Design Line: 15 – 21 July
The Women’s World Cup kicks off with a viral ad campaign that uses deepfake technology for good, Sebastian Cox brings his eye for understated detail to Aesop, and theft-proof e-bike brand VanMoof declares bankruptcy in this week’s Design Line.
He shoots, she scores (image: via Orange).
Noble fakery
This week saw the start of the FIFA Women’s World Cup – an event rich in sporting triumph, social significance and, inevitably, shameless corporate brand tie-ins. Yet hats off to Orange, which has partnered with creative agency Marcel on an advert of genuine value. The premise is simple. The ad starts with footage of the French men’s team being, in short, very good at football: goals, skills, roaring crowds. “Only Les Bleus can give us these emotions,” a text reads across the screen, before revealing a sting in the tail: “But that’s not them you’ve just seen.” The ad then rewinds and reveals the deception at its core. Using VFX design techniques, the whole film has been a deepfake: viewers have actually been watching the women’s national team, with their male counterpart’s faces and bodies superimposed onto them. “At Orange, when we support les Bleus, we support les Bleues,” the film ends. Beyond the obvious pleasure in seeing deepfake technology put to uses other than its typical, less salubrious applications, the ad deserves credit for its social messaging. The women’s game is frequently presented as inferior or otherwise secondary to the men’s (explored in depth in ‘Pitch Dreams’ in Design Reviewed #2), so Marcel’s literal reversal of this dynamic is a smart rebuttal to this kind of outdated, sexist thinking. It's rare for Disegno to enjoy brand tie-ins with major sporting or cultural events, but Orange seems to have found the sweet spot. They have produced an ad we can all be proud of.
Brixton says bye to billionaires (image: Adjaye Associates).
Taylor Tower toppled
Another David Adjaye project has been pulled this week, but not because of the architect’s embroilment in a sexual abuse scandal. The much-loathed Taylor Tower, a 20-storey office block approved for the centre of Brixton, London, has been withdrawn from planning after years of community campaigning against it. Hondo, the company that owns most of the land around Brixton market, is run by a man named Taylor McWilliams, a billionaire Texan with a side hustle as a DJ. A grassroots campaign against the 96m-high Taylor Tower began when Hondo served an eviction notice to a beloved local shop, Nour Cash and Carry. After winning their campaign, Save Nour kept lobbying against the tower block, which they highlighted offered no affordable homes in an area where people spend decades on a waiting list for social housing. “We decided to take on this project not because we hated change, or because we really loved low rise neighbourhoods,” said Save Nour. “We are very happy and proud of our collective effort to push back, and happy that this infernal tower has been buried for good.” The planning application was pulled just days before it was due to be heard at City Hall, where the Greater London Authority was due to criticise it on local heritage and failure to re-engage communities. Hondo could have been attempting to avoid embarrassment, but there’s also the fact that demand for office space in London has cratered, with deals in the sector down 40 per cent after hybrid working modes took off in the pandemic and interest rates surge. Still, we’ll take it as good news win for a David vs Goliath situation.
VanMoof bikes its way to bankruptcy (image: VanMoof).
VanOoof
The “most funded e-bike company in the world” is sadly no more, with Dutch company VanMoof having been declared bankrupt by the court of Amsterdam. The brand has been the victim of a post-pandemic slump in bike sales, with hopes of increased rates of cycling dashed by the cost of living crisis, rising rates of theft, and diminished interest in cycling as fear of Covid fell – in such as climate, VanMoof’s multi-thousand pound bikes were always going to struggle, even if it is a dramatic fall from grace for a company that announced record-breaking $128m investment funding in September 2021. While sad for VanMoof’s staff, the closure of a bike brand would not normally be a problem for the majority of existing customers. Yet the functionality of VanMoof’s e-bikes is intimately tied to the brand’s app, with the result being that its existing bikes would essentially be soft-bricked were VanMoof’s servers to go down (the brand has said it will endeavour to keep its bikes “functional and rideable”). Sensing a marketing opportunity, the brand’s rival Cowboy has now stepped forward with Bikey, an iOS app that promises to “save your VanMoof bike key”, providing access to a VanMoof bike’s digital key, as well as basic functionality. Bikey may be a welcome save for VanMoof customers, but also reveals some of the issues of introducing “smart” functionality to familiar products – a vehicle that was once intended to be emancipatory is suddenly intimately tied to the fortunes of corporations.
