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Design today is more complex, dynamic and responsive than ever before. In many respects, Modern Design in 2022 is as it's always been: bringing beauty and solving problems in equal measure. For the most part, design done well creates a fundamental transformation of a brand’s impact. So, what is Modern Design and how does it reflect the needs of contemporary society, business and brands?

Tim Greenhalgh Chief Creative Officer

Destroy ordinary: the dynamics of Modern Design

LIGHT

Steve Jobs famously said 'Design is not just what it looks like and what it feels like. Design is how it works'. This was his insight almost 20 years ago at a time the iPod was being recognised as a cultural phenomenon. Beautiful to look at, this head turning device evoked the wonderful clean lines of Dieter Rams; his 'less but better' doctrine brought to the masses a product that also worked seamlessly, sparking the imagination of so many by delivering “1000 songs in your pocket”. And so form does follow function. 
 
But much has changed since this famous keynote presentation – design today is more complex, dynamic and responsive than ever before. In many respects, Modern Design in 2022 is as it's always been: bringing beauty and solving problems in equal measure. For the most part, design done well creates a fundamental transformation of a brand’s impact (relevance) and the visceral response and preference of the target audience (difference). 
 
So, what is Modern Design and how does it reflect the needs of contemporary society, business and brands?

Design has always been an expression of the zeitgeist as well as a progressive and innovative vision of the future. To achieve this, the best design must be human centric; recognising the needs of society at large, whilst understanding the individual in detailed and empathetic ways. 

Modern design must also manage many paradoxes - we expect reassurance and excitement, familiarity and surprise, resonance and magic - from big ideas that capture the collective mood, to the small details that can sometimes go unnoticed but make a huge difference to our lives. 
In this respect, we all respond to the function and emotion of modern design. 
The function of design - intentional and purposeful '...by design' 
The emotion of design - makes you respond and react '...because of design'

Human centricity and managing paradox

Our world has been transformed by technology, and as such we are visually, verbally and audibly exposed to more and more design and interactions each day - if we are not careful this can be exhausting and chaotic. As new touch points and channels become available this creates a heightened expectation of how a brand and a design shows up. 
Whereas before we stood back and admired well-designed brands, we now expect to lean in and interact; from swiping a screen to customising our product choices. We want to be more involved and influential, and we hope the design is responsive enough to satiate this desire. We increasingly expect brands to be innovative. As such, the design of brands can no longer be rigid and fixed.

A new landscape

The landscape in which they exist is constantly morphing and so must the design of the brand. This has been brought into sharp relief by the emergence of tech-savvy Gen Z and the emerging attitudes of Gen Alpha, who use brands and technology to navigate in the physical and virtual worlds. 
As brands move towards a more organic and dynamic existence powered by major shifts in technology, society and the natural world, this more fluid state presents real challenges and opportunities for the future of Modern Design…and its delivery.

<a href="https://www.xcubelabs.com/blog/dall-e-and-clip-how-open-ais-new-models-are-defining-the-future-of-ai-yet-again/" target="_blank">A baby daikon radish</a>in a tutu walking a dog – this sentence will make perfect sense to some, but to others they will think the author has gone mad. But it is reflective of the times we live in: Artificial intelligence and specifically GPT-3 provides the ability to translate the spoken or written word into an image. If you can think it or say it, it can now be created. Think about this for a minute. The power of brand ideas is as important as never before, as is their dynamic delivery and realisation. 
 
Inspiration and amplification
 
Design has always been driven by a response to the current source of influence and inspiration, alongside the available means of production or amplification.

If your life was dominated by a need to hunt and eat, and your only means of production was a stick of charred wood and natural dyes, then as a designer you would be the master of descriptive cave paintings. If you were living in the age of industrialisation, where the machine and the factory was all around you and your available means of production was industrial printing and graphic production, you could easily understand the growth of the Bauhaus movement, spawning furniture design, new expressive typefaces and colour and materials previously not provided by the natural world. 

Today, our source of inspiration and influence is the abundance of - and thirst for - data, alongside a global awareness of our earth’s fragility and society’s inequalities. Match this to the increasing availability and expectation of amplification and production from AR/VR and CGI to the expectation that brands must utilise motion, sonic and total sensorial experiences to keep up and bring their purpose to life. So, whilst design has always looked to simplify and to reduce - less is more (Mies Van der Rohe) - the current variety of inspiration and amplification available to Modern Design and brands requires a distinct skillset that can orchestrate and manage such a dynamic and complex creative landscape. 
 'Help me understand the context in which the design and my brand exists' 
'Ensure my brand stands distinct and proud in a crowded and complex world' 
These thoughts lead us to the heart of the matter – Modern Design in this complex world still has to walk the line of what it looks like and how it works in the service to the brands it serves.

Which leads us to some key Modern Design questions to consider: 
•	How does your brand need to work for the world today? 
•	Is your brand versatile enough to accommodate all future touchpoints and mediums? 
•	Which elements of your brand should you retire, elevate and invest in? 
And that is where we can help. The Landor & Fitch Versatility Map is a new framework for Modern Design. Versatile brands optimise and leverage a robust set of assets across a multi-medium and real-life universe. This helps today’s brands not only to build global coherence and local relevance, but to be part of the culture, tell stories and live their purpose.