Podcast: Download (39.3MB)
Broadcast: 7-8pm, Thursday 12th November.
The speakers were Pedro de Almeida and Marc Halatsis.
Pedro led the discussion:
Corporate culture is suffering. Visual identity and branding are critical subjects to corporate culture, differentiation and competitiveness. Evolving through the incorporation of design and communication strategies within business, as in most of contemporary products, shoe brands reflect such relationship, which is especially evident in sports shoes, or trainers. Despite its increasing popularity as objects of desire, trend setting and identity, trainers show that suffering too.
Far beyond their primarily functionality, trainers have become symbols of corporate and popular culture, evidence of dramatic economical and social changes, but also have become a paradox of uniqueness and redundancy in the present day (unsustainable) industrial practices and consumerism. Considering that they incorporate a great deal of investment in design and communication, as well as in human and material resources, which purposes lay behind such efforts?
Concerning peripheral economies in the globalized world, as it is the case of Portugal in relation to footwear production, this problematic raises the question on how the cultural specific can contribute – rather than being a victim – to the development of alternative responses. What is proposed to discuss here is the role specific cultural identities can play towards cultural diversity and sustainable practices.
The show was hosted by Seph Rodney.
Speaker biographies:
Pedro Carvalho de Almeida (Porto, Portugal, 1972) is a research student at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London. Funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), his research project concerns the articulation of design and curatorial practices in relation to the re-evaluation of iconic Portuguese trademarks from the dictatorship period of the “Estado Novo” (New State, 1933-1974) and to its relevance to the present design context. Among such design heritage, he is particularly interested in the reconstitution of the historical context of the iconic “Sanjo” sports shoes, including its products and imagery. As a former graphic designer he has developed many projects on visual identity. He is an assistant and associate lecturer in Portugal and London.
A first year London Consortium student, Marc Halatsis spent most of his childhood travelling the world before his family settled in Toronto. A reformed sneaker head, he recently underwent the trauma of selling his collection in order to finance his education. He maintains a number of interests outside the shoe game, most only have his obsessive impulse to collect in common.