The Bibby Stockholm will be used to house UK asylum seekers (image: Ashley Smith via Wikimedia Commons).
Barging in
"Luxury living on board, with natural ventilation and wi-fi connection throughout.” It sounds like the brochure for a nice cruise, but in reality it’s PR nonsense for a glorified prison barge the UK government has decided to house asylum seekers in. This week, the Bibby Stockholm docked in Portland, Dorset, to await its first 50 unlucky residents. An engineless barge built in 1976 and converted into accommodation in 1992, the Bibby Stockholm is owned by the Bibby Line, a Liverpool-based maritime company founded by John Bibby, who made his money transporting human cargo in the Atlantic slave trade. It’s previously been used to house the homeless in Germany and detain asylum seekers in the Netherlands, where one detainee died due to inadequate medical care. Hulking, grey and with rooms no larger than a parking bay, the Bibby Stockholm is being touted by the Home Office as a cheaper alternative to placing those seeking asylum in the UK in hotels. Residents will not be allowed to leave the ship and an adjacent secure compound, which sounds an awful lot like a floating prison camp. The barge is also a vulnerable target in a landscape of increasing far right attacks on asylum centres and hotels housing asylum seekers. It’s a monstrosity of a design that should never have been floated as an idea. “There is only a little daylight in the cells,” one asylum seeker kept on the Bibby Stockholm told Amnesty International. “The conditions force you into submission; they kill you psychologically.”
Sebastian Cox creates calming timber apothecary vibes for Aesop (image: Aesop).
A good match
Designer Sebastian Cox seems a good fit for the skincare brand Aesop. Just as the Australian brand’s celebrated packaging design revolves around the clear communication of its products’ constituent ingredients, Cox’s practice has been founded on his interest in and advocacy for the provenance of timber and the responsible harvesting thereof. Little surprise, therefore, that Cox was commissioned by the brand to work on its new Marylebone store in London. While all Aesop stores share a core aesthetic (lovely, plentiful sinks; gentle apothecary vibes) the brand has become known for its design partnerships on individual boutiques, such as director Luca Gudagnino for its Rome store and architect Frida Escobedo in its Brooklyn base. Thankfully, Cox’s work in Marylebone has not let the side down, delivering beautiful cabinetry in limewashed oak stained with linseed oil – simple pieces that are consummately made (despite being, almost certainly, not simple to make), and which place the material front and centre. Cox is not a starry designer with the obvious cultural clout of figures such as Guadagnino or Escobedo, but the clarity and rigour of his work is precisely why he has become an important figure within the field – a designer who speaks passionately and knowledgeably about the way we work with materials, and the impact of the field upon ecosystems. For its latest partnership, Aesop has chosen wisely.
The N100 Spacia X EMU promises a truly glamorous train experience (Hitachi Rail).
Travelling in style
The golden age of train travel, where carriages were designed to be comfortable and opulent rather than purely functional, has long been considered over. So there was delight – and some international envy – this week when Japan unveiled two new six-car trains for the inter-city Tobu Railway service. Called N100 Spacia X EMU, each train can seat 212 people with six seating arrangements to choose from, all created with passenger comfort as the priority. The cockpit suite, which seats up to seven, has been designed to resemble a private jet, with plush sofas and armchairs arranged around a coffee table. In the more communal cockpit lounge, passengers can sit on sofas and armchairs in a carriage designed to echo the Nikko Kanaya Hotel, built in the 1870s and rumoured to be patronised by Frank Lloyd Wright. There are private compartments in car six with banquette style seating, and even the more standard cars have all the mod cons such as premium seats with electric-powered reclining seats and power outlets as standard. Hexagonal windows take inspiration from the bamboo wickerwork of the Edo period, and the onboard hospitality services offers local craft beer and coffee. Built by Hitachi Rail, the trans are reportedly powered by renewables and functionally carbon net zero. It’s the train travel experience of dreams for those of us who have to content ourselves with travelling on the new, but decidedly less plush Elizabeth Line (see ‘A Home Is Not Always A House’ in Design Reviewed #1).