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?

Afgans on a plate

Lately everyday product, place or event marketing seems to have a 'home-made' aesthetic.

Today I was in another cafe with an 'uber-cool' aesthetic (what can I say I like their pastries). There on the counter are some afgans, bite-size in scale and individually bagged with cafe-branded folded cardboard strip stapled over the top. Though priced at some exobant rate, it was the cynical nature of this offering which annoyed me.

Seems everywhere you go now, the 'home-spun' trend of marketing is at work. Here is nana's baking ripped from its wholesome origins of charity and metal tins and re-worked into a desirable commodity.

There seems to be such an overload of reproduced alternative culture in the mainstream, it's hard to be excited and truly inspired by the 'originality' of it. I wonder how alternative culture will counteract this attack and maintain it's underground edge?

I like going to alternative craft fairs, zine fests and flea markets, but disappointed it is so accessible and heavily promoted. I'd love to just stumble across a random event again. Starting to forget what that feels like.