The interactive report is a culmination of
industry and cultural research with participation from hundreds of
designers from around the world
NEW
YORK, Sept. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --
Wix (Nasdaq: WIX), a leading global SaaS platform to create,
manage and grow an online presence, via the Wix Playground, the
company's web design initiative, commissioned Brooklyn-based design agency PORTO ROCHA, who worked in collaboration with
research analysis hub float, to release Design Threads: a
digital report and exhibition. The report explores the state of
design through conversations with 30 design leaders and 250
responses from the design community. Both the digital report and
physical exhibition address some of the most urgent questions and
shared feelings among designers today.
Weaving together interview and survey responses, cultural
research, visual content (image submissions, memes, video), and
live interactive elements, Design Threads is available to the
public as a web-based digital report — for designers, by designers.
The report is organized into four different threads, each dedicated
to a theme that came up frequently across the collaborative
research process.*
With the goal of considering urgent questions and prompting
further dialogue, the report starts to unpack some of the realities
of being a designer today: from unlearning the canon to the
"moodboard effect," infographic activism to coping with
info-overload, AI-insecurity to the future of democratization.
Instead of providing easy answers, Design Threads serves as an
invitation to start unraveling some of the field's most urgent
questions together: What is good design? Who gets to
decide? How are designers feeling right now? Are we tasked with too
much? Are we doing enough? How is our role changing? Where does
design go from here?
*The research process included live interviews with 30 designers
(primarily working in graphic design, 3D, art direction, web
design, branding, and advertising, among others), and 250 responses
from the design community gathered through an open and anonymous
online survey.
Interviews were conducted with both emerging and established
designers working today, among them: Bráulio Amado, Veronica Fuerte, Shamma Buhazza, Ohni Lisle,
Leandro Assis, Brian Collins, Iyo Bisseck, Khyati Trehan, Elizabeth
Goodspeed and Michael
Bierut.
The full report can be found here.
"As a design-first tech company, the Wix Playground is proud to
commission research that sheds light on the topics designers today
are facing," said Hagit Kaufman, VP
of Design at Wix. "It is essential for us to stay up to date on the
social and cultural changes affecting the industry, particularly
from the perspective of designers. We chose to work with
PORTO ROCHA because their vanguard
approach to design has an influence in current shifting trends. In
this report, we see that creatives today are facing a historical
crossroad, and their actions will shape the future of the industry.
Through our activities at the Wix Playground, we will continue to
strengthen our relationship with the design community and promote
unique initiatives that support the personal and professional
development of the next generation of designers."
"There are a few reasons why Design Threads was made," says
Felipe Rocha, co-founder and
Creative Director of PORTO ROCHA.
"First, design reports are rare, and when they do come out, they
are often surface-level: visual trends, Pantone color of the year,
and so on. We wanted our report to go deeper than that — an
open-source resource, by designers for designers. From new
technologies to ways of working, so much has changed that it felt
like a good time for pause and reflection. We were curious to hear
what other designers had to say, what was on their minds and how
they actually felt about the state of the industry. We interviewed
several experts and gathered hundreds of responses from designers
around the world. Critical and urgent questions came up, and it
became clear to us that these conversations need to happen more
often."
"I think the most challenging aspect of this report is also what
makes it compelling: that it sits with its own contradictions,"
says Claren Walker, Associate
Strategist at PORTO ROCHA. "A lot
of trend reporting results in definitive predictions or clean
diagnostics, but our approach in this project was more about
staying with the messiness of our moment. It's obvious that the
questions designers are grappling with right now don't have simple
answers. So rather than focusing on resolutions, Design Threads
starts to surface how a lot of different designers are thinking and
feeling about their field — in relation to each other and this knot
of issues that we're all faced with. Less diagnosis, more group
temperature check."
"Design Threads is about reshaping the role of designers and, as
an interviewee puts it, what they have to offer in a world on
fire," says André Alves, co-founder of float. "At float, we're
deeply invested in uncovering behavioral and cultural shifts. We do
this through questions that are simple and are often rarely asked.
When we decided to investigate the design community with
PORTO ROCHA and Wix Playground, we
felt it was essential to understand what seems urgent to ask of
Design today. And we found out that if the relationship with work
feels broken to many of us, designers feel at the epicenter of
uncertainty. Many feel overwhelmed and burned out, while others
even question themselves about the meaning of being a designer in
the turbulent 2020s. But above all, several designers are asking
where their work field is going—and what are the new paths
forward."
Opening at the Wix Playground in New
York City on September 16th,
the exhibition brings some of the Design Threads themes to life,
encouraging both the design community and the public to interact
with the research through more experimental and immersive formats.
Like the digital report, the exhibition aims to prompt dialogue
around some of the big questions facing the design industry today,
provoking both thought and play.
The exhibition is open to the public:
September 21-23 & 28-30, 2022
11:00 AM - 4:00 PM
100 Gansevoort St, New York, NY
10014, USA
About Wix Playground
Wix Playground is an initiative by the Wix Design guild, an
in-house design studio of over 300 designers from 14 disciplines,
the Wix Design Studio is firmly at the forefront of design,
technology, and innovation. The collective knowledge and experience
of our team have inspired us to create the Wix Playground to
strengthen our relationship with the creative community and support
them in their early careers.
About PORTO ROCHA
PORTO ROCHA is a
New York-based design and branding
agency developing creative and strategic work that engages deeply
with the world we live in.
About Float
Float is a strategy and cultural analysis hub that combines
innovation and research methodologies to uncover the cultural
shifts that matter most.
CONTACTS
PR@wix.com
Annie Carmichael
annie@portorocha.com
André Alves
andre@youfloat.co
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