Jack McSeveney — Critical Writing About Design
The current problems with design and it’s toxic future.
Design in the present is becoming ever so toxic and the industry is being swarmed with irrelevant examples of design that are simply just nice to look at but show no real knowledge of design and are merely consumerism related in which today is a multi billion dollar industry. In this article I aim to pin point and discuss only a microscopic ammount of the true problems within the design industry and try to aim for what needs to be done in order to save this consumer mania that is polluting the design industry and turning our careers into robotic slavery.
The clothing industry is a great example of the toxic consumerism that people are currently wrapped up in purely just to gain social status or acceptance as a result of their own mindset. Millions of people worldwide purchase designer clothes for their brand to be slapped on the front of it in order to add hundreds to the cost of the garment or shoe. One example is recently Gucci released a range of new shoes which were ‘purposely’ dirty and they stated it was the style of them in the new edgy trend of having dirty shoes.
These ‘new’ shoes are being sold for £615.00 and yes, people are buying them. Why? Because they’re Gucci ofcourse. This is almost an insult from the design industry seeing how far they can push it while people still throw their money at a brand all as a result of advertising design and brand notoriety. This is capitalism at it’s finest showing how much the world population are brainwashed monkeys waiting for the next designer drop so they can squander a full months wage on some pair of tatty wrecked shoes that nobody can even say remotely look nice or look anywhere near their value.
Many other brands including Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton have also followed suit. A good example of really how toxic it is would be Supreme, the skatewear brand who literally showed how toxic the consumerism industry is and how far people will really go for design and for a brand logo.
Supreme literally created a brick, the dullest and most boring thing ever imaginable, slapped a logo on it and now people are selling them all around the world for hundreds of pounds. For 1 Brick. This is ridiculous and a toxic state we are going in people are literally wasting their money on shit like this.
This is a small example of the toxic design market but really is evidence to show how marketing can take over peoples lives and they will believe anything they see. All it takes is one celebrity to wear them and thousands of sales will follow.
Another example of the toxic design industry is Apple and their planned obselescence of their products. Every year people want the new iPhone with only minor design changes and no real performance upgrades as a result of Apple purposely creating products that lose performance over time. This has a grip of the world and keeps their sales sky rocketing at the cost of the working consumer. Is designing things that break on purpose morally right? Is that what we should be doing to further the human race? I think not.
In relation to design in the Graphic Design industry I think there is an array of things to criticise and speak about. One of which is that everything imaginable has been done before. Is there a point in which every logo has been created? If you search through behance it is a swimming pool filled with pretty logo designs and other designs hundreds of thousands of them. None really stand out as a result of everything just being pretty, no real meaning to things no real design for function.
At the end of the day though this is the stuff that sells and this is the stuff people pay for. Nobody will pay for you to create a political campaign stating your beliefs that prompts world change. So do we as designers follow the way we are taught in University doing a lot of briefs about political issues or do we fall into the category of a slave designer pumping out pretty but pointless work in order to earn a living wage to provide for a family. I personally think the stuff we get taught is the important stuff to spark change and this is the true meaning of a graphic designer but the issue is. Nobody pays for that. This is also a toxic side to the industry because designers creative minds are being limited worldwide to their companies strict briefs and deadlines.
Where does this lead the design industry though what can the future be?
I think the future of graphic design will be pretty stagnant for a while slugging along earning a living until some real new revolutionary technology comes out where we can enter a new realm of design for example 4D Advertising and 4D design or there are further enhancements of AI that is the future. Not creating these pretty logo designs that everyone has seen a million times. But for now I suppose it will do to just plod along in the toxic industry that has been created due to consumerism and marketing and forced upon us.
Change needs to happen as how far does it need to go before people will realise how brainwashed they have become and how capitalists are sitting on stockpiles of money while they waste their full monthly wage on one t shirt and how the designers behind all of these designs are literally monkeys taking orders from above and limiting their creativeness and depth of mind in order to create something that sells, not something that is worth peoples investment or can promote a real change or improvement to someones life.
