08/10/2022
🦠 In the last few years, graphic designers have found their way into the lab. They’ve taken a look under fancy microscopes and been inspired by all the beautiful E. coli cultures blooming under gel lights. The recent growth in biotech and synthetic biotech companies has proven there is a profit to be made from recent advances in biotechnology. When there is money to be made, shiny branding tends to follow, and so what has emerged is a design trend that centers the biological and microscopic. But what does this new visual aesthetic, which idealizes the microbial, suggest about the growing value of organic life in the blossoming market? Design ecocritic John Kazio investigates, arguing that while it’s hard not to be excited by the potential of these new products and the inventive new look of what he calls the “biobrand,” we must also recognize that capitalism itself is dependent on perpetual growth and resource consumption 🍄 🌺 >> https://aigaeod.co/biobrand
