Would You Like Me To Seduce You?

We, are, more than ever before in our culture, being constantly seduced by design. Our world is so saturated with design now that we can hardly separate ourselves from it. Though much of design is explicit and sometimes obvious, we hardly notice that in so doing, it is continually reorganizing us. I am wondering if it is possible now that design is now taking over the social role that music or fashion have served over the last half a century. It seems to me that design is becoming the most important, and least understood influencers of our culture and our consciousness today.

The idea of what is intrinsically beautiful or cool or phat or blazin’ has become more elusive, revolutionary, even controversial. No longer is beauty limited to a pretty face or a pretty package: beauty has come to personify and reflect the social and cultural issues of our day. Now we end up defining a generation by the products it buys. Think of the iPod. Think of the Mini-Cooper. Think of a Blackberry. These products are no longer being differentiated by flavor or form or price. They are being differentiated by the difference they make in our lives and the attitudinal difference it creates in the passionate zealots that participate in these new consumer cults. Design has become the leading factor in that difference.

And whether we like it or not, these objects are also now defining us. As we "give style" to our character, we do nothing more than claim and renounce freedoms and choices. Style now ends up signifying our beliefs and our affiliations.

And with affiliation comes choice. And with choice comes…brands. Brands create intimate worlds inhabitants can understand, and where they can be somebody and feel as if they belong. Brands create tribes. In 2006, people can join any number of tribes in any number of ways and feel part of something bigger than who we are individually. When I was a little girl and my dad drove around in his beautiful Porshe 911, I remember that when he passed another one on the road, he always acknowledged the other driver—and the driver acknowledged him back. It was the private Porshe 911 club. But it wasn’t just the Porshe club, it was the Porshe 911 club. I think Marty Neumeier stated it best when he confides his thoughts about sneakers in his book, “The Brand Gap.” He says “As a weekend athlete, my two nagging doubts are that I might be congenitally lazy, and that I might have little actual ability. I am not really worried about my shoes. But when the Nike folks say, “Just do it,” they’re peering into my soul. I begin to feel that, if they understand me that well, their shoes are probably pretty good. I am then willing to join the tribe of Nike.” But to see the world in brand tribes is to take possession of much more than just a theory of the world. It is to possess a theory of all the activity in it, perhaps an entire science, an ethology that could tell us everything we want to know about human behavior. And what would we find out if we were to analyze that style in regards to our culture and to human behavior today?

Ultimately, I think that the goal of a brand should be to change the culture in which we participate. A lofty goal, yes. This should inevitably evoke a unique composition of perceptions. The extension of any one of these perceptions alters the way we think and act—and the way we perceive the world. When these perceptions change, people change. I contend that brand and its inherent dependence on design—has more impact on our culture than any other medium.