Mixed Emotions
I have mixed emotions about about a couple of "innovations" that I just read about on a trendwatching site.
According to the trend site, Starbucks is trying to build upon the history of coffee shops, as centers of arts and entertainmant and then combining it with a pop-up retail concept. It is a good idea, and good for them for continuing to innovate when they are so popular they could run for president. And, it seems like a natural extension of the music-oriented efforts they have already made (e.g. Starbucks CDs). But for some reason, the initiative just reeks of inauthenticity to me...salons feel local and homegrown, and Starbucks is inherently the opposite of that. It just feels like a marketing ploy.
Unto This Last is a furniture shop in the UK that uses a 3D modelling software to design and produce "innovative" yet inexpensive furniture that can be made to order within a week. According to the related blurb on the Springwise trend site, "The company's name was taken from John Ruskin's 1860 book advocating a return to the local craftsman workshop."
While all of the furniture is made locally, and it does reflect design more innovative than your average cheapy furniture, it is not made by hand. So what I can't figure out is how the store could consider itself to be a craftsman's workshop. Isn't "craft" associates with hand-made, slow-made and attention to detail? And how innovative is this furniture going to seem when every week more and more of your friends have pretty much the same designs? Don't get me wrong, this kind of thing serves a certain kind of consumer at a certain point in their lives (e.g. post-graduates in their early 20s with a new apt, no $, and no furniture to call their own). But to call it craftsmanship is to demean the art, time and attention-to-detail put in by all the designers and craftsman who are still out there. I feel that this is yet another instance of "you can't have your cake and eat it too." I believe that Diet Coke falls into this camp as well, but I may be the only one. Just wait until people start growing 3 heads from eating too much artificial sweetener and then we'll see who is laughing last.
According to the trend site, Starbucks is trying to build upon the history of coffee shops, as centers of arts and entertainmant and then combining it with a pop-up retail concept. It is a good idea, and good for them for continuing to innovate when they are so popular they could run for president. And, it seems like a natural extension of the music-oriented efforts they have already made (e.g. Starbucks CDs). But for some reason, the initiative just reeks of inauthenticity to me...salons feel local and homegrown, and Starbucks is inherently the opposite of that. It just feels like a marketing ploy.
Unto This Last is a furniture shop in the UK that uses a 3D modelling software to design and produce "innovative" yet inexpensive furniture that can be made to order within a week. According to the related blurb on the Springwise trend site, "The company's name was taken from John Ruskin's 1860 book advocating a return to the local craftsman workshop."
While all of the furniture is made locally, and it does reflect design more innovative than your average cheapy furniture, it is not made by hand. So what I can't figure out is how the store could consider itself to be a craftsman's workshop. Isn't "craft" associates with hand-made, slow-made and attention to detail? And how innovative is this furniture going to seem when every week more and more of your friends have pretty much the same designs? Don't get me wrong, this kind of thing serves a certain kind of consumer at a certain point in their lives (e.g. post-graduates in their early 20s with a new apt, no $, and no furniture to call their own). But to call it craftsmanship is to demean the art, time and attention-to-detail put in by all the designers and craftsman who are still out there. I feel that this is yet another instance of "you can't have your cake and eat it too." I believe that Diet Coke falls into this camp as well, but I may be the only one. Just wait until people start growing 3 heads from eating too much artificial sweetener and then we'll see who is laughing last.
posted by ap at 1:01 PM
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