Optimistic Design

Rochelle Canteen

Labour and Wait

Canteen

Design as culture

While not being explicitly 'british' - all these brands tell a story of a very classic and understated form of british design and lifestyle. They carry a sense of improvement through design, and refer back to the mid centruy period of design and industry that had such optimism and drive that it is still inspirational (for me at least) today. They express a form of design that is open, eclectic, collaborative and thoughtful, and also is aware of it's place in a wider movement of modernism which swept across northern europe through the 20th century.

And they do all this through the combination of space, product and people. Their spaces are meticulously designed expressions of what they stand for. They represent the 'content' perfectly and help tell the story of the brand in a well balanced and implicit way. Their product / content is of course the main reason to visit these places - and in each case they are outstanding examples of their genre. And the people who work there appear to live/love the brand - embodying the values through the way they interact with people - the best kind of brand advocacy.

And so, on the subject of expressing identity through design and objects, these are perfect examples of businesses and organisations who manage to tell a story of themselves, of what they believe in and what they are inspired by.


RT

Oscar Wilde & wallpaper (Objects and Identity)

A less famous story, but instructive none the less - when asked why he thought America was such a violent society, Wilde replied "because you have such ugly wallpaper". Now, the start of the following theory i have to attribute wholly to Stephen fry - but it supports my theory so there you go ... The argument runs that human beings have done our best to despoil the greatest beauty available - nature. Compounding that is the fact that so many of us choose to live in 'ugliness' created by ourselves (Wilde was an aesthete, and a pioneering interior designer), so what must that do for our sense of self worth and how we value others? And finally, living in ugliness, and devaluing ourselves and those around can only, eventually lead to violence...

I like this line of thought particularly because it makes explicit the fact that we do value our surroundings, the things we own and use, and the relationships between all these things. We spend our lives building an identity - for the outside world, and for our internal world. And we do this through the stories we tell about ourselves, and also through the objects we collect around ourselves. Through an implicit and explicit selection process we build a visual version of ourselves that we trust to help tell our stories ...

Which leads me to the fetishisation of objects. Check out Apartamento Magazine for a beautiful realisation of this process in a magazine. It's fun and thoughtful, and honest. And it allows the stories of the interviewees to come to the fore (through their stuff and their selections), and to not be overrun with stories of the designers or producers of the objects (in contrast to other publications).




So while this post is leading nowhere in particular - and there are a few incomplete and under explored ideas here - it will be a recurring theme over time.

One to return to and explore ...
RT