Revisions

Memo - Culture

In an increasingly digital word, technology changes faster than most people can adapt. Every few months the best and newest electronics come and people rush out to buy them. To keep up with these changes, all other aspects of our life must try and keep up, including design.

The ability of design to change according to the culture it must appeal too is incredibly interesting. The current generation is very tech savvy, and a lot have internet access 24/7. In order to appeal to this audience, designers must look at the culture as a whole. Who are they? What do they do? What do they like? How long can I keep their attention? Designs trying to appeal to the younger crowds will most like will be very sleek, very clean. For proof of this you don’t need to go further than looking at advertisements for smart phones. Most of these will have the device, at an angle, set in front of a solid background. By keeping the advertisement uncluttered, they allow their device to be the center of attention. This allows it to capture the focus of the audience easily, by drawing their eye directly where they want it to go.

Design styles must also change in order to keep up with the technology. The designs must be able to work on all sorts of mobile devices. Laptops, netbooks, tablets, smartphones. How small do I have to make this? Do I need to re-arrange the page to fit better on a smaller screen? In addition to the hardware, things like HTML5 also influence design. Any new change in our interaction must be followed by changes in designs to help compensate.

I really enjoyed learning about culture in design because after reading about it, it became something that I could then see in my everyday life; once it was seen, it could not be unseen! It changed how I looked at advertisements, book covers, websites, and packaging. It also amazed me how much of this design based on culture was being used in conjunction with social media. Every page had buttons to link it to another communication like Facebook, Twitter, Email, Tumblr.

In our growingly connected culture, knowing how to design based on the interests of your audience is going to become an increasingly important factor.