Each of us has an object that he loves.

Mine is a juicer, but please don’t call it juicer, because he might get upset. At the registry office his name is Juicy Salif, born from the brilliant mind of Philippe Starck and marketed in Italy since the 90s. I prefer to call him simply “Starck” because, like his creator, he has a particularly exuberant and eccentric temper, sometimes irreverent.  

My Starck just doesn’t want to stay in the kitchen all day.

In fact, I don’t remember having used it very often. Those rare times that I tried, I ended up having breakfast at the bar!

“pop icons” are special: “they love to be seen, but not touched”. 

So what do I need it for? Anything but not for squeezing oranges.

It doesn’t matter that it’s not comfortable or easy to use, just looking at it makes me happy. So, every morning when I enter the kitchen I look at him, smile and then I make myself a toast and a nice juice with my electric juicer. 

In fact, as its creator himself declared:

“it is not a juicer, but an object of conversation”.

Having it on display in the living room channels the attention of the guests who come to visit me from time to time, triggering amusing discussions precisely about its original “alien” shape.

Some see a spider, some a squid, some a glittering rocket ready for launch.

Whatever image it evokes in the viewer’s mind, one thing is certain: it is everything you see!

The extraordinary power of design is to convey emotions.

It is no coincidence, in fact, that in front of any design object our senses react differently, triggering in our unconscious mind a series of emotions, memories, thoughts and sensations related to our affective sphere, bringing us back to particular moments in our life, to past experiences. 

They are objects that live with us, that age with us and that create a history and a deep bond with us. That’s why Starck is not and never will be a simple juicer. 

This weekend I took him out for a walk with me.

It was a very experimental shooting, in which I tried to demonstrate the ability that design has to come out of the ordinary and go beyond the concept of function.

We did it in order to demonstrate that emotional design is able to get out of the ordinary and go beyond function.

If you are curious to discover the results of this particular experience, I invite you to follow the original tour on my Instagram profile.