Date of Award
Spring 5-22-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Industrial Design
Department
Industrial Design
First Advisor
Ilona Gaynor
Second Advisor
Benjamin Jurgensen
Third Advisor
Joshua Glenn
Abstract
This thesis investigates how products become believable and desirable through the stories that surround them, and how design enables the continuous cycle of desire that defines consumption. Drawing on the underlying structures of myth-making, identity, and belonging that allow consumer culture to function, it argues that consumer culture operates through the same instruments older systems of belief have always used — narrative, ritual, sacred objects, and shared language — and that design is what makes the story stick to the object.
“I Believe” is an archive of objects collected from contemporary consumer culture. Half are products found in the marketplace; the other half are designed to blur the lines between religion, branding, mass production, and drop culture. Displayed in a museological setting, the collection records how we live, what we believe, and what we are willing to buy into.
To fully explore the archive : ibelieve.cargo.site
Recommended Citation
Dushuashvili, Rusudan, "I BELIEVE" (2026). Masters Theses. 1558.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1558
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
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