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The term “culture” comes in several forms and has been misused and overused, particularly in the last few decades.

In the business world, the word “corporate culture” is often used to describe an organisation’s shared values and beliefs.
In the media and popular culture, the term “culture” is frequently used to describe societal trends and movements. For example, you might hear phrases like “youth culture,” “pop culture,” or “counterculture”.

However, it is frequently used in a vague or general sense, and the definition can vary greatly between social concepts.

Culture is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, encompassing language, religion, cuisine, social habits, lifestyle, music, and other forms of arts.
What is happening is, that changes inside communities and societies are happening so fast and ruffly that people don’t know what is related to them or not, which infects the meaning of the word “culture”.

Culture is what shapes people’s preferences, thoughts, and ways of thinking within societies. Thinkers, writers, philosophers, and artists have long been at the forefront of culture.
However, since the advent of globalisation and postmodern society, corporations, and brands have taken the lead in shaping popular culture by leveraging influencers and celebrities to shape public opinion and taste.

In France, the different genres of art have been classified by type, they often use numbers to call for a specific art.
The numbering of arts originated in Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics.
Recorded in ‘Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics’, chapter 5: ‘Division of the Subject’ (delivered from 1818 to around 1830).

Here they are :
•the first art: Architecture
•the second art: Sculpture
•the third art: Painting
•the fourth art: Dance
•the fifth art: Music
•the sixth art: Poetry
•the seventh art: Cinema
•the eighth art: Television
•the ninth art: Comic strips
➣We might add Cuisine, Staging, Fashion and other forms of arts to the list, but it might be for another topic.

The term “design” was coined toward the close of the 1800s and gained popularity at the beginning of the 1900s.

Over time, the word’s meaning has consistently evolved.
The question is: How did the term “design” and its meaning come to be used in any creative field?
There were periods of fast scientific and technological discovery during the First and Second Industrial Revolutions. Mass production and standardisation have gradually introduced the term and idea of “design.”

From this point on, a handcrafter transformed into a designer—a creative individual who devotes his expertise to problem-solving, generating visual communication, and developing or producing goods and services primarily for commercial and external purposes.
An artist creates for philosophical, emotional, and personal reasons.

Art and Design share the same fields, genres, and expertise, the only difference is, the reason (why) and purpose, who is creating, and for whom.
Design can be more trendy than art due to its visual communication and economical (selling) purpose.
Also, in the last few years, we can notice at least two trends per year, which makes things a bit complicated to follow.

The difference between art and design lies in the intention and motivation of their creators. While designers seek to solve problems and serve external needs, artists express themselves and explore their vision of the world.

Art is not free and exists for a reason, to reflect faith, intellectual thought, and occasionally a social standing. The more it is used for economic purposes, the shorter it lasts.
Since the Industrial Revolution, the average time for an art movement is 15 ~ 20, and it’s the period that takes to create and educate a new generation.
Since the Victorian and Art Nouveau eras, new art trends have emerged every 15–20 years.
Art, design, and any creative activity carry thoughts, passions, emotions and reasons behind why they have been made and created.
The more truthful and solid thought a creation or design has, the more it lasts in time because time is the only best judge, not the audience.

In the commercial and economic view, branding, and audience size (fame, notoriety, status, and money in other terms) became more important than the work we produce.
So today with social media, everything that an artist or designer creates is called content, and this is killing art, because:
• The viral intention is unsustainable.
• The mass intention is hard to keep because
experimentation is a risk for the audience (losing followers, bad buzz…).
• The creativity in social media is here only to suit an algorithm and stay relevant in the feed.
• The desire to monetise creativity and stay relevant will lead you to a trap that will kill creativity, where only a small minority succeed.

Value is often seen as something that individuals must own, pursue, or create for themselves through their choices, actions, and labour.
Life has no inherent meaning, and individuals must give it meaning through their subjective experiences. From this standpoint, Value is a subjective concept that varies from person to person and culture to culture.
Value has always been tied to labour, in medieval English, the word acre meant the amount of land a yoke of oxen could plough in a day.
But in the modern world, the person who has put a framework around it was Karl Marx in which the value of a product is not based on subjective judgements or market forces but is rooted in the labour expended in its creation. That’s how we ended up with the hourly rate as the value of production.
The labour’s view is that the harder it is for me to do something, the more valuable it should be. An example is something like a logo that is relatively simple to create, but when we see large corporations that pay a lot of money for that logo, they can’t understand this.
So how would you do?
According to the market perspective, individuals value a product or service enough to pay a price that justifies their interest.
People seek medical or business school because they believe that the value of a doctor outweighs the cost of their human capital investment.

