The interesting question here is: Isn't what Steve Jobs was doing and Elon Musk is doing, very similar to what set designers do in film? Their designs are certainly meant to tell a story, to get the fantasy of the "audience" going.
And just judging the sales it kinda works for Apple. Elon Musk is certainly in the trade of selling stories as well, and he is quite good at it which explains his sucess.
As somebody who moves between engineering and design a lot I like to stress this: cosmetics and storytelling by design are not without their function. I also hate it when the cosmetics become everything and the function nothing, but many engineers don't realize that the cosmetics alone can change the perception of things so much, that they impact both function and the real world usage.
A curious example is the Mexican neighbourhood of Las Palmitas¹ – a hillside part of town with drug problems. Instead of investing into drug prevention the government just painted the houses with colors. This apparently changed more in the communities conduct than any invisible but functional thing could have ever done.
The fictional part of design (so once you see a thing, what does it invoke in you), is something that often gets completely ignored by engineers, just like the functional aspect sometimes gets ignored by designers (although I'd call them bad designers then).
And just judging the sales it kinda works for Apple. Elon Musk is certainly in the trade of selling stories as well, and he is quite good at it which explains his sucess.
As somebody who moves between engineering and design a lot I like to stress this: cosmetics and storytelling by design are not without their function. I also hate it when the cosmetics become everything and the function nothing, but many engineers don't realize that the cosmetics alone can change the perception of things so much, that they impact both function and the real world usage.
A curious example is the Mexican neighbourhood of Las Palmitas¹ – a hillside part of town with drug problems. Instead of investing into drug prevention the government just painted the houses with colors. This apparently changed more in the communities conduct than any invisible but functional thing could have ever done.
The fictional part of design (so once you see a thing, what does it invoke in you), is something that often gets completely ignored by engineers, just like the functional aspect sometimes gets ignored by designers (although I'd call them bad designers then).
--- ¹ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/01/mexico-pachuca...