"Where are you going, design?“ is a question designers have to face now more than ever. The role of design has evolved from being decorative a long time ago, instead, it has an essential role in shaping the world we live in.
'Cogito' (lat.: to think) is an analytical newspaper by students about design, its issues, and its influence on the world. This first edition deals with the question of how design itself will change in the future and how it will be part of that change.
Each student chose two topics to research, write an article, and make a layout for.
The first topic I chose was the politicization of design. For that I took a closer look at United Colors of Benetton in the 80s by Oliviero Toscani, compared the Nike campaign with Colin Kaepernick to the Pepsi ad with Kendall Jenner from 2018, and gave a positive example of a brand taking political action with Fritz-Kola, a German brand for beverages. The article is quite critical, because inconsistencies between what a brand portrays, and how the internal conditions actually are, are rather common, especially in large companies.
Because of the increasingly politically involved younger generations and the growing influence and relevance of social media on marketing, I believe that brands will be urged more and more to take clear standpoints on political and social issues in the future. That brings the risk of (even more) dishonesty, “greenwashing” and performative activism – What role do designers want to take in this?
The other article focused on the personification of brands through social media and how social media’s “meme-culture” and use of emojis have been seeping into the real world in campaigns and advertising. While many companies don’t rely on this kind of marketing, others embrace it, which is not sustainable or effective long-term, yet the short-term effect appears promising and could tempt more companies to join in. Internet culture is very fast-paced, jokes and memes are short-lived. Forcing this tempo onto designers to create campaigns that follow those trends is not a long-lasting strategy.