If the value of a product is not based on subjective judgements or market forces but is rooted in the labour expended in its creation, then no business would ever go bankrupt after all because value is subjective and customers change their minds on a dime. Especially in the actual market which is influenced by scrolling content on social media, we do often have something trendy today and outdated within the next few weeks.

Value changes because it’s completely subjective and because it’s related to social and cultural movements, and it’s in the heart, taste, mood, and mind of buyers, and it has nothing to do with the effort produced.

In the market view, if you don’t provide value then customers decide which product, service, or even businesses make it or not, you have got to please the customer.

Again, if labour is attached to value, how do we explain luxury goods? Why do Apple and Louis Vuitton, for example, have such command and pricing power, and they can charge five times or ten times more than others and never go on sale?
It’s because they’re focused obsessively on value and the customer experience and that’s what gives them that pricing power.
From this context, an individual’s social or material status is seen as a form of value.

In today’s society, where wealth, material possessions, and social standing are highly valued, a person’s status is considered an indicator of their value within that particular societal framework.
Throughout the entire human history. Money is the only product or idea that is disconnected from labour and trends. It has many controversies, especially when it involves making money from money (usury). As we know, some religions and philosophies believe that money does not contribute to the production of real value.

In our post-modern world, brands are important; they represent a promise, and the price reflects something about how the company perceives itself and its value. The customer feels more winning and successful by getting the value and the status from the brand before getting the actual product or service.

Most highly successful people in their careers, like Steve Jobs, say:

You have to have a lot of passion for what you’re doing, the reason is that it’s so hard that any rational person would give up, and you have to do it over a sustained period.

So if you’re not having fun doing it, you’re going to give up, and that’s what happens to most people. If you look at the ones that ended up being successful and the ones that didn’t in the eyes of society, oftentimes it’s the ones that are successful who loved what they have been doing because they enjoyed their journey and loved what they have been doing, they could persevere when it got tough, and the ones that didn’t enjoy it, they just quit.

Who would want to put up with months and years of fruitless effort and energy, with constant worrying about failing?
Being passionate is the most crucial prerequisite.

The primary motivation of craftsmen is not only to develop and create ideas and projects that they love and enjoy but also to pursue their passion, make a difference, change and contribute value to their particular fields.
In this way, they can withstand hardships and emergencies for an extended period.
Money is a great motivator, but a lack of it in the creation journey makes the experience hard and tasteless, and the idea of swapping fields and projects or the feeling of giving up is the only solution.

Secondly, you need to be well-connected and have a network because, despite your intelligence and talent, you will always need a strong support system and great people.
You also need to learn how to evaluate people properly, quickly and fairly because there are many dishonest, layers and cunning people out there who would like to take advantage, exploit and milk any project or idea as soon as it starts looking promising and profitable.

Finally, you need to be able to make snap decisions even when you don’t know the person or the situation, and you need to be able to trust your gut to help you form strong bonds with others and a good circle because you require people around you.

Communication is the interchange and transmission of information or ideas between persons using a shared system of symbols, signs, visuals, behaviour, or language.

When we talk about communication from a professional view, we are referring to art, design, branding, marketing, and sales.
In these fields, we mainly target and exchange attention first before anything else.
According to the capitalist perspective, attention is a currency supported by creativity that, if it is successful, will convert into money and reputation.

Brainstorming, designing, marketing, promotion, advertising, selling, and customer service are all required while creating and establishing a business idea. All of which are intertwined with communication.

The indicators of success or failure in branding are clear. It’s about how many people believe you. For anyone considering building a brand, the first question must be, “WHY” Why do we need this concept, product, or service? The second inquiry must be “WHAT”: what is the benefit, and is it a solution to any problem? What are the differences and values that we offer? People may offer you their attention, time, and money, as well as a bit of their soul and convictions in exchange for this notion.

If you have strategic answers to these questions, you’ll have a foundation on which to build something meaningful.

The amount of energy necessary, especially when it comes to marketing consistency, is considerable. So we need to locate the proper people who are willing to devote their time and skills to this project, and if we don’t have enough resources to do so, we’ll have to negotiate and find the cheapest solution, which will most likely be a waste of time.

