Independent project ✳ neorelics
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CONCEPTUAL DESIGN ✳ RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & VISUALIZATION ✳ ART DIRECTION
London UK, 2020

This study investigates the way that lifestyle marketing is affecting the individual’s idea of what “being” is, how this meaning changes according to the trends and how it contributes to the vicious circle of consumerism in the Western part of the world. Through its research and outcome, this project attempts to critique lifestyle products (products of everyday use that, through capitalism, are intertwined with our everyday lives) by almost mimicking a lifestyle brand.

From a humoristic perspective, this study will examine the possible future traits that consumerist capitalism will leave behind – artifacts that will express the unfortunate legacy that one could say we might inherit to the next generations. Everyday objects have been playing a very significant role in people’s lives and civilization development throughhistory. Simple objects that survive over time, like pots, could help modern generations understand the way their ancestors lived and thought. However, nowadays’ pace of consumption and the plethora of lifestyle items we acquire, seems to be leaving unwanted traces and water-bottle-shaped fossils for the following generations.

The theoretical analysis behind the creation of these objects begun from the inevitable question : “what if we end up selling everything?” . The challenge here was to compare the most intangible idea, philosophy, with objects of everyday use that supposedly represent specific morals and lifestyle rituals. To do that, the research was based on one of the first texts that reffers to lifestyle marketing as an idea, Lucian’s “Sale of Creeds”. The text tells the story of a slave market organized by Zeus, selling some of the most popular Ancient Greek philosophers as slaves, promising to their buyers the chance of a virtuous and happy life if they acted according to specific philosophical directions. Much like todays entepreneurs, the ancient gtreek philosophers are now materialized into products that are promised that their use will serve some purpose, further than the obvious one. Thus, NEORELICS collection was created.

The products were “produced” in digital and physical form , and were accompanied with complimentary illustrations, inspired by tattoo flash sheets and ignorant lifestyle, that attempted to express the worrying issues of the lifestyles promoted.

Each product was also decorated with ironic illustrations with archaic style and contemporary context, expressing the toxicity of some lifestyle choices that are mainly driven by consumer capitalism and the need of the companies to create more forms of products (now called experiences).