Islam Mahrouss – April 28

Steven Heller has spent much of his career exploring the history and culture of graphic design. In his entry from Design Observer, he explores the advertising world and takes through the relationship between the underground and mainstream design. The relationship between these is based on how underground rebellious culture becomes popular among the youth culture, but also popular and reinvented due to advertising. An example of this would be the 1960’s psychedelic movement. This movement was seen as a representation of sex and drugs, making it rejected by society. However, due to the visual arts that came from this movement it has become popular among the youth culture. With the increase in popularity in this particular culture the style of psychedelic art has increased in advertising and marketing to attract those particular people. This is what leads underground cultures to being adapted by mainstream advertisers. As Heller describes it there are certain “codes” that are associated with these underground cultures and using these codes is how they become more popular. And as they became mainstream the shock value has decreased. Especially today in our world nothing shocks us anymore since we have already seen it all. 

A lot of mainstream design includes products and one of the most common products includes clothing. The design of clothes is something that is always changing and we can see how something that is currently popular being used by the mainstream. The article Approaches to material culture: The Sociology of Fashion and Clothing,by Diana Crane and Laura Bovone describes how different cultures such as youth, gay, and metropolitan identify them selves based on the clothing they wear. This reminded me of how many brands today draw influence from other cultures such as African and use them in their clothing designs. The idea of underground and mainstream shows itself in this scenario. The cultures that might have not been so popular are used as an influence from mainstream design by being copied but in a way where it is redesigned to look similar. Sometimes this could also come off as cultural appropriation which happened to many high end brands such as Gucci. 

On the topic of culture something else that is associated with cultures are slang’s or popular phrases. These can be especially popular among the youth culture, and this is one way that mainstream advertising uses to become more popular. Many ads today especially on social media might use specific language that is related to a certain group especially teens and young adults. Jose Antonio Sanchez Fajardo explores the pragmatic and linguistics of  teen slang in his article, Exploring the shashification of teenage slang. The way that this is also always changing gives advertisers more opportunities for them to use them. Advertisements like these are also more recognizable to youth culture since it is calling out directly to them as a target audience. 

Even though the underground culture rebels against the mainstream, in this case it is what makes it popular to the mainstream. In some cases like today what makes the mainstream popular isn’t always the underground. Today sustainability is a big issue for the environment and much of the mainstream design has focused on becoming sustainable. This specific environmental problem has become popular and we can see how it affects design because now designers are designing for a different world then the past. Jeremy Lehrer discusses in his article, The Sustainability Saga the relationship between the environmental movement and graphic design. Although it is not an underground movement it still was an issue that not many people took seriously at first but now through many products, advertising, and design this issue has become popular by the mainstream. 

Sources: 

Fajardo, José Antonio Sánchez. “Exploring the ‘Shashification’ of Teenage Slang.” English Today, vol. 35, no. 3, Sept. 2019, pp. 49–54.

Lehrer, Jeremy. “The Sustainability Saga.” Print, vol. 67, no. 5, Oct. 2013, pp. 18–20. 

Crane, Diana, and Laura Bovone. “Approaches to Material Culture: The Sociology of Fashion and Clothing.” Poetics, vol. 34, no. 6, 2006, pp. 319–333., doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2006.10.002.