Aaaaahh... Maslow my old friend.... a cornerstone of my A level communications course, and here we meet again! but this time his theory has been applied revamped and updated to reflect digital practice. This week we read and researched the Hierarchy of Needs pyramid: physical needs, safety & security, love & attention, esteem, self actualisation. How can brands build this into their marketing plans and ensure that their brand survives the noise of all the others. A few brands actually achieve the self actualisation (how long that stays could be debatable) my thoughts turned to Apple. Maslow's pyramid allows for 'Enlightened capitalism' desire, needs and wants all catered for along with a spiritual dimension of a force of collective good, and good design being desirable and clearly uplifting...
I felt that perhaps using Maslow's pyramid relies on your own psychology in order that it is successful, your past, shapes your views or what is spiritual or not. Self esteem cannot be won by a brand by those who perhaps have not had a nurturing start (or can they?) does purchasing the item/product buys you self actualisation - perhaps the premise that Apple uses to sell so much stuff.
The Design Hierarchy of needs speaks to functionality, reliability, usability, proficiency, creativity. All of which leads me to finding out more about the role that designers play in the needs of the products/programmes/visuals we design. I found the reading about UX designers and UI designers, brought clarity to my existing work. I have seen these terms bounded about and as a design lead for my clients, I found it easy to align my skills with UX researching and UI designer (I immediately changed my Linkedin profile to state this!) positive action!
I made a start on applying the hierarchy to a live project I am working on and it through up some interesting ideas. Its a character design for emotional needs, after reviewing Maslow's theory (I decided to go with that as the project is related to emotions). I found that it lead me to look at faces and icons and then the history of the Emoji! So I am going to look into 'Mindful Design' and the 'iconic abstraction scale.