What was Philippe Starck thinking of?

We argue, using Philippe Starck's Juicy Salif lemon squeezer as a case study, that the personal creativity of a designer forms a necessary condition for a design's success. It does not, however, form a sufficient condition. We critically examine the implications of Adrian Forty's contention that 'no design works unless it embodies ideas that are held in common by the people for whom the object is intended'. We conclude that rather than looking to ideological factors for a sufficient condition of design success, it is better to look to descriptions of engaged use (and mis-use) of products. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.