Widely known for his wonderful Helvetica documentary (plus the great I Am Trying to Break Your Heart), Gary Hustwit’s new film is called Objectified, and it’s all about the world of industrial design. Due for an early 2009 release, the film’s blog went live a couple of months ago, and since then he’s been updating it with some real good stuff.

Now, the film is going to be fantastic, no doubt, but the great thing in the meantime is that Hustwit’s been featuring a weekly series of guest posts, entitled Objectify Me, in which “people we like discuss objects that inspire them.” This week he featured Debbie Millman, president of the design group at Sterling Brands, describing a piece of design I must confess to having absolutely no interest in whatsoever: barrettes. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen, or ever will see, a barrette that I found halfway notable, but Millman’s story about stealing her best friend’s unique little barrette (and the desire/guilt/greed that went along with it) is nicely done.

There’s no commentary about coveting the object of desire, or the irresistible childhood pull which led her to recreate that notion as a grown designer because the associated feeling was just so irresistibly powerful and forceful and etc etc etc… just a simple story about childhood greed and jealousy; draw your own conclusions about its formative role.

Stephen Heller, who writes and designs for the New York Times Book Review (among many other responsibilities), also contributes a good, short study on Paul Rand’s El Producto Cigar Tin. Hustwit’s site is a wonderful way to get the film some attention: the blog and its design posts really do take up 90% of the site, while the film provides a classy, recessed framework. If only all movie promotion was this diverse and worthwhile.

Hustwit is still finishing the film, but if the quality of the site and its related previews are any indication, this is going to be a killer tour through the wide world of industrial design. I was just thinking about that world, actually: a few friends of mine studied industrial design back in university. Every time I had to explain to various parents or other such figures exactly what kind of course my friends were taking, the words “industrial design” were invariably met with confusion.

A lot of people assumed it had something to do with designing factories, or working in factories, working in industries located primarily in factories, or optimizing an assembly-line. In a factory. The word “industrial” had become synonymous with a kind of “mechanized industrialization process”, which isn’t technically incorrect, but the verbiage ended up leading most laypeople way off in the wrong direction.

My friends eventually took to calling their course of study “product design”, which doesn’t cover the full range of what industrial design is, but remains graspable as a concept. To my mind, the only high-profile work in industrial/product design to really capture the public eye in recent years has come from Apple, specifically from Jonathan Ive.

When I say to “capture the public eye” I don’t mean to move units or look beautiful, since hundreds of products do that every year–what I’m talking about is actual public attention being paid to the industrial design (and designers) of a specific product–in this case, the iPod, and to a lesser extent the various iterations of the iMac. (Although Ive designed the iPhone too, it’s really all about the user interface).

With that said, I can’t wait for the film to bring some wider attention to some of the many other designers doing good work out there–keep your eyes open.