Uses of Economic Rhetoric – Told by Designers, Represented by Economic Press

The design discipline is constantly moving and reshaping itself. As the practices are often new and still evolving, the professionals in the field need to position their own activities to the context in which they are practiced (Valtonen, 2007). In the case of industrial design, the practice is conducted and increasingly discussed in the realm of the economic world. When issues such as global competitiveness or companies’ competitive advantages are discussed, design is often seen as a mean to improve business. This is the case especially where(onko tämä where ok?) competing on merely price or technological advantage becomes increasingly difficult. This paper shows how the designers present industrial design as an economically viable action and how the economic press represents industrial design in the context of economy. Keywords: Economic Rhetoric; Industrial Design; Interviews; Media; Rhetorical Analysis</p

Tutkimus eteläsuomalaisen siitepölyn vaikutuksesta männyn siemenen kehitykseen Pohjois-Suomen siemenviljelyksessä

1971-1979

Kitsch Happens. On the Kitsch Experience of Nature (Hommage à Tomáš Kulka)

In Kitsch and Art Tomáš Kulka notes that natural landscapes cannot be called kitsch. Kitsch needs to be produced by a human being, he says. I agree with that. Experience-wise it is more complicated, though. Sometimes kitsch affects our experience of landscapes. It is not just that our overwhelming culture of images affects how we see nature, but that also sugared, sentimental and stereotypical kitsch images of nature, that we see in postcards and social media, affect our experience of e.g. sunsets and picturesque landscapes. We might desire to fight back, but at least we need to understand and to some extent accept our situation. Kitsch is in our experience even when there is no kitsch around, and our experiences of nature prove that

Learning from Venice

What role does arrival play in our aesthetic interaction with a city? Traveling to Venice drastically changed following the building of the railway. The way the city was perceived was wholly altered. The faade of Venice moved from the harbor to the railway station, without any changes being made to the city itself or its architecture. How did this change Venice and how did it change visiting it, and what can we learn from this case

Highbrow Somaesthetics of Sex

Shusterman, R. (2021) Ars Erotica: Sex and Somaesthetics in the Classical Arts of Love. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107004764

The painter Meri Genetz and the endless quest for spiritual wisdom

Meri Genetz (1885–1943) was a Finnish painter, esotericist, and a spiritual seeker. Around 1925, she began truly dedicating herself to spiritual seeking and started to make notes of her studies in black notebooks. This article will go through four of those notebooks which today offer a vivid picture of Genetz’s seeking between the years 1925 and 1943. In the beginning, Genetz acquainted herself with Gnosticism, Theosophy, and Kabbalah, as well as the works of Christian mystics, such as Emanuel Swedenborg and Jakob Böhme, the writings of, for example, Paracelsus, and texts attributed to the mythic figure Hermes Trismegistus. Gradually Genetz started to outline her own views, ideas, and theories regarding higher truth and spiritual wisdom. In the beginning of the 1930s her main quest came to be to find her ‘other half’ and become whole. She started attending Spiritualist séances, where she would ask about her other half and discuss the state of her soul, the souls of others, her art and marriage, and the books she had read. In time, Genetz’s quest for true wisdom and self-fulfilment became more and more restless and impatient. When she died in 1943, she was still seeking

Nobrow

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Retaining existing brand equity when refreshing global corporate brands : Case Nokia

Global corporate brands and the research on them has increased recently, as a growing number of companies are eager to differentiate themselves in the increasingly competitive markets. Through strategic brand management, corporations can grow brand equity and make their global corporate brand a valuable asset for the business. As brands and their context are constantly evolving, brand management strategies must adjust accordingly. Research has proven, that brand refresh is an effective way to respond to the dynamism of the brand and its environment by retaining existing brand equity while simultaneously bringing in new sources of value for the brand. However, there is a lack of knowledge on what kind of tactics go into brand refresh projects to retain existing equity while also building new sources of it. Therefore, this thesis investigates how global corporate brands can retain existing brand equity in a brand refresh. This study was conducted as a qualitative case study through an interpretive approach. Already existing knowledge revealed through an extensive literature review was consolidated with evidence from the case of brand refresh of a global corporate brand, Nokia, in 2023. For data triangulation, data from semi-structured expert interviews was combined with secondary data gathered from documents. The empirical data from the interviews was analysed through thematic analysis, whereas content analysis was the method of choice for the data collected from the documents. Empirical findings were combined with the theoretical framework to provide both, theoretical and practical implications on the research subject. This study has confirmed that global corporate brands are dynamic and evolve over time, and that their equity is built through two components – brand image and brand awareness. This study has demonstrated, that to retain existing brand equity and to reposition itself simultaneously, a global corporate brand should be tuned up with new sources of value while concurrently demonstrating also the already existing sources of equity in the brand experience. The selected launch strategy and the scope of change in the brand refresh have proven to impact the perceived magnitude of change in both the brand and the organization behind it. Additionally, this study has confirmed the interrelatedness of brand refresh projects to wider corporate strategies