Visceral design

Visceral design is about visual appearances making a significant first impact, hopefully pleasurable. Master chefs take time in ensuring food are presented in the most enticing manner.

Ron Arad designed this concrete stereo in 1983, intriguing at the visceral level but doubtful if anybody would really want to use one.

Same with the 1989 Hot Bertaa kettle by Philip Starck, graceful and elegant but behaviorally dysfunctional. In Starck's words:

"With hindsight, I was just trying to get myself noticed, I wanted to make a masterly, sculptural object. In fact, this sculptural object is one of my worst pieces ever. It isn't very functional, it's dated, too fashion conscious. It's one of the things I'm most ashamed of... After 5 years (of development at Alessi), we couldn't recall why this object existed. So if a thing starts out badly, it ends badly, too. That piece was one of my big regrets. It illustrates the limitations of design, and it was responsible for my gradual loss of interest in stylistic design and masterly design."

Successful products have to appeal not just at the visceral level but also at the behavioural level at least (and hopefully up to the reflective level).