CTS - Dissertation - Consumerism seminar

Design for Consumerism.

Branding theory - methodology - specify methodologies in proposal form

- do inter views later in the research so you can ask better/the right questions for your primary research

- 2 sides to consumerism

- anti-consumerism - activist movements - global crisis - anti-capitalist movement

- Occupy movement

(critical side of consumerism)

How do brands survive and work?

How do they operate?

How is a superbrand constructed? - Apple is an example

Communication Theory - methodology - how brands relate to the consumers

Book - Wally Ollins - how brands work - A-political stand point

Book - Naomi Klien - 'No Logo' - very political stand point

Documentary - Adam Curtis - 'Century of the Self' - available on youtube in four 1 hour parts

 - Marx

- Freud

- western american mass consumerism - using  theories of Freud and Edward Berinays (PR)

- talks about consumerism as a pacifying device - how does the designer negotiate that with the audience?

'Conspicuous Consumption' - T. Veblien

Consuming to gain status - buying so others see we are buying things

Baudrillard - consumer culture - symbolic value of the commodity - commodity fetishism - Marx should be referenced with this as he came up with this concept

How does consumerism work as a social system?

Whats the social context?

Consumption statistics?

Get a detailed definition of consumption to help your dissertation.

Designer as a wage labourer.

- taking on jobs we don't ethically agree with - how does a designer negotiate with the job and their own ethics and views of consumer society?

- culture jammers

- V. Papanek - Social Tithe - 10% of your time should be spent designing to change society

- First Things First manifesto

Modern politics relates to consumerism - politics as a pacifier - we feel as though we are getting our say in the matter

Simmel - trickle down theory

- process of emulation occurs

- upper class buy certain brands and commodities

- lower class see the upper class buying those brands and commodities

- lower class then buy them as well in an attempt to gain a similar status

- the upper class see that the lower class have bought the same brands and commodities and start to buy different ones instead

-  the lower class don't gain the desired status as it no longer applies to those brands and commodities

There is also a Trickle Up theory.

- brands taking on street fashion from ghettos for example - NIKE adopting the fashion of people from the Bronx

Theodore Adorno vs Walter Benjamin - theorists

Pseudo - individualism

D.I.Y movement - anti-capitalist - make your own designs, music, fashion, clothes etc

- counter culture