Identity is what uniquely marks a person or an object and also defines its various unique characteristics. This applies both to the corporate identity of a brand and to the characterisation of a person. The latter in turn employs various brands and products to generate and express a (desired) personality. Meanwhile, these traditional identity-generating concepts are enhanced by new digital concepts applied by enterprises – in particular in social networks – to transfer users a partial freedom of design. We extend the thematic focus in this edition beyond the Focus section and report on the identity-creating work of religious female fashion designers and in the Material section on the scope for building brand identity using materials. On top of this, we tell the history of the plastic bag with regard to sustainability, and review the publication “Design Thinking und der neue Geist des Kapitalismus” [Design Thinking and the New Spirit of Capitalism] by Tim Seitz. In the last section of our anniversary series “Revisiting the Past”, we risk a glance into the future and reveal which visions and scenarios are currently being created in design.
