Tag Archives: iconic

The discipline called “Design” is very broad, encompassing everything from Architecture, Fashion, and Product design to Graphic, Digital, and Brand Design. Generally designers specialize in one of these specific areas, and rarely work across disciplines. One of the strongest factors that divide designers is the boundary between two dimensions and...

Western design has effectively permeated the global aesthetic culture. You can go to any country in the world and see either the influences of Western design, or the objects of Western design themselves (iPhones, cars and SUVs, Nike sneakers, glass skyscrapers, Coke cans, high heels and sport coats, bicycles, sunglasses,...

There are only so many aspects of an object that designers can influence. Physical objects have proportions, form, surfacing, color, material, finish, detailing, graphics…and that’s about it. Fundamentally, creative professionals today are dealing with the same set of realities that Greek architects or Chinese potters were considering thousands of years...

It’s hard to invent a new aesthetic. That’s probably why it happens so infrequently. However, that did not stop a young Milanese (Ettore Sottsass) and a small group of other European designers from giving it a real shot. In 1981, their Memphis aesthetic debuted at the Salone del Mobile furniture...

Designers in the Premium/Luxury categories have always striven to differentiate their work from the great unwashed teaming masses of regular consumer products. In trying to communicate “I am better than you”, products in these categories have relied on such design levers as length (stretched limousines), height (top hats and rooftop...

In keeping with the Reinterpretation theme’s principle of modifying a single aspect of a design, the Form Reinterpretation trend focuses purely on…FORM! This general stylistic mode seeks to present familiar cultural icons back to the consumer in fresh ways that create both a sense of familiarity and surprise. In these...

Some aesthetic themes arise purely as a counterpoint to an established visual mode. For decades, we’ve surrounded ourselves with increasingly polished, seamless, perfect objects; from smartphones to automobiles, the stylistic vector has been ever towards shiny, sleek, rational, and technological. Made by machines, with all hints of an artisanal human...

In keeping with the Reinterpretation category, this trend builds on the concept that familiar icons can be refreshed and revitalized by specifically amplifying a single key design attribute. Proportion Reinterpretation explores scaling, stretching, or compressing an object’s proportions. This can be simply scaling the object, stretching it along one of...

Iconic designs can embed themselves as powerful symbols in our minds, having the mental stickiness to persist for decades in our collective memory. An icon can be created via any type of design element: pattern (like Burberry tartan), color (Kodak Yellow or John Deere Green), or brand mark (the Google...

The Reinterpretation category is all about manipulating a single visual attribute to achieve something both familiar and fresh at the same time. In this instance, Material Reinterpretation generally maintains all aspects of an iconic object’s form, proportions, and surfacing, but introduces a completely new material or production process to the...