In today’s world of communication and entrepreneurship, many people fall victim to scams because they enter a space filled with both dreams and deceit, unable to distinguish between honest individuals and fraudsters.
The more convincing the lies, the more hope and dreams are offered, making it harder to see the truth. This field, which heavily relies on networking, often prioritises connections over genuine value.
Status and positions have become so dominant that people care less about who you are or the values you bring, and more about whom you know and what they can gain from you.

“Style adapts to trends; identity remains rooted in authenticity.”

As we all know, the more unique we are, the more attention we get, particularly in the world of fashion and clothing, which are dominated by individuals who think differently and don’t belong to a particular style or system.

As Kanye West’s influence on this sector over the past ten and fifteen years has demonstrated, the more marginalised you are, the more distinctive your fashion sense becomes.

Fashion has always taken inspiration from the lower class, we have seen an odd trend in the fashion business that has been influenced by homelessness and an increase in second-hand stores across Europe.

A certain kind of bourgeoisie has always been pushed to shop and dress differently by growing social class inequality and concern for major economic concerns and social challenges. Being socially aware and ready to address significant societal concerns is a trend that the bourgeoisie has taken to appear good and valuable in society across history, and today some brands, have jumped to capitalize on this trend and design collections that draw inspiration from vintage and homelessness.

However, nothing new under the sun.

Throughout history, fashion has always been a reflection of the era, with its mind, and attitude. Also, everything is a cycle, and today, it seems that poverty has become a fashion statement for those who want to be seen as being different and edgy while appearing cool, trendy, liberal, and tolerant.

An excessive pressure to stand out and be unique, we become ordinary people who merely adopt the current trend like everyone else in an attempt to gain acceptance from others.

People are also entering the fashion and clothing industries in larger numbers than before, and I see people printing t-shirts, distressing jeans, and recycling clothes from their garages who have their unique style as the new luxury of fashion.

The Power Of Being Ahead

The ability to see, practice, and get the next wave before it crashes into society is a superpower that some people can have, called avant-gardists who are sometimes ahead of their time and misunderstood.

Every creative profession experiences movements, fads, stylistic shifts, and evolving preferences and practices.

But how do trends happen, and how are they sourced and predicted? Is a trend defined by its newness or influenced by important figures?

As an example, The Pantone Colour Institute,
The Pantone Colour Institute studies colour trends throughout the year in order to decide on the next Pantone Colour of the Year. They take into consideration all aspects of society: fashion, marketing, social media, and even politics. The hue chosen as Colour of the Year has become increasingly influential in the vast world of design and brand marketing. The first Colour of the Year was selected back in 2000, but it wasn’t until 2007 that colour trend forecasting took on a life of its own. Nowadays, when a new colour is announced, Pantone offers colour lovers an array of inspirational products and colour combination palettes designed especially with the corresponding colour in mind. Hundreds of brands take on the task of designing products with the Colour of the Year. This reinforces the importance of how the Pantone colour trend forecast is important and influential.

Studying and analysing people’s, and society’s behaviours and thinking to predict and influence the future taste and style is easy today with social media and big data, which is mainly controlled by big corporations such as Google, TikTok, and Facebook.

So how can a creative person be an avant-gardist?
It is mainly a personal trait and a God’s gift that we need to maintain by following these habits.

•Love and enjoy our passion, money comes next.
•Understand and master our field.
•Bring value and change.
•Knowledge and curiosity “Know something about everything”.
•Expand our thinking.
•Analyze society and people.
•Be out of the box.
•Be mentally strong to criticism and take it positively with analysis.
•Be truthful, fearless and free.
•Appreciate times of struggle.
•Raise our consciousness.
•Be open-minded, and responsible to take action.

Colour is both a physical phenomenon and a psychological experience.
The way we see and interpret colours depends on light, wavelengths, and how the brain processes these signals.
Furthermore, cultural, personal, and contextual factors play a significant role in how colour affects our emotions and behaviours.

Colour is the result of light, a type of energy that travels in waves. When we see colours, we’re seeing specific wavelengths of light that our eyes can detect. This range of visible light called the visible spectrum, is just a tiny part of the larger electromagnetic spectrum, which also includes waves we can’t see, like X-rays or radio waves.

Frequency: Refers to how many waves pass a certain point per second. Higher frequencies (like violet light) have shorter wavelengths, and lower frequencies (like red light) have longer wavelengths.

Wavelength: The distance between two peaks (or troughs) of a light wave. Shorter wavelengths produce colours like violet, while longer wavelengths produce colours like red.

The Physics of Colour

There are two main ways we perceive colour, through additive and subtractive colour mixing.

