BBC has a bit of a history for doing absolutely fantastic documentaries. Maybe you remember Planet Earth? Well, one of the channel’s lesser known docs has come to DVD. I’m talking about The Genius of Design, a five-part series fresh on DVD from Acorn Media’s documentary imprint Athena.
If you think design is a pretty broad term, you’re pretty right: and the documentary covers a lot of the word’s meanings, mostly in practical uses. Design in this sense is essentially the radical refinement of existing products to make them even more useful. Of course, that term also applies to houses, the subject of the second episode (in which we get to see a lot of really cool house designs). Cars, computer chips, and pottery are all covered in the series. And, rather than feeling rushed, it’s actually a pretty well-paced series that covers a wide range of topics. That is to say: you won’t be bored. The show moves quickly enough to cover all the necessary aspects (the box even calls it fast-paced), but I found it to be fairly leisurely for all the topics it covers.
The set comes with a little book, something that Athena does rather commonly. It’s essentially a mini supplementary textbook about the show and design. It’s only a couple of pages, but if design really interests you, it’s very good for a few minutes of hard reading.
The special features on the DVD, however, are a little less fulfilling. There’s a small, hardly-worth mentioning supplement of “biographical sketches of influential designers” that is nice but is the only real special feature the disc has to boast. Not that it needs special features; the 242 minute, five episode series is spread across two discs. If you’re into design, or just interested learning about how the things you use every day were designed, this is the set for you.
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