Teodor, I agree with you, expressing a shared symbolism is the core of this discipline. And the larger and more complex society becomes, the smallest common denominator will become smaller and smaller… so yes, educating people is one way of expanding the area of shared value (ie. getting them to recognise and appreciate design in other forms besides Helvetica). But. My question is. What shall we, as strategy/design professionals educate about? Aesthetic? Function? Power of design? Is that viable? And who should we educate — ourselves or our clients/end users?

To me the latter one sounds a bit like car engineers trying to educate me about physics so that I can appreciate more a car model over another. Not gonna happen, I couldn’t care less… :)

So the first one feels more viable to me: educate/evolve our own understanding of design (us, the people in charge of design) and put it to use in a way that the things we create — from symbols to relationships to artefacts — are not only aesthetically beautiful, but so relevant that people understand their value intuitively. And i’m now thinking Dieter Rams’ objects, Apple’s computers, Tesla’s cars… There’s a very good book — Bernadette Jiwa’s Meaningful—that presents exactly this idea: that in order to create meaning you first need to create value, then people will end up associating that value with the form of the product, service, etc.

But thank you for your great contribution! I do believe the relationship between brand(ing) and education is worth looking into much deeper. Do you have any thoughts on where we should start from?