Study Task 03 - Reading and Understanding a Text

On researching the question of “What is the relationship between branding and The Consumer Self?”, I read Miles, S. (1998) Consumerism: As a way of life. New York: Sage

Tone of Voice

• Critical analysis of writings on the issues of branding, Consumer Culture and the effects designers have on the consumer

5 Key Points that the text makes

• Compulsory obselence is the foundation-stone of the modern design industry and involves the intentional design of products for short-term use. In other words, designers ensure a constant demand for new products by intentionally designing products with limited life spans.
• Consumers are encouraged to become members of a consumer society by purchasing goods primarily through the attraction of superficial differentiation's in design.
• Well-designed goods are actually socially divisive, and that design is actually symbolic of the socially divisive nature of consumption in general.
• The paradox is that the desire to be oneself encourages consumers to purchase and wear the same products as everybody else. 
• There is nothing more to consumerism than the rapid consumption of surface imagery which is in fact perpetuated by symbolic differences in design. 

5 Key Quotes from the text

• design 'has come to imply spurious value, cynical manipulation, the justification of inflated price through a false impression of status and exclusivity' (Conran, 1996: 17)
•  'If we are to distance ourselves from our condition in order to understand society's values, we need critically to examine the relationship between design and society. We have to remind ourselves that a cultural condition is not natural, but socially, politically and economically constructed.' Whiteley (1993: 159)
• 'Every product, to be successful, must incorporate the idea that make it marketable, and the particular task of design is to bring about the conjunction between such ideas and available means of production' (Forty, 1986: 9)
• 'Instead of a single Walkman sold worldwide, Sony began to customize the product, targeting different sorts of Walkman at different consumer markets or niches. Or to put it another way, Sony began to lifestyle the Walkman' (Gay et al, 1997: 66)
• 'Design by its very nature, has much more enduring effects than the ephemeral products of the media because it can cast ideas about who we are and how we should behave into permanent and tangible forms' (Forty, 1986: 6)