Category: Economy

  • The Vibe Shift: How a Return to Family Values and Meritocracy is Reshaping Society and Consumer Behavior

    The Vibe Shift, a term coined by historian Niall Ferguson, refers to a cultural and ideological pivot in societal values, often marked by a departure from previously dominant narratives and the emergence of new paradigms. The 2025 Vibe Shift is a cultural and societal transformation that marks a return to traditional family values and a…

  • Jaguar: A controversial rebrand

    Is this Jaguar, the blue chip brand on par with Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Rolls Royce – the brand standing for sleek and elegant sports cars which won Le Mans seven times? Jaguar is a British icon and an emotion which creates loyalty, as evidenced in over 160 million views of the rebrand on social…

  • Design support for the 21st century

    Published 2021 by Dongdaemun Design Plaza/ddp Design Fair/Seoul Design Foundation. From hand-holding to startup financing The history of design support until today has two distinct phases: project hand-holding and startup financing. From the nineteen-eighties until around the 2000’s, the economy revolved around industrial production, and a preferred model of design support was project hand-holding. In…

  • Design Integration: From Imitation to Ecosystem

    This article was first published in Fall 2005 in Designmatters by the Danish Design Center (DDC) as ‘Imiteret, kommercialiseret, oplevet: Sammenkædningen af design, virksomheder og denverdensøkonomiske udvikling’. Company structures changed dramatically over the course of the last century. The structures and processes behind the production of goods evolved, and with these also the relationships of…

  • Analysing lifestyle changes during and after the pandemic

    Changes in lifestyles are always consequences of changing life circumstances. On an individual level, this includes education, income, or age; On a macro level, this includes, among other factors, political change, governance, and technical progress. Lifestyle changes on an individual level are simple to understand: For instance, an increased or decreased income instantly affects individual…

  • After Corona: Quality is back

    The lockdowns and restrictions imposed by governments due to the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in many being furloughed or losing jobs. Consequently, it is expected that discretionary spending would decrease. In particular, businesses depending on day to day consumer traffic (restaurants, brick and mortar retail) or on gatherings of people (theatres, sports events) have been a…

  • Home, sweet home

    This is the first time most consumers across the world have the experience of being confined to their own home. What will this new experience mean for business? Let us look at the experiences of consumers during lockdowns and how this could impact consumption after Corona. Phase 1: PanicIn the first phase of a quarantine,…

  • Podchain, ownership and usership

    Car ownership was a fundamental idea of progress since Henry Ford came up with his Model T in the early 20th century. During America’s golden years, roughly from the nineteen- fifties until 9/11, owning a car was the first thing on every teenager’s mind. It was a sign of freedom and independence, the visible expression…

  • On mental models, refusing a five billion dollar offer, and petting a cobra

    Mental models are ideas of how things are. They are not about how things are in reality – they are beliefs about how things work or should work. People’s mental models can be wrong. If they are, they tend to be persistent, creating problems and at the same time impeding the ability to fix these problems.…

  • Design DIY

    Until the late 20th century, the process of design was mainly top-down: design was being made by designers, produced by manufacturers, and branded by corporations. In the 21st century, these processes of production and consumption are being rethought. The design process has to become circular.

  • Three approaches to the design process

    The design process as it is usually taught and applied at the beginning of the 21st century is concerned with goals, aims and targets. It is dealing with business and industry, target groups and financial targets. It is looking at the often “wicked” problems found in all areas of life. It is, in general, working…

  • Models of Innovation in Japan and Korea: MITI and KIDP

    Korea’s strength in the creative industries, together with the strength of their multinational brands, is regarded as a model by other Asian countries. How did this model come about?

  • Design and Myth

    In his 1957 book „Mythologies“, Roland Barthes analyses the Deesse (The nickname of the Citroen DS car, “goddess” in French) as a mythical object, and plastic as a mythical material. Plastic interests him because of its transformability, the metamorphoses it contains, being able to imitate everything. He finds it remarkable that plastics are given mythical names…

  • Design for Sustainability

    Material A curated collection and workshop by Mario Gagliardi on local, handmade objects in northern Thailand and Laos. These objects smartly utilize the properties of natural materials in their method of making. Go to Material

  • Tools to think with

    Concepts and assumptions determine how an organisation and its environment are seen. When plotting a course of action, managers implicitly rely on them. These concepts are the foundation for both daily decision-making and long-term planning. Once concepts are taken for granted, they are held implicitly, possibly impeding innovation efforts. Leonard and Straus found that thinking style…

  • Korea’s most successful luxury brand

      Whoo (后), the cosmetics brand designed by Mario Gagliardi, is now Korea’s most successful luxury brand, selected by the Seoul Economic Daily in 2017 (read more about its creation). The brand exceeded 100 billion Korean Won in annual sales in 2009, 200 billion Won in 2013, 400 billion Won in 2014, 800 billion Won in 2015,…

  • Analysing the Digital: Transformations, Territories, Frames and Uses

    While the digital is explained in itself by computer science, important questions for the humanities – such as how the Digital affects human behaviour, or how it impacts society and economy – are outside its scope. Different disciplines have provided answers, but there has been no integrated concept bridging these insights.