I'm not trying to be cool, but I don't even know what the Diamond Jubilee is, don't get me wrong I've got nothing against the Royal Family, if pushed I'd probably give them a 6 out of 10. I like Prince Charles, he appears alright, Harry's seems like a laugh, and Philip's is amazing, he seems to says all the right things at exactly the right moments.
Our relationship to the Royal Family through design is my issue here, I noticed this at the Royal Wedding betwixt the boring, balding brother and the girl who's sister won Rear of the Year, that, every single piece of marketing had a retro 50's style to it, from a street party paper cup in Tescos to a celebration biscuit tin in our local Garden Centre.
The same thing is happening with the Jubilee, it's like as a generation we can't brand the Royals in a contempory style, we have to buck any current trends and hark back to Polaroid's of a golden age of street parties, loving our neighbours, and actual sunshine. Was it really so much better back then? What are we trying to achieve by never looking forward?
It's quite odd when you think about it. Will every major event in this prestigious families life be marked with 50's styled memorabilia? How do they feel about that? How will this affect the Antiques Roadshow in the future when every commemorative plate looks like it's from 1950 even if it was pressed in the year 4000? I guess that's what the experts are there for.
Consider the Olympics 2012 branding, here they created something contemporary, second guessing 2012 to develop a modern and dynamic mark. When you look at it now, it works perfectly as a piece of branding, created to work with sponsors, in a sponsor-lead environment. When it was released however it was so defiled, that The Sun hilariously got school children to design Olympic logos that looked like they were designed by school children. That's the face of modern design, and risk taking on a mass-market level today, ridicule. It's way safer to stick to something we know our auntie likes, rather than confuse her, and annoy the 'red tops'.
The bottom line is, it's frankly embarrassing that there is no such thing as a 2012 style, for designers living in these times, we've got nobody to blame but ourselves. It's ridiculous that even at a very commercial basic level like this there is no default design style which you can plaster on mass produced crap merchandise.
Shame on me, shame on you other designers well done the 50's.
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Talk to Citizen about Branding, give drop me an email on ben@citizenstudios.co.uk, I'm actually not as grumpy as that post suggests.
