Revolution or Evolution in the New Year?

Trends often change so subtly, as to be barely perceptible. Much has changed in the global culture in the past year, and as I sit inside during yet another snowstorm, I started asking myself - have last years ideas evolved enough at this point to change direction? I reviewed what I had written as important parts of the ideas inherent in hyper-authenticity and found them to be viable into the new year:

• True to Origins and Self

• True to Culture

• True to Form

• Larger than Life

• Made by Hand

• Sustainable

• Raw and unaltered

• Reclaimed, Recycled
  

What I realized is that the vast cultural changes actually create less changes in trends - people tend to stay with the tried and true as cultural changes swirl madly around them. So, the authentic and classic trends bring a sense of security and are actually reinforced by the massive cultural swings we have been experiencing. Any changes throughout this year will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. The ipad may be revolutionary, but what we use it for are tried and true tasks. Just take a look at this article about David Hockney making art on his ipad.

Fractals in the design world

Surface detail from subBlue on Vimeo.

Another followup to the "Geometric" trend in my 2010 report - the explosion of fractals in art and design. This is a fantastic video, even showing some softened edges - not as harsh and edgy as all the straight edges that we have seen up until now. The scientist/designer,Tom Beddard's website promises to offer software to create your own fractal designs soon.

Emotional Marketing

Call it marketing, call it manipulation . . . as we learn more about the human brain - we also learn more about how we think and make decisions - be they buying, political, choice of friends or mates. Emotional marketing is being used effectively everyday in marketing. This article on the "bigthink" website looks at the process and shows some effective examples.

Has design overplayed its Hand?

As a design professional, I have always believed inherently that beauty and thereby good design enhance our quality of life. A recent New York Times article led me to seriously question my bias, as my mother lingers with final stage dementia in an assisted living facility with cloth tablecloths and napkins and constantly changing appropriately seasonal decorative accessories.

The article describes a New York facility called Beatitudes this way: "The facility itself is institutional-looking, dowdy and “extremely outdated,” Ms. Mullan said. “It’s ugly,” said Jan Dougherty, director of family and community services at Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in Phoenix. But “they’re probably doing some of the best work.” " They use common sense and the human touch to make their patients lives more bearable. That is something that "design" simply does not deliver on its own.

(For more on common sense watch Barry Schwartz's Ted talk on Practical Wisdom. He has moved on from observing the consumer in the "Paradox of Choice" to observing the current human condition.)

The backlash to the emphasis on "design" seems to have begun in a subtle way. An article entitled "De-emphasizing Design" on a hotel management website recommends a holistic approach to creating an environment rather than an emphasis on elaborate design - basically postulating that you can't put all your eggs in the "design" basket.

From the article: ". . . according to Howard Wolff, SVP with design firm WATG, people are moving past wanting things and instead crave the more tangible . . . moving from extravagance to experience, from conspicuous to conscientious consumption, from airs to authenticity, from could be anywhere to you are here, from green is good to green is gold and from trendy to timeless - waste not want not."

New Inspiration/Mosaics

The ancient domesticity of the Mediterranean basin has long fascinated me, what we learn about the thousands of year old living arrangements continues to inform our styles from Moshe Safdie's early condos which bring to mind hilltowns to the mosaics of Bisazza and Sicis. With each new find and subsequent exposure of the past, a new generation of companies and stylists again become inspired.

The Metropolitan Museum currently has a show unveiling a trove of mosaics accidently discovered during road constuction near Tel Aviv in 1996. It will be interesting to watch how these detailed images will influence the new. (If you can't get to the show in time, read about it here.)

Aahh! Nostalgia

In 2010, as we moved into a new decade last year, I entitled my trend report "Memory Matters." The early reports this year are that memory matters more with every passing day. The New York Times Thursday home section, which has a particularly strong sense of the direction featured a Brooklyn store called Brook Farm General Store, a nostalgic home goods survival guide to today's 24/7 stressed out world.

As an antidote to minimalism the NY Times also features woven goods - the warm feel of an object matters as much as the look in creating a comfortable home environment. Judging by the antique rag rug pillows, another version of nostalgia reigns at John Derian Company, from one turn-of-the- century to another - despite today's overly connected world - many of us crave the comforts of a home connected to the past.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I admit to having a house full of rag rugs.)