An interesting area of design I came across when looking into the sphere of advertising which is the focus, in part, of this weeks reading, was the fake commercials made by the Soviets.
I don’t have a lot of time this week due to multiple assignments being due including the Pecha Kucha. It turns out that the Soviet Government required 1% of company earnings to be spent on advertising, meaning sometimes companies would simply make up products for the sake of advertising. This is in stark contrast to that of Berger’s capitalist advertising subject, with the government and companies create adds for products that no one will buy, to create the idea of an abundance of products in a country were it was scarce. Products such as mince chicken and new cars that would never be produced, aimed at the working class which was the vast populous of the USSR. Berger explained in his reading that this class of society needs advertisements on what a product does, rather than the pleasure of having it.
Another interesting aspect of design in relation to this is the growth of Soviet nostalgia in Russia documented and studied by Halvena W, Matveev A and Holak S. They suggest a rebirth in some way of the old Soviet design art and design style. This is useful to me as I am interested in the Soviet style of design, keeping an eye on this rebirth may help influence and inspire my designs in this degree and further on down the track.
References:
Simha R, 2017, ‘Soviet spiel: Why the USSR produced ads for non-existing products’ https://www.rbth.com/blogs/continental_drift/2017/05/18/soviet-spiel-why-ussr-produced-ads-non-existing-products-765399
Halvena W, Matveev A, Holak S, 2007, ‘Nostalgia in post-socialist Russia: Exploring applications to advertising strategy’, Vol 60, no. 6, pp. 649-655, DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2007.06.013 , https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0148296306002311
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