I talked previously about the growing cultural synergy between art and design  — with the place of the artist starting to be taken by designers whose purpose driven approach seemingly makes them more relevant and directional in our world today. Fashion Design has, of course, always been a cultural compass to steer brand and package design developments in certain sectors such as beauty. But, now, we are witnessing — not just many more fashion design and brand collaborations but — the tables starting to turn with brand and packaging design per se potentially steering new and different directions for fashion.

The start of the really warm weather has inevitably caused a flurry of consumer spending as we all rush to the suncare aisles, the garden centre or the hardware store… Suncare, gardening, DIY are all huge market sectors in their own right but when I (probably with hundreds of others) browsed these aisles at the weekend, I realised that — with a few exceptions — they are largely static ones. And all three have the potential to be so much more by reinventing and developing a new retail positioning and experiential — ‘X’ — factor.

We’re still talking about being ‘good’ and, ergo, wanting to do ‘good’. But what is the definition of goodness? It now seems that the goodness remit is so wide, how do we know if we are really doing good? The design news week on week is full of ‘good’ brand initiatives and campaigns: Coca-Cola’s Replenish Africa Initiative (RAIN) “Water for Schools” and the Avon Foundations donation to the Fund for Global Womens’ Leadership to name just two featured this week…