This Online Community Shares Pics Of Products That Make Its Members Say "I Need It" (50 Pics)

Even though the subreddit has grown quite a bit since its creation in 2017 and now unites 564K members, nobody on the mod team looks after it regularly. Nobody, except u/abrownn. But despite the time it takes to tidy up r/INEEEEDIT, the Reddit user found a few minutes to answer a few of our questions.

"Unconventional but utilitarian things or high-quality/craftsman-style items do the best here," the moderator told Bored Panda and showed this straw, clock, and coffee table as prime examples.

"They are all things that already exist in other forms but they're modified, unique, utilitarian, etc. Useless garbage items may get lots of upvotes because of the 'cool factor', but they're usually eviscerated in the comments as they should be (overengineered, useless, dangerous, plastic crap, etc.)."

To learn more about design for another piece I did a few months ago, I contacted Nicole Phillips, who has been working in the design industry since 2005 and has a background in fine arts and advertising. Phillips specializes in logo design, branding, and package design for food & beverage, beauty, health, and interior design clients, and for each project, her work is unique and never linear.

"The design process requires research, experimentation, and even a bit of psychology," Phillips then told Bored Panda. "When I feel frustrated with the process, I remind myself to take a step back, have fun and play. It's those moments of play and experimentation that usually create the best results, but it's those hours of research that help build the foundation for the final result."

"My clients are not paying me for my time, they are paying me for my many years of experience, so if I am able to complete the design process in 5 hours rather than 5 weeks, this is a sign of my years of experience and knowledge, this is valuable," she added.

Trying to determine whether or not a particular design is good, many turn to Dieter Rams and his '10 commandments.' According to Rams, good design is innovative, makes a product useful, is aesthetic, makes a product understandable, is unobtrusive, is honest, is long-lasting, is thorough down to the last detail, is environmentally friendly, and involves as little design as possible.

Nicole Phillips agrees with the German design legend.

"Good design includes a good balance of function, form, and fun," Phillips said. "The user shouldn't have to try too hard to get what they need from the design. Good design isn't just aesthetics, it should communicate well and push boundaries a bit. Good design solves problems."

To paraphrase Don Draper from Mad Men, it's simple but significant.

Coming back to the sub, u/abrownn said its members aren't really much of a community. "Posts that aren't guerilla ads are rare which means there isn't much r/INEEEEDIT culture to speak of, more broadly it's plain 'Reddit culture' here, same with most big image-based subreddits."

It's not that easy to turn r/INEEEEDIT around, either. "The top mod sold his account and the subreddit several times and we're currently held hostage by their account that's still squatting but seemingly abandoned Reddit (it's been almost 2 years with zero activity)," u/abrownn explained.

"After the mods 'admonished' them for doing so last time (they lied to the mods, we caught them soliciting the sale of the account several times on Discord and they threatened another mod who caught them doing so with a GIF of them firing a gun blindly on their property in real life), I'm the only one who checks in on the sub and cleans up the garbage, approves posts, etc. now, no other mod checks in. It's a little stressful knowing that he could very well come back and boot us all again and sell the sub."

However you feel about this online thriller, you have to admit that it's quite impressive that a single person can curate all of this content and keep it so engaging.