• Additive Colour Mixing (Light)

This happens when different coloured lights combine. The primary colours of light are red, green, and blue (RGB). When you mix these colours in equal amounts, you get white light. This is how digital screens like TVs, phones, and computers work—by combining red, green, and blue light at different intensities

Example: When you look at a white screen on your phone, it’s not actually “white” light coming from the phone; it’s a mix of red, green, and blue light blending.

• Subtractive Colour Mixing (Pigments)

This occurs when pigments or dyes absorb certain wavelengths of light and reflect others. The primary colours in subtractive mixing are cyan, magenta, and yellow (CMY). When you mix these pigments, they absorb more light, and the resulting colour becomes darker. If you combine all three, they absorb nearly all light, resulting in black. This is the principle behind colour printing.

Example: In a printer, cyan, magenta, and yellow ink are layered to create various colours. When all three are combined, they absorb nearly all visible light, and the paper appears black.

Key Difference: In additive mixing (light), adding all colours produces white, but in subtractive mixing (pigments), adding all colours results in black.

Colour Psychology

Colour psychology explores how colours affect our mood, behaviour, and decision-making. It’s widely used in areas like marketing, design, and therapy, though personal experiences and cultural backgrounds can lead to different interpretations of colours.

Examples:

Red: Often associated with energy, passion, and urgency. It’s used in marketing to grab attention, like in sales signs or “Buy Now” buttons.

Blue: Linked to calmness, trust, and stability. Banks and tech companies often use blue in their logos to convey reliability.

Green: Commonly associated with nature, growth, and health. It’s popular in brands that focus on sustainability or wellness.

Yellow: Can evoke feelings of happiness and warmth, but too much yellow may also cause anxiety. It’s often used in children’s products or casual dining.

While these are common associations, colour perception can vary greatly based on individual experience. For example, while white is often seen as a symbol of purity in Western cultures, it is traditionally worn at funerals in some Asian cultures. Personal experiences also shape how we interpret colours—someone may associate red with danger due to past experiences, even though it’s commonly seen as a colour of excitement.

What copywriting is and how does it work.

Copyright is a legal protection given to the creator of an original work, like a book, movie, song, or software program. It ensures that the creator has exclusive rights over how their work is used, distributed, or copied. Importantly, copyright only protects the specific way an idea is expressed, not the idea itself. For example, while you can’t copyright the general idea of a superhero, you can copyright a particular superhero character, their backstory, costume, and artwork.

Copyright encourages creativity by giving creators a financial reason to develop new works. For instance, an author might spend years writing a novel, and copyright ensures they can control how that novel is sold or adapted into other formats, like movies or audiobooks. Without copyright, anyone could copy and sell their work, making it less attractive for creators to invest time and effort in original creations.

How Do You Get Copyright?

Copyright is automatic when you create an original work.

You don’t have to officially register it to be protected, but it’s a good idea to use a copyright notice, such as the © symbol, along with your name or logo.
Keeping records of when and how you created the work (like drafts or timestamps) can help prove ownership if needed.

Other Protections

Trademarks: These protect words, symbols, or logos that identify a product or service.
For example, Nike’s “swoosh” logo is a trademark.

Trade Dress: This refers to the overall look of a product or its packaging, which helps it stand out.
For example, Coca-Cola’s red cans and Tiffany & Co.’s distinctive blue boxes are protected as trade dress.

While copyright protects the creative content, trademarks and trade dress protect the visual or branding elements of a product or service.

People has adopted a worshiping attitudes and religeious believes toward brands that kept increasing over the years.

A brand name, logo (symbol), and character should be an endless reference point for why it exists. Because the human being has always been drawn to symbols that define his identity and morals that guide his journey. That is how and why religions have always been part of our lives, by using symbols and morals.

Some brand’s marketing has become so powerful that it has infiltrated people’s thoughts and minds, and they are no longer aware of it.

They become to the point where they market and advertise themselves throughout daily life and social media.

What is it about these companies that make people act in such a cultic manner toward them?

Foremost, we need to understand the basics of branding.

Brand’s visual identity:
•Logo — A logo is the anchor of your brand.
•Graphics & Imagery — Can include icons, animations, illustrations…
•Typography — The style and shape of the text.
•Colour palette — Use a colour scheme to make your brand identifiable.

Brand’s personality:
•Audience — The type of clients and customers.
•Purpose — As Simon Sinek said, “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”
•Values — What you stand for.
•Personal trait — A brand needs a personality, character and Attributes also morals to stand for.

