Interaction of Content and Form in "Objectified"

Understanding the historical content for a design idea helps us to see the reasoning behind its form and formation. In Gary Hustwit's documentary “Objectified”, 

a designer makes the connection that the main goal of industrial design is mass production.The concept of industrial design in and of itself was an interesting topic for me. I had never really put much thought into the fact that the curve of the handle that most gardening sheers are built with these days is very helpful to me and makes them much easier to work with than old, straight-handled clippers. The design of the every-day world had never struck a chord with me while I was to busy being hypnotized by the in your face design content behind such things as fashion.
What really grabbed my attention was when design editor, Alice Rawsthorn, brought up a historical reference as to why mass production was so key in the success of industrial design. The first emperor of China ran into a problem when he was waging war when attempting to expand his empire. If an archer died in combat, another archer could not utilize the dead man's arrows because they had been made to fit only his bow. In order to neutralize this problem, the emperor “came up with a way of standardizing the design of the arrows so that each arrow would fit any bow”, Rawsthorn explains in an interview.

When the historical content of a major design descision is explained more understanding can be reached when observing a designed object as to why this form was chosen over that.