and to be admired from time to time? Nope. The very core of product design was to improve products and make them more resourceful than the previous generation, an idea that is now being challenged in our modern time.
The Juicy Salif is more than just bizarre looking juicer. It represents the changes occurring all across the world in the way we approach modern design, with the focus being more on ‘form’ rather than ‘function.’ It stands as an example for the ideological revolution that design is no longer based on necessity, but rather physical beauty and psychological impact. As the world continues to develop, our needs are changing and product designs such as the Juicy Salif mirror these changes.
