ABSTRACT

Droog Design was an influential conceptual Dutch design company based in Amsterdam, which was established in 1993 by product designer Gijs Bakker and design historian Renny Ramakers. Peter Schreyer of Audi was one of the first to show his face. That new marketing approach coincided with a new focus on the imagery of cars which, as their technology ceased to be their main attraction and more women entered the marketplace, became their key selling point. As cars and products embraced designer-culture in the 1990s, however, fashion – the area that had pioneered the concept of the signature-designer – began to move in a new direction. One of the ways in which designers in the millennial years moved away from materiality was by turning their attention to designing for services, rather than manufacturing industries. In many cases the new approach focused more on the design-input into networks and systems than, as hitherto, on the creation of images, objects and spaces.