Topic and distopic luxury: A frame for the design and advertising

Abstract

The design —as a generic interface between man and environment—, and advertising —as a particular and dominant mediation between man and the products— can be seen from a systemic and functional point of view, or circumscribe to just instrumental perspective. In the first case a macrosocioeconomic approaching prevail, and a micro-strategic and micro-tactical in the second. The chosen framework, that of the luxury, is a place where the macro functions of both mediators are revealed in a very sensitive way. Both the design and advertising —as one of its specialized forms— can be seen as luxury building techniques. But today also they can be understood in themselves as a luxury, attached to a period with a productive specific system, for whose review, already-urgent, calls have been perceived.