Visual Communication Reading Responce

Culture being a hard thing to define has been broken down into three sections by the English cultural theorist Raymond Williams: The process of a society's intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development. The particular way of life of a people, period, or group of people. And the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity. Commonly thought culture is defined in terms of people, events, and practices. The best of these things are considered to be worth saving. As designers we tend to focus on popular culture and the trends of the now. In modern popular culture which grew out of post-war consumerism and the rise of youth culture in america has spread across the western world becoming the foundation of most media related industries. This article really touches on the importance of observing trends and understanding how to shape that observation into a better user experience or product. People worry about the trend towards mass culture because of the degradation in quality of the items produced. Creative capital has started to trend together as the same by to many people coping one another and their successful ideas. Apparently according to the article even thought consumers can be made happy there is a common trend of making them desire a product, being fulfilled by it, and eventually becoming disillusioned by it. By creating these product the consumer / public base is distracted and kept out of politics. A sad example is my generation and the lack of involvement and apathy that no runs rampant. within these cultures each subculture has developed its own system of codes an identifiers. These are then after being observed used to market to those groups. Dress and ritual is a key to understanding what represents each society.