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Trendy Kits® is a satirical mock brand that visualizes cultural appropriation.
Designed as a mail-order catalog, it highlights the commodification of cultural practices. The ultimate goal of this project is to take up space and bring notice to an overlooked issue.
Category
Design Research & Editorial
Role
Art Direction, Designer, Researcher, Writer
Tools
Illustrator, Indesign, Photoshop, Figma
Inspired by the early 2000s and anti-design, the overall aesthetic is purposely obnoxious and out of date.
Understanding cultural appropriation sheds light on how outdated and inappropriate past practices were. What might have been accepted twenty years ago is now intolerable, making us cringe in hindsight. This aesthetic elicits a similar felling of unease, cringe, and critical reflection.
Cultural practices are not trends or to be commodified.
Every culture is unique and should be treated as so. When engaging with a new culture, consider yourself a guest in someone's home. Lead with respect, kindness, and sensitivity.
For more in-depth research, check out the resources below:
Cultural Appropriation and Oppression
Love. Appropriation. Music. Baby.: Gwen Stefani and her Harajuku Girls
How Cultural Appropriation Becomes Trendy--and The Real Cost of our Consumerism
“Turning Japanese”: Deconstructive Criticism of White Women, the Western Imagination, and Popular Music