Design as a Common Language

Following his intro piece on global design trends in our previous issue, this time trends researcher Chris Reid takes a deep dive into why a connected aesthetic culture is on the rise.

WORDS Chris Reid PHOTOS Gallo Images /Getty Images (Taylor Swift), Supplied

Design trends move quickly. The trends in the way we think about design, however, take much longer to evolve. Since the early 2000s, we have witnessed the creeping niche-ification of taste. Sophistication has become less about accessible, shared reference points and more about how obscure and specific you can be. This process has only been accelerated by our uptake of social media: on these platforms, the more idiosyncratic your personal taste, the greater your cool factor.

But we’re at a turning point. Over the past few years, the inevitable resistance has been gathering force as we see a desire to return to something like a connected aesthetic culture.

Say No to the Algo

One strand in this trend shift can be seen in the growing anti-algo movement. Increasingly,
people are finding that the algorithms that used to feed us relevant and interesting content have
become less focused on serving our needs and more focused on serving us what advertisers pay
for. In their mission to individualise our experience, digital platforms have become culs-de-sac,
disconnecting from both newness and other people. This realisation is why we’re seeing users pay less attention to traditional social media as they turn to private-messaging groups, newsletters and recommendation platforms. It’s about breaking out of the perfectly optimised content cycle and introducing outside influences into our media diet. “Curation” may have become a dirty word because of its overuse, but it becomes vital as a result of this. We’re looking for people and publications who share their point of view, rather than just platforms that serve us what they think we want. It’s about the power of ideas built between people, not content created around them.

It seems counterintuitive, but the other balance to blandness lies in the revival of mainstream culture itself. In this case, it’s less about finding newness and more about creating a sense of togetherness – seeing culture as a common language, not a competition. The world also feels chaotic and scary right now, so when it comes to taste, we’re looking for the equivalent of comfort food. These two influences mean we’ll be seeing less attention paid to outlandish pieces and more of an appreciation for easily digestible design that makes us feel part of a bigger community.

And Keep It Real

This emphasis on experience also points to the final shift: a growing need for realism. Over the
next few years, our take on style will be premised on how things are experienced in person, not how
they look online. We’re also looking at what we can actually achieve in our own spaces, not what we
think we should. Part of this lies in slowing down and rejecting fast design culture – a realisation,
for example, that just because you can order furniture from Temu doesn’t mean you should.

It’s also about seeking out real people as role models for taste and style. We want to be inspired by individuals and homes that reflect our own lives – just slightly better. This means we need to embrace a bit of imperfection; this kind of honesty is already being seen in the way spaces are styled and shared.

What we’re discovering as part of this aesthetic retraining is that we have more in common with one another than we thought. That’s why the next era for design trends in general will be about what connects us. This is particularly important in a context such as ours where, in many ways, we’re still figuring out exactly what South African design is. Whether it’s possible or not is still to be determined – but we’ll only work it out if it’s something we focus on together.

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