Some days your brain wakes up with restless legs and refuses to sit still. Today, for instance, as the H6 snakes its way through the city like a thought unraveling on its own, I started watching the people on the bus. There’s a bit of everything, like in any household. But I gave myself the luxury of making a ridiculous classification—because the ride is long, and I’m sitting at the back: those who believe what they say, on the right; and those who say what they believe, on the left.
The first kind starts with the speech. The packaging. The perfect tagline. And after repeating it often enough, they start to believe it. They wear it like a uniform, and from the outside, it’s hard to tell whether that way of walking belongs to a marketing ambassador or a person with an actual identity. The second kind, on the other hand, starts from something messier. Stranger, even. They say what they think, even if the seat squeaks beneath them, even if they use a syntax picked up from the margins of any profession.
All this came to mind because of a pack of postpartum underwear that, through life’s mysterious ways, ended up in my hands. I know, not exactly heroic. But for some reason I couldn’t explain, not even under aesthetic torture, the packaging of those panties lodged itself in my brain like some kind of emotional souvenir. A transparent plastic bag, a cyan background card, a smug-looking model, and a typeface that seems straight out of a PowerPoint presentation lost in 2002. In big letters it says: Braga Bikini Mamy. And underneath, in a whisper: Attractive design. And there I was. Stuck.
All this came to mind because of a pack of postpartum underwear that, through life’s mysterious ways, ended up in my hands. I know, not exactly heroic. But for some reason I couldn’t explain, not even under aesthetic torture, the packaging of those panties lodged itself in my brain like some kind of emotional souvenir.
Attractive design? Really? Maybe it’s me. Maybe my standards are off. But if you ask me, these panties are anything but attractive. Still, that didn’t stop someone from writing it. In fact, I’d say it’s precisely because they aren’t that they decided to put it there. Just like that. As if simply printing it would make it true. As if, to put it plainly, the human mind could be seduced by a bit of cyan and a cheerful phrase. “Attractive design,” you read, and your brain, already too tired to resist, goes: maybe. Let’s not argue with a plastic bag right now.
It’s not that different from what I did when I was just starting out as a freelance designer. I uploaded made-up projects to Flickr: posters for festivals that didn’t exist, identities for brands no one had asked me to design, and businesses that only existed in my head. I made it all up, wrapped it like it was real, and left it there. In the digital shop window, like setting a trap for wandering eyes. There was this weird mix of self-deception and hope, of shyness and the desire to be seen. But it worked. Someone believed it. And little by little, the wheel started turning.
It’s kind of like fake it till you make it, but with a knowing smirk. A much more common strategy than it looks—even among established studios—which involves defining yourself not by what you are, but by what you’d like to be. “We’re a studio specialized in visual identities for airlines.” And maybe they’ve never designed anything for an actual plane, but the phrase already takes off. As if reality didn’t need to be lived—just written. And that’s enough.
But back to the panties—because yes, we’re still talking about panties—maybe they are attractively designed. Not because they’re pretty, but because they work. They speak straight to the belly. And when your body is tired and everything feels too much, that can actually be attractive. Because sometimes, something doesn’t need to be true. It just needs to be said with enough conviction. And if it isn’t, well, at least you’ve got a plastic wrapper to turn into a metaphor.
Warm regards from the H6 bus,
Ingrid
