Category: Society

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Exclusion included: Hostile design

    Lately, a young designer with a bachelor’s degree from Parsons School of Design approached me with his design for a bench for a design competition for better public spaces. After having asked a few questions, it became clear that sitting a bit longer on this bench, or lying on it to have a nap, was…

  • The Vessel, New York

    The buildings of New York always held a special symbolic quality. The Empire State Building was iconic for it’s age, representing a relentless striving upwards, culminating in it’s gleaming Art Deco top. The Word Trade Center was a symbol of post-war New York. Jean Baudrillard uncovered its symbolism: “Why are there two towers at New…

  • 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…

  • Bubbles

    2020, the year of the pandemic, brought with it new popular words and phrases. “New normal”, “social distancing” and “flatten the curve” stand out, but also “travel bubble”. These new pop phrases have something interesting in common: they combine two semantic opposites in one phrase. “New” is about something we don’t know yet, the opposite…

  • 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.…

  • A new look at “Ornament and Crime”

    Adolf Loos’ “Ornament and Crime” is still regarded by some as an important manifesto of modernist architecture. But it has been strangely overlooked that it was also a manifesto for a dangerous notion of “cultural superiority”.

  • In Memoriam Alessandro Mendini

    In European living spaces, the classical credenza was an important interior object full of meaning. Depending on the household, it was in the the kitchen or in the dining room, containing objects which could reveal the status, memory and history of a family – plates, cutlery, candlesticks.

  • Like friends, follow uses

    Digital machines such as smartphones frame behavior and instill new cultural and social practices. ‘Liking’, ‘sharing’, ‘following’ are relational activities which have been defined by social media and established as new normal in the shaping of human relationships. The phenomenon of communication devices prompting new behaviors and expressions is not new: for instance, the word “hello” did…

  • 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…

  • The 5 C’s: Design skills for the near future

    CODE Since the first introduction of CAD and 3d modeling systems, code is behind most products. With generative design, the code becomes the design itself. Big data about user behaviour in combination with machine learning and adaptive production methods (Industry 4.0) will make highly personalized and adaptive design solutions the new normal. To master code,…

  • 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