lebobohlaledolo-blog

[lebobohlaledolo-blog]

Subculture in Design

Is subculture essential for identifying and solving a problem?

According to the Cambridge English dictionary subculture is a specific way of life through customs, ideas and beliefs that only apply to them as a culture. This makes them distinct from society. Subculture is an extension of culture itself. 

How does this then tie into design? Any type of design is influenced by a certain group’s overall belief in how life works, their interest and how they perceive the world. ‘So when referring to culture in a design sense, one can refer to the values and identities that are constructed in and communicated by visual culture as one of the ways in which a cultural group produces and reproduces its particular character and individuality.’ (Allen, 2009)

 In the design community, it means that subculture has a distinct visual element that is expressive their identity as a group. An example of this is Experimental Jet set Studio of graphic design which was formed in 1997 from the influence of post-punk music which they incorporate in their design. This forms their identity. (Gosling, 2016)

Experimental Jet set Studio of graphic design 

A formed identity of a specific group then makes design a bit more simple because designers will have to research background information on how a particular group thinks, what their values are, what their interests are and how they visual represent themselves. This is fundamental in order to identify a problem within their scope and solve it through a design perspective. Designers do not just design for aesthetic pleasure which most people believe it is, even though a design needs to lure the consumer visually, it is not only about this. These elements need to work together in order to work.

As mentioned above one can refer to Commodity Culture and Commodity Fetishism. Commodity culture ‘a culture in which products and services are exchanged in a system.’ It is this perception that cultures identify a of themselves through available products circulating within an economy.  In the century that is centred around this ordeal, we associate ourselves with things like brands, music, cars and clothing amongst other things. e.g. Coca Cola. This is how companies market these mentioned things, it’s the reason behind successful products being sold simultaneously. (Sturken & Cartwright, 2009)

Coca Cola

Companies cleverly use Subculture as a tool of creating what the consumer ‘needs’ This is a tool used in problem-solving through the research design steps. One company that does great research on products and services is Apple. In reference, the mentioned example would be of the launch of Apple music in twenty fifteen was a phenomenon. They victoriously launched the best streaming application at the time, “your music now lives in one place alongside the Apple Music catalogue with over 30 million songs. You can stream any song, album or playlist you choose — or better yet, let Apple Music do the work for you.” They created a music catalogue that placed every song in history in one application, with that being mentioned it proves that Apple did their research. They wanted people to have access to old and new music in one environment. (Apple, 2015)

Apple music launch,2015

Subculture in design plays a role in the concept of designing for life. Society’s views and beliefs are important. As it was mentioned earlier on that, knowing more about cultures and subcultures in design makes a designer/producer essentially know what a person needs because they have studied how they think, how they act and how they react to symbols. They are able to determine what a consumer needs and wants according to research. This is essentially important for the first two phases of solving a problem.

Most consumer products we see on a daily basis are intended for different lifestyles for us today, even back then it was the same idea. Innovators of great ideas take their time learning things like social behaviour as well as understanding the cognitive ability of other human beings. Subculture and design is definitely something to consider when problem-solving. How can one solve a problem if they don't know what the target market is? This is a theory that all designers and producers should live by because they forget that we are all human. Everything produced on earth is centred around the human condition, ultimately culture.