Week 3 Consumerism and design meeting culture

Defining Contemporary Consumer Culture 


Within the context of today's digital society consumerism is an ever growing market of the urban world, which strives to capture the attention of the targeted consumer and to make them believe in the product, adopting visual communication in numerous forms to achieve this objective. Through distinct methods of visual communication, advertising designers and marketing experts alike, are required to establish a connection between the selected product, and the consumer, to draw them into the reality that the product's features offer, and most importantly, to appeal to the consumer's sub cultural reality, or selected interest group. In order to achieve these objectives, the consumer market together with design industry, as well as the industry associated with the product, needs to establish to a branded environment, one which aids the consumer to identify with the product's appeal, design, and unique distinguishing features, one which gives personality and characteristics to the product and is iconic to the brand name. Furthermore the product itself must relate back to the branding of the company, to honour and stay faithful to the brand name, and most importantly, to idealise the trademarks, values, and objectives that particular brand. 
In such a competitive time, within an ever growing competitive industry, consumer design in order to succeed is required to step over the boundaries, to step out of the comfort zone, sometimes even that of the targeted consumer, and to be controversial, to not hold back, and to withstand criticism and strong competitors. One industry within the consumer market which is at its peak in controversy and breaking the rules, as well as challenging the ideals of culture, is that of the Barbie culture. 
The Barbie market, founded by Ruth Handler in 1959 and launched by the American toy company Mattel, is the first plastic glamour doll manufacturing brand that has remains today as one of the leading consumer brands in the toy industry, for young naive, insecure girls, who require or, at least believe they require, a stereotyped Hollywood, hot pink glamour model to model their entire lifestyle on. The toy industry in itself is one that has always relied, as long as commercialism has existed, on the vulnerability and helpless innocence of children, to visually communicate a false sense of security through a seemingly innocent toy. In order to keep to the gender stereotypes, toys are traditionally gender specific, with young boys who model themselves on sport figures and are obsessed by cars, favouring sporty toys, model trains, etc, however for the young girl, the consumer market is mixed in gender interest, as a result of the exposed popular media culture, exploiting glamour, fame, stardom, and with the manufacturing of 'bratz' in the last ten years, a rapidly growing sexual conscience.  
Referring back to the toy industry as a whole, the toy manufacturers and designers who have succeeded in appealing to the consumer market are the ones who have carefully considered and identified the cultural context that this toy will be adopted to and the manner in which it as a product will iconise the target sub culture and special interest group. In order to identify and recognise the culture associated with a consumer product, particularly children's toys, marketing personnel must be able to give meaning to culture as a term. Culture can be defined in three prime ways:
1. The process of a society's intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development. 
2. The particular way of life of the consumer. 
3. The works and practises of intellectual artistic activity. 
Given that there are two level's of art, there are two levels of culture, high culture and low, or what is more commonly known as popular culture. 
High Culture can be defined as the culture of the elite, and sophisticated practices, such as philosophy and the arts. Furthermore High Culture covers intelligent design and craftsmanship, traditional practices prior to the aid of digital technology, which produce art and design as a passion and to impress the viewer, rather than to sell a product. 
In opposition to the high form of art, low or popular culture can be seen as a cynical process for drawing the consumer mass into a consumerist desire, a way generated mass appeal to the masses, and bringing artificial glamour into design.