We are often looking out for design-related editorial content so when we came across the portfolio of newly graduated Dunedin-based graphic designer Philippa Cawthorn we thought her website and portfolio so impressive we decided to give her a spot on the homepage. She mixes up her content with her own projects with those from her student work to really good effect and hopefully she speaks to all of you budding designers out there. We wish her all the best in finding employment. You can check out her website on www.pipprod.hostiz.com and download her portfolio as a pdf. We are often looking out for design-related editorial content so when we came across the portfolio of newly graduated Dunedin-based graphic designer Philippa Cawthorn we thought her website and portfolio so impressive we decided to give her a spot on the homepage. She mixes up her content with her own projects with those from her student work to really good effect and hopefully she speaks to all of you budding designers out there. We wish her all the best in finding employment. You can check out her website on www.pipprod.hostiz.com and download her portfolio as a pdf.We also decided to publish a short essay she has written on Commodity Culture.

As Common as a Commodity by Philippa Cawthorn

"The commodity is, first of all, an external object, a thing which through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind. The nature of these needs, whether they arise for example from the stomach or the imagination makes no difference." (Friedberg, A. 1993)

From the gaze of the consumer, prominent and popular object can become so commonplace, that designers and marketers constantly fear the fact they are too familiar. Graphic designers are then employed to reposition a design, for example the latest Coca Cola design as featured in figure one.

A commodity as popular as Coca Cola, who is competing in the contemporary urban culture is competing not only with its product but with its look, image and feelings. In Anne Friedberg's interpretation of ideas manifested in Karl Marx's Das Kapital, Friedberg states "Its 'fetish character' is based on an intangible attribute: the market-value of the desires it offers to satisfy." Coke does this by promising an intangible, free and youthful lifestyle that it projects through its designs, advertisements and along with its constant depictions reinforcing its historical value and nostalgia. Coca Cola uses this to its advantage against the consumers.

This packaging was redesigned with the aim to further intensify feelings of nostalgia, identification, lifestyle and reliability, none of which can be directly reflected in the Cola flavoured soda itself. The drink is invisible in comparison with its constant repositioning, updating and renewal of the 'Coca Cola image'. It can be related to a famous statement of Karl Marx, "Spell of the personality, the phoney spell of a commodity." This blatantly identifies the style of Coca Cola's marketing, where the 'look' of this product is taking over the seeming invisible commodity of the drink itself.

Coca Cola's idealistic representation of 'lifestyle' embodies a youthful sense of freedom and carefree attitude. It is ironic that this can also be found in America's governmental propaganda dating back to the cold war and throughout the ideals enshrined in the artworks of Jackson Pollock. Consider this 'lifestyle' in direct contrast with the communist- regime in Russia. Coca Cola's marketing and designs are endeavouring desperately to portray this idealistic 'American dream like' lifestyle when really drinking Coke is similar to the ideas behind the 'Panopticon', about being viewed, being watched and image, on which consumerism is based. Coke depicts you must drink the right drink (Coke) to achieve this 'lifestyle'. This is a mental symbolism of capitalist control therefore, resulting in a form of oppression. So really, is consuming these commonplace commodities healthy for society as a whole?

Competing in this urban market Coca Cola's designs have a constant need for renewal, this is imperative in today's fast-pace, intelligent consumers ('ironic shoppers' who are knowing and conscious shoppers in the views of Rob Shields) and in a marketplace flushed with competition and choice. Even with Coca Cola's 'quasi-scientific' interpretations of their target market and contemporary society this would be no easy task and it could be said Coke often succeeds when thinking of its long history of sales success. Fredric Jameson analyses this sense of 'mapping in the market place' in relation to the constant flux of the city, he explains "the practice of cognitive mapping, or the 'mental map' of the city space that shapes each inhabitants personal relationship to urban totality, becomes increasingly difficult to maintain with the expansion, alienation and constant flux of the contemporary city." This brings about Coca Cola's need for self individuation. George Simmel suggests in relation to the city "The sheer proximity and density of individuals in the metropolis, necessitates an increased need for self individuation." Clearly in this latest Coca Cola design the fact that their self-admittedly main reinforcement of the old contoured glass bottle proves their desperate grasp at nostalgia as a way of individuism. I agree with Jeffrey Keedy as he rightly addresses, "The problem with nostalgic vernacular is that it steals from the past to deny the future" Even though its Coke's own nostalgia they are reproducing I find this to be a weakness in the creativeness of the company, an inability to keep up with today's culture.

Coke, in the analytical understandings of a commodity is nothing but a lie.

The 'need' for commodities I resolve to be a weakness in persona of society when dealing with materialistic commodities, the need to walk the walk and talk the talk, a psychological need to be one of the flock of what's hot and not what's not. For example in the food and beverage market MSG has been introduced into the knowledge of the learned in many food producers, I am suggesting a similar mental addictive but conditioned response in the needing of materialistic commodities in society today. Perhaps too much trust is given to the companies behind these common-place, popular commodities, or as consumers we are simply being too gullible in our shopping choices, it could even be reduced to 'shopping laziness'. I hope as knowledgeable shoppers of society today we can look beyond the packaging.