Lux in the Eco-Age

Recently I’ve been dwelling in airport lounges. It seems in this eco-age of conservative spending and reduced carbon footprint, the luxury of travel remains one escape portal.

The need or want to go somewhere else prevails. We can scrimp and save by web hopping deal sites for good prices but we still want certain luxuries to sweeten the experience.

Our package deal includes meals or quality snacks and access to movies, music and games via our in-flight personal entertainment systems. I wonder why we kid ourselves when our personal entertainment system is merely a touch screen, the concept itself - a pacifier.
Aren’t we still in cattle class, with limited leg room in close proximity to other self-serving passengers? The fact that we can be satisfied and subdued by food, visuals and sound is sad in itself.

I can’t help but be tempted by the consumerism of airport retail. Isn’t that the whole point? There are copious amounts of things to buy, half pointless and fleeting but tempting none the less.
Maybe that is part of the romance of travel, we have saved and daydreamed about a holiday, we have been frugal in our search for a bargain and now we are here, the airport or transition room. We have money in foreign currency, how about a souvenir, giftware or chocolate bar to enjoy the experience a little more? Shame the token in itself is easily forgotten and misplaced.

For all the luxury and opulence of travel, there is the structure and procedure of security and due process. Post 9/11, the world will never be the same, for better or for worse. We still want to travel and experience the sights and sounds of different cultures despite our fears and potential threats.

The power of decoration and distraction!

Guerrilla Design

I read magazines and absorb media in the aspiration of ideas, but this hope is rarely realised. Where has the adventure, risk and actual variety gone?

Every month, it is harder to swallow the endless showcase of the same brands - lifestyle products or design companies collaborating to increase their range or build new opulent spaces with other over-exposed designers.
Throw in sustainable resources and vintage references and the mass market seems to hungrily devour its ‘brand-new’ labelling.

It seems a waste for design media to ignore the outsider or young graduates who experiment rather than follow.
Money talks, innovation can walk.

In an over-populated world, exposure is the game even if fame is fleeting.
The web -coined as your own personal media source to showcase your wares is an extremely crowded marketplace requiring extensive advertising via social networking to grab attention.

Whatever happened to the whole ‘Act Local, think Global’ mantra?

We could re-discover the humble community noticeboard for a start. It’s hard to find these spaces in big city centres apart from the local supermarket. Posters are regulated by Bill Poster companies who own high traffic sites and therefore reduce exposure.

Now that I’m living in a smaller town, I’ve come across cork noticeboards with no glass or permission contacts to dissuade the poster of flyers, business cards or the next great design idea!
We are so bogged down with the client and brief relationship being the ultimate staple of every project. A need and its solution is how the world goes round but design doesn’t need these perimeters or methodology to exist and thrive!

One such cork board is in a suburban village shopping centre. The shops are in need of a revamp and it needs a cohesive re-branding to attract more mainstream shoppers. Putting the whole objectives, brief perimeters, client and end user considerations aside, how can this project be tackled?

If we want to experiment, then the concept would have no direct reference to the area or community that it services.
If that was our purpose, we may as well join the mainstream, be a drone wowed by the regurgitation of the latest ‘new’ concept.

The Nucleus of the Apple comes to mind as a concept. It could lead to something different and exciting wherever it takes us. The end project could be a water park with a floating bookshop docked to one side. Think of the possibilities!

Once completed, this project without a ‘real’ client or steel brief could be presented on this humble cork noticeboard, next to the local ATM. What presentation would be complete without the tagline of a website - savethevillageshops.com

Is it worth chasing glory when it comes with a price tag?