How this year’s global design winners push back against a homogenised aesthetic

Culture and technology writer Nassia Matsa has written for the likes of Wired, Financial Times and Vanity Fair amongst others. She has incorporated her Grecian heritage into various projects for a variety of platforms: most recently producing a CGI fashion story for Vogue Italia on the mythology of Medusa, and hosting a Boiler Room event in Athens that showcased local talent. Alongside her creative projects, she models full-time and has featured in campaigns for Balenciaga, Dior, Prada and Burberry, and received a nomination for Model of the Year in 2021. Her Instagram account is also a regular fixture in the “best fashion Instagram accounts” by American Vogue.

During the call-for-entries of this year’s awards, Graphic Design Jury President Benny Au warned that “whole world is at risk of sharing a homogenised visual language, dominated by the style emanated from this shared reference bank,” and urged entrants to share their work that felt uniquely informed by the locales that it emerged from. Here, Matsa explores how this call was heeded, and how some of the 2022 D&AD Awards design work incorporates localised cultures, traditions and crafts.

When you think Instagram aesthetics, you might think of millennials and DTCs; you can probably picture the sterile, luxury, monotonous colours, minimal branding and sans-serif typography. Given the moniker “blanding” by one viral Bloomberg article, this aesthetic has been widely adopted from DTC brands to fintech startups. Even scam Instagram accounts are in on the act – free iPhone 15 anyone?

But on the social platforms that have proliferated this homogenising trend for so long, there has been a shift, and a very different aesthetic has emerged. Audiences (led by Gen Z but joined by everyone else soon after) have flocked to platforms like TikTok, where the monotonous, sanitary aesthetics have given way to more frenetic energy. Bold colours and mix-matching typefaces translate the TikTok experience into a more inclusive and colourful experience. Niche trends such as balletcore, cottagecore or the siren gaze emerge, often with a lifespan of a month, or sometimes only a week, find their crowd in the algorithm. Allowing ephemeral trends to thrive also gives room to honour one’s heritage and niche interests. This shift is something that the previously prescribed dominant aesthetic did not permit.

“Visual expression can be influenced by a designer’s cultural and historical past, totems passed down from generation to generation,” said Benny Au, Founder and Design Director of Amazing Design, in his D&AD piece. He was calling for designers to reject the same-ification of design via a shared moodboard (Instagram), and instead take inspiration in their unique locales. Many of the works awarded this year seem to demonstrate the call was heeded.

This year’s design and typography work created a contemporary lens on heritage traditions and unique global references: the Kenyan Lesso Lessons' PSO campaign was inspired by traditional fabrics; Brazilian studio Tatil Design’s typography for the Rio Carnival captured the vibe of movement and colours of the famed event; Ogilvy New York’s Typography and Graphic Design for the NYPhil linked its new stage to New York City infrastructure; and Odd Bleat’s Greek mythological creatures for Tsipourman spirits drew on ancient narratives that tie the brand to its place of origin. These varied works demonstrate how designers are finding ways to refresh the design landscape by bringing in distinctly local reference points.

Borja Garmendia, designer at Pensando en Blanco, developed the paging design for Graphite Pencil winning The Real Organic Pistacho. It drew inspiration from Spanish agriculture branding. Garmendia says, “That is what defines us as people, our personality, built from education and culture. I always liken it to brands. I believe that brands must go through the same phase of learning and life experience as people”.

One studio that developed a brand into its next phase of life was Japanese studio KIGI. They were responsible for the Japanese watercolour-inspired packaging design for the relaunch of well-loved Japanese skincare-brand RAFRA. Art Director Ryosuke Uehara says that looking to natural references, such as the orange tree, enabled them to communicate a point of difference in the product, which put “this cosmetic brand in just the right balance, neither too chemical nor too focused on organic,” while pushing the envelope of packaging design. For him, a commitment to good design goes well beyond aesthetics: “While differentiation from other products is one thing, the most important thing is new ways of thinking, new commercial materials and social roles, and expressing them in an appropriate balance in order to expand the potential of the product.”

It’s precisely these new paths that open up when looking beyond a narrow set of homogenised references. Yusef Sabry is the Egyptian illustrator behind Acne Paper’s Age of Aquarius publication. In an interview with D&AD for the 2022 Annual, he explains that often creatives working in that region have compared themselves to the West, but there is a highly creative community producing work to pay attention to. “Ever since the revolution in 2011, there’s been a lot of raw power and energy; we’re just trying to do our best and support each other,” he says. “I’m actually one of the very lucky few Egyptians who has been able to be recognised on an international scale because of this [Acne Paper] opportunity”.

Also picking up a pencil (Graphite, for Packaging Design), Music Moon is a gift box with a design that responded to the isolation of lockdowns with a gift for the Mid-Autumn Festival (also known as the Moon Festival). The design references Chinese culture, where the circle symbolises beauty and reunion. ZiChao Yu, Art Director at Shan Tian Tu, the design studio behind Music Moon explained that, “having a unique language and expression can make the product and brand life-cycle longer and go further.”

When we pressed these creatives on how they develop these strong visual identities, they all referenced the triptych of honesty, understanding one’s culture, and technology. As ZiChao says, it is important to “understand and apply new technologies and materials – this will differentiate your products from outdated products.”

The essence of the new heritage-inspired aesthetics that are surfacing in this year’s awards, have knocked the “blanding” off our collective moodboards. Even if not directly attributed to shifts in social media habits, it has allowed designers to not “be too precious with anything” – to borrow Yusef Sabry’s words. This means we have more room to play, experiment, and paradoxically show the more serious side of our style, by celebrating and honouring our culture.