In other words:
Logos, Graphics, imageries, and typographies are symbols that represent ideas, quality, or movement.
Purpose values and personal traits are morals that have the standards of good or bad behavior, fairness, honesty, etc…

pleasure vs happness

Throughout history, the pursuit of pleasure has often been the privilege of the wealthy.
From the lavish banquets of the Roman elite to the indulgences of the European bourgeoisie, life built around pleasure was a marker of status and exclusivity.

Epicurean philosophy, which emphasized the pursuit of refined and moderate pleasures to achieve tranquillity (ataraxia), was once a guiding principle for a select few.
However, with the rise of consumerism in the 1960s, pleasure-seeking was no longer reserved for the upper classes—it was democratized.

Mass production, aggressive advertising, and the expansion of credit transformed desire into an economic engine, making luxury and indulgence accessible to the many rather than the few.
But as pleasure became a commodity, did it bring true happiness? Or did the modern world blur the lines between fulfilment and excess, turning consumption into a habit and an addiction?

Let us recall that in the 1960s, we were in an era of high production. Most people in the Western world were actively participating in the creation, innovation, and production of goods and technologies.
Consumption was closely tied to labour and expertise—people largely consumed what they helped create. In other words, the products being developed reflected the skills, knowledge, and efforts of the working population.
This alignment between production and consumption fostered a sense of purpose, as innovation was driven by necessity and progress rather than sheer desire.

As time progressed into the 2000s, globalization fundamentally reshaped the economic system. To maximize profits, most Western companies outsourced production to developing countries, where labour was significantly cheaper. Industries that once thrived in the West—such as textiles, electronics, and even food manufacturing—were relocated overseas. Meanwhile, only highly specialized sectors, like pharmaceuticals, aerospace, and advanced scientific research, remained rooted in Western economies.

This shift led to a dramatic transformation: Western societies became predominantly service-oriented, focusing on finance, technology management, and political administration rather than tangible production. As a result, a growing disconnect emerged between creation and consumption—people no longer produced what they consumed, but instead relied on imported goods manufactured under conditions they neither witnessed nor controlled.

This growing disconnection between goods and the mental and physical participation in their creation has had profound consequences.
In modern consumer culture, creation is no longer the driving force of progress; instead, consumption itself has become the primary goal—fueling economic growth and propelling large corporations to unprecedented levels of power. People are encouraged to consume more and more, with short-term satisfaction replacing meaningful engagement.

This cycle of consumption feeds into a constant need for new desires to be fulfilled, leading to overconsumption. The rise of the internet and social media has further intensified this pattern, accelerating the demand for instant gratification.

At the heart of this issue is the widespread misunderstanding between pleasure and happiness. Consumerism thrives on the promise of pleasure—quick, fleeting rewards that stimulate desire but never provide lasting fulfilment. Buying a new gadget, indulging in fast food, or engaging in social media validation triggers the brain’s dopamine-driven reward system, creating a short-lived sense of enjoyment. However, true happiness is not found in these momentary highs; it is a deeper, more sustainable state of well-being that comes from meaningful connections, purpose, and self-growth. The distinction between these two concepts is critical to understanding why consumerism, despite providing pleasure, often fails to deliver happiness.

This contrast highlights how consumerism, built on the pursuit of pleasure, often leads to dissatisfaction rather than true happiness. In a society where buying more is equated with living better, the real problem remains that consumption offering only fleeting pleasure has been closely linked to depression, emptiness, and a constant sense of lack. The only solution that has been normalized is to work more to buy more, perpetuating the cycle. Even spiritual and mental development has been commodified, with people purchasing courses and online training sessions in search of a sense of fulfilment, further reinforcing the idea that happiness can be bought rather than cultivated.
Consumerism has become an addiction—one that is never truly satisfied. Even those with limited financial means continue to consume as if they are not in need, driven by an insatiable urge for more.
Today, buying has become a reflex rather than a necessity, with fast-fashion giants like Shein and Temu capitalizing on this compulsive behaviour. Much like addiction to alcohol, drugs, or cigarettes, consumerism creates a cycle where people, regardless of their financial situation, always find a way to fund their next purchase in pursuit of fleeting pleasure.

This endless cycle is not about necessity but about chasing dopamine-fueled gratification. The act of buying provides a temporary high, but once it fades, the craving returns—leading to more consumption, more waste, and ultimately, more dissatisfaction. As long as consumer culture equates material goods with happiness, the cycle will persist. The question we must ask ourselves is: how do we break free from this addiction and rediscover a more meaningful way to live?