Designs Thoughts by Alia

Environmental design is something up until recently I hadn’t really thought about. I have always been interested in the ecosystem and sustainability in the products I buy, but hadn’t looked at these issues from the side of the designer. Our environment is fucked. Fucked in every sense of the word unless people start figuring out ways to create sustainable products. Sustainability is something all designers should think about. Most if not all designers have larger target audiences than they realize and they have the power to  create change within not just the design field but within our world. The environment as we’ve learned isn’t just something that only scientists and hippies should care about, but everyone should care. We all live on this earth and need to protect it. 

How can designers be a positive change within our society to push people toward sustainability? Sustainability is something that is cheaper than most people realize. Most companies try to have the largest margins they can. They do this so they can have cheap packaging and make lots of money. Most companies don’t think about sustainability within their packaging or products because they view sustainable products as “expensive”; this is just wrong. As designers we have the power to lead companies in the direction of sustainability with the information we publish and the design choices we make. You can choose to use a biodegradable material other than plastic to encase products. You can choose to use recycled paper instead of plastics or new paper. You can choose to have recycling zones set up in the offices you work in. The point is you can choose. You can choose to be the change you want to see in the world and you should. I have often heard things like “well if I stop using plastic other people still will so there’s no point in stopping,” this is false. You might not be the main problem when it comes to our ecosystem but every little change has an impact on our world and should be taken seriously. 

The world is special. Our earth is one in a trillion and when the resources are gone we won’t get another change at it. Make the most of your voice as designers. Talk about hard things like sustainability. Bring sustainable packaging into your practices as a designer. Make designs that talk about how people can help in the fight against climate change. In short, do all you can because as a designer you have a louder voice than you think you do.

Topic: Branding/Advertising in design 

Entry #4:

1. Who’s Afraid of the Big Brand Wolf? By Marty Neumeier
2. Marty Neumier is an american author and speaker who writes about the topics of brand, design, innovation, and creativity. 
3. The article, “Who’s Afraid of the Big Brand Wolf?,” By Marty Neumeier discusses branding and why people have such a disdain toward the word. In the article Marty Neumeier goes over the fears people have with the word brand. The first being Brands are erected by evil companies to disguise their bad behavior. This idea by Marty was interesting because you really have to look at who makes a brand, a company or the people buying the products. The second fear he talked about was, branding is commercializing our lives, he looks at the difference of branding and advertising in this section. Branding as he describes it is the long term values that are recognized within a company, while advertising is about short term sales of products and delivering a message quickly and effectively. The difference between these two things is important and often forgotten. On one hand a brands identity is its values, recognition, and impact on society, but advertising uses those things to create good advertisements. The article then goes on to discuss two more points of branding fears such as Global brands are the Trojan horses of creeping cultural imperialism, and Brands will become more powerful than countries.
4. Neumeier, Marty. “Who’s Afraid of the Big Brand Wolf?” AIGA, 22 Oct. 2004, www.aiga.org/aiga/content/inspiration/voice/whos-afraid-of-the-big-brand-wolf/. 

Topic: Branding/Advertising in design 

Entry #3:

1. Lippincott on What ‘Brand’ Really Means by Lipincott
2. The article is by Lippincott which is a publishing conglomerate that discusses science, medicine, and advertising topics. This article was found on the AIGA website
3. The article and video titles “Lippincott on What ‘Brand’ Really Means” discusses what makes a brand, and how branding is such a large umbrella topic. The video attached to the article makes good points along the lines of brands are everything. The idea of branding also is very contradicting. A brand can be both physical and digital, a name, color, sound, or style. A stamp on a product, or a mark of performance. Innovative, take you away or bring you back home. All of these things are brands, or can be included in your brand, but don’t have to be. The idea of a brand is often much broader than we make it out to be and the article discussed why brands are so important. The article’s main point is this, that brands are many parts, and each part needs to be carefully scrutinized and tweaked down to the DNA to perfect a brand. Large corporations do this and look at their brand  from all sides to make it perfect and so should every brand. Brands such as Campbell’s soup have had art made after them because their branding is so iconic. Branding is more than just a name but an identity with logs of faces. 
4. Lippincott. “Lippincott on What ‘Brand’ Really Means.” AIGA, 21 Oct. 2014, www.aiga.org/aiga/content/inspiration/lippincott-on-what-brand-really-means/. 

