Designer's work featured at MOMA, New York

New Zealand designer's work featured at MOMA, New York

*Auckland graphic designer Jason Saunders' work is to be featured in a forthcoming exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.*

The exhibition, titled /Standard Deviations: Prototypes, Archetypes, and Families in Contemporary Design/ will launch in New York on 2 March 2011. The exhibition includes an example of work by Jason Saunders, now creative director at Everything Design Limited in Auckland, developing a place brand for the City of Salford in the UK–the very pink Salford street sweeper.

As MOMA's exhibition promotion notes, "Since the late 19th century designers have celebrated the socially uplifting promise of industrial production, believing the true path to modernity lay in standardization. A designer’s job was to conceive a model that could be converted into a working prototype—a blueprint for a series of objects, each identical and manufactured according to exacting rules. Yet it is human nature to crave individuality, and since the 1980s designers have sought to inject “chromosomes” of unique identity into objects produced on an industrial scale".

While digital technology has made the dream of creating families of objects with common traits and distinct behaviors a reality, Saunders says he did not set out to work that way, "Destination branding's not about the objects per say, but I certainly did have the desire to create a unique identity and attitude for the City of Salford," he said, "The Salford brand embraces all the various partners and stakeholders working to improve the image of the city, from the city council and local strategic partnerships, to major players in the city such as The Lowry Hotel and Salford University."

Saunders' Salford street sweeper is certainly a wonderful part of the Salford brand mix. He successfully challenges people’s preconceptions of Salford, reflecting a spirit of self-confidence and optimism through a strong, modern and forward-looking visual treatment. MOMA's inclusion of the Saunders' street sweeper in the exhibition puts the spotlight on a fantastic example of modernist design influencing and enriching every day life.

Saunders, who has also worked on destination branding projects for Liverpool, believes the Salford brand is something New Zealanders might want to take a closer look at, "It's not at all about a logo as so many local destinations seem to believe–the brand strategy for Salford provided an integrated platform for a region-wide approach to positioning and marketing the city to a range of audiences, including investors, corporates, researchers, residents, local and regional government, students and tourists. It's not at all about the logo or an expensive ad campaign, but how the brand could help guide and shape the attitudes and perceptions of all of Salford's stakeholders."

Probably more famous within the international design community than in New Zealand itself, Everything Design is known best for the strength and effectiveness of its brand strategy-related work for the likes of Telecom New Zealand's Chorus brand, DB Breweries, the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation and New Zealand's global technology exporter Endace.

ENDS

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