Benz and a Backpack

*Dutch Master Design is a design collective loosely based in NYC and is currently aiding us in front and back-end web development and brand extension.  For inquires, please contact inquiries {at} dutchmasterdesign.com

For college age kids today, the age of information dawned upon us around the 5th grade. Windows 95, dial-up connections, and AOL Instant Messenger changed the way we socialized after school and collaborated on homework.  As we grew, so did the internet, and we gradually graduated to broadband connections, Sidekicks sporting AIM, and social networks like Live Journal and Xanga.  Things have simplified over the past few years, as Apple and Facebook products encompass the instant accessibility we dreamed of in middle school. Struggling through the growth of the internet through childhood gifted us with a unique appreciation of the power of technology older generations don’t quite understand and younger ones will inevitably take for granted. Most importantly, we realize that the age of information is actually the age of ideas, of vision, a historical turning-point that has afforded us infinite opportunity to sculpt the culture and commerce of tomorrow.

Dutch Master Design is a web development and design startup that hopes to capitalize on their vision.  Started by current students and recent grads Shoma Nishikawa (Brown), John Verdery (RISD), and Cristin Joshua (RISD), this collective provides front and back-end web development and branding services.  Given the low entry barrier web related firms face, young entrepreneurs who hope to solve the residual problems left behind by established social, commercial, and government institutions have the chance to execute. Nishikawa explains how problem solving and brand creation are inextricably linked:

In this day and age, I think the best way to go about starting a company or brand is to make sure that you’re truly addressing something.  The design and media industries are starting to widen their scopes.  Every clothing brand is also a blog/record label/weekly party in Williamsburg.  This is the norm and while I don’t think it’s a necessarily bad thing, I think its important to have a solid brand foundation before extending yourself in that way. There needs to be a core to everything you do that can explain why you decided to do it. And I think the best kind of core ideology you can have is one that is an answer to a question – just as it is in design.  Because brands have the ability to horizontally extend themselves to great degrees nowadays, I think the questions are getting broader and more cultural (more philosophical even). Whereas before you could start a brand that answered questions like “how do you make a skate shoe company that is stylish enough to be worn by non skaters”, nowadays you have to answer questions like “how do you create a brand that combines the edginess of skateboard culture with haute fashion?”

The transparency the internet provides has grounded the influence and credibility of entire governments and corporations, while blogs and Twitter feeds are able to bring underground and niche trends to the mainstream with ease.  This equalizing power creates a tension between the gate keepers of culture that institutions like MTV and Rolling Stone once were, and the grassroots efforts of users committed to informing and taste making on their own.  It creates an opportunity for people to pick and choose, and ultimately become individuals. In the next ten years, Verdery predicts:

More and more people will end up having their own websites versus having a Facebook or Myspace. which will open more doors for businesses offering easy ways to create web pages.  Clothing/footwear/accessory companies will look to make very well made items to be sold at a higher price point but will market the idea of only owning 1 (few) of those items, an investment in well made quality/hand made goods that last longer.  American made goods will become trendy.

Radio stations that play the same songs on repeat, apparel companies that unfairly outsource work, partisan news coverage; although these problems still exist today, the ability to plug in elsewhere is ushering (if not forcing) “old-media” institutions to keep up with the quality and versatility of “new media” start-ups.  Think Viacom vs. Youtube, FM Radio vs. Pandora, or the U.S. government vs. Wikileaks. Established institutions cannot rest on their laurels, but must find a way to innovate at the speed of small teams of hungry youngsters who are capable of thinking big but fixated on solving specific problems. In this way, what binds the three members of Dutch Master design is exactly what makes them a competitive startup.  Among them, Nishikawa is aware of the “philosophical notion that ties the three of us together, and that’s the common desire to innovate and experiment with the same mediums we use to do our client work.” With open minds, they continue to work with clients to make sure their branding and design solutions are “unique, aesthetically pleasing, and also relevant to their ideology.”

All photos courtesy of DutchMasterDesign.com

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