Topic: Branding/Advertising in design 

Entry #2

1. Name brands, off brands, house brands, brand Nu? By Ralph Caplan 
2. Ralph Caplan is an American designer that has written three books on design and why it’s important. His article was found on the national AIGA page.
3. In the article “Name brands, off brands, house brands, brand Nu?”Ralph Caplin digests the idea of why you should rebrand and why rebranding often starts with the name. At the beginning of the article Ralph discusses how names can be the downfall of brands. An example he used in the article was the school Slipper Rock and how announcers always shared the scores of the football games not because the school was good, but because the name was the beginning of many jokes about the school. A quote from the article I found extremely interesting was, “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, She was of course wrong.” He says this because a brand’s whole identity starts with the name. You wouldn’t buy an apple product if it was cold blue cheese because the name is important for recognition and identity. “Branding is more than naming, but the process of branding aims to burn the positive perception of a name into a product, a product line, a company, and public consciousness.” What Ralph means by this is everything starts with naming and the way a name or word is perceived can make or break your brand. 
4. Caplan, Ralph. “Name Brands, off Brands, House Brands, Brand Nu?” AIGA, 4 Oct. 2005, www.aiga.org/aiga/content/inspiration/voice/name-brands-off-brands-house-brands-brand-nu/. 

Topic: Branding/Advertising in design 

Entry #1

1. The Anthropology of Advertising by Patrick Warner
2. Patrick Warner is an anthropologist and businessman. I couldn’t find a lot about him online, but his article was featured on the national AIGA page. 
3. The article “The anthropology of Advertising”, discussed the nature of how advertising and marketing came to be. In the article the author, Patrick Warner, talks a lot about how marketing and advertising is a language all on its own, and it’s something that was shown to you often visually first, before and other way. Patrick Warner points put in the article that sales, advertising, and marketing were born from a chain. The evolution of the chain happened naturally but quickly. It was born from first contact, visual cues, language barrier, communication, sharing, understanding, needing, and then using. He points out in the article that Sales was the beginning of the evolution to advertising and marketing. Sales created the drive to sell products, selling then lead to marketing, and marketing lead to advertising. He also points out in the article that advertising and marketing have changed in the last few decades. Originally people were getting their advertisements from the radio, then the tv but after the tv came out people started paying to remove ads from these services, but there was still a want to know what was happening in the world, so the internet was born. A way of advertising that was driven by the consumer when they wanted to see it. 
4. Warner, Patrick. “The Anthropology of Advertising.” AIGA, 25 Nov. 2006, www.aiga.org/aiga/content/tools-and-resources/gain-journal/the-anthropology-of-advertising/.

Design and politics is something I had never really considered together. Politics to me is very important, but as of recently it’s something I dislike very much. Politics has felt like something that has divided the people that I know in recent years and caused pain in our nation when it doesn’t need to. When we talk about design in politics it makes me feel confused because as graphic designers we hold the power to send messages out to the world that are both positive and negative. In some ways this makes it feel like a game of morals. For a lot of people today politics is more than just who you vote for in the presidential election, but it’s become peoples whole identity. I’ve always been someone who believes that if you’re passionate about something to speak your mind and as graphic designers I believe we have a duty to do so, but it’s hard for me to look at politics and not consider the way messages people create target or attack opposing viewpoints. For this reason I’ve always had a hard time with politics not just related to design but in general. 

I think looking at design and the sub-meanings to campaign logos or branding is very interesting. Whether you like a candidate or not, a logo design can speak exponential volumes in the way a candidate wants to be seen or perceived. What interests me most about design in politics is the subconscious sway that designs can have. The saying “don’t judge a book by its cover” is something most people would agree with, but it doesn’t mean people still don’t do it. People judge candidates based on the way they look visually, and design plays a huge role in that. In class we talked about candidates on both sides of the aisle and how their subconscious messages of God, agriculture, progressiveness, or boldness were expressed in different campaign logos. As designers we are taught to hyper criticize logos and subconscious meanings, so it’s interesting to me to think about how normal everyday people are affected by those messages in political designs. No matter which way you vote I think designers on both sides have an important job to fight for what they believe in and should express those messages in their designs. Part of what’s amazing about being a designer is the ability to speak your mind, and I believe everyone should use that power.