Chapter 1 - The History of Capitalism and Design
Over the last twenty years, the rise of digital commerce and further development of the infrastructure of the internet have transformed or greatly impacted nearly every aspect of the global socioeconomic landscape.
The visual design community, which had traditionally been involved with marketing, communications, and printing industries, was rapidly transformed during the rise of the information age and continues to see rapid evolution as further developments in online commerce occur.
Designers design the product, brand it, craft the glamorous images that sell the product, and craft user experiences designed to elicit impulsive purchasing. The design community, at current, is heavily involved in the creation and maintenance of the systems of capital.
The modern design community is now more than ever critically responsible as a driving force behind global capitalist consumption.
During this process, we as designers have molded the internet into a refined tool for furthering and reaffirming corporations and institutions.
However, it is also increasingly clear that many influential designers and design institutions are seeking ways for the discipline of design to be non-complicit in the engine of consumption that is currently posing an existential threat to the world.
There is a notable conflict between the desire and intention of Designers and the outcomes of their labor. One plausible origin of this contradiction is the heavy influence of modernist design philosophy as an Institutional force within the discipline of design.
Additionally, the consequence of modernism’s influences on the contemporary design scene can be felt in the restructuring of the internet, shifting it away from a tool for communication, and its existence as space for information archiving and individuals, into the current iteration of the internet as a tool for commerce, surveillance, and institutions.
As the design community deals with a mounting desire for change, there are growing trends of experimental aesthetics being explored challenging the nature of design in the discipline’s newest medium.