I. Hello and welcome to The Studio Weekly!
I’m Joe, and if you’re seeing this, I’m thrilled you signed up and are allowing me to come into your inbox each week! I’ll share a mix of insights, inspiration, and provocations on the evolving nature of digital design. Many of these topics are also what I share internally as the Head of Creative in the Amsterdam Studio of argodesign - hence the title. The Studio Weekly will unsurprisingly be published weekly, aimed at all career levels, and kept short form around 500 words - I hope.
Lastly, thank you! I welcome all feedback, questions, or topics to cover!
II. The impact of culture on design, and cultural bias on creativity
Several weeks ago I joined Uplive to support a friend who was using the platform for streaming. Uplive itself is a Chinese mobile streaming platform similar to Twitch, but packaged with a dizzying array of functionality. Its popularity resides more in Asia, The Middle East, and Eastern Europe. During exploring the application, I was privileged to join a few group streams with my friend.
During the stream, I was struck by the delta of software design between regions and culture. While those in the US or Europe might see this interface as seizure inducing and horribly designed, it begs the questions on what is ‘good design’, what is the proper design process, and who would make those decisions.
For the last two decades, the US has often been the centre of digital design used on a global level, thus also partially dictating what is presented as good design. However even from the early 2000’s, a review of applications from various countries in Asia would show a different aesthetic. More than likely the business acumen provided from software companies in the US played an important role in setting global standards for good digital design. But in the next decade, that could change dramatically.
If China begins to become the future centre of software - either producing or influencing, how we think of design and process may fundamentally shift on a global scale. Not only that, but looking globally at regional applications, as designers, do we hold ourselves back from a broader set of solutions or ideas because of what our culture dictates for us? In seeing this, it’s easy to understand that our own creativity is inherently handicapped by our cultures own aesthetic and views on taste. What would happen if we left behind the Double Diamond design process we have clung to and allowed ourselves to explore other processes? Perhaps it’s time to find out and look at 2021 as a year to explore something new.
If China becomes the centre of design in the next decade, how would that change the global perception of good design? How would that change the process we apply to create good design? Or has thinking about a single design for a global application run into its limits and we must localise the process and design, in additional to the language?
Looking forward for designers, and as software inherently becomes more global, we must ask, if it’s important to hold a more multi-layered approach to process and aesthetic.
Simply because we use one aesthetic or one process we learned up to this point, doesn’t mean it will always be the process to carry us forward.
III. New Software tool of the week
No analysis or judgement, simply a new nice application for everyone to check out each week.
From the desks of a few of my friends, check out Pitch. Collaborative presentation software!
Want to talk? Catch me on Twitter.