There is a marketing value in triggering subconscious ideas to give appeal to potential buyers.
The Stormtrooper helmet is a well known image that is held in our minds (unless you have managed to miss anything Starwars). Designers will learn from growing up with these images and they will be used sometimes to influence their design ideas and thus trigger responses in the public. Nostalgia adds to it too.
True originality in design is not that common. It will show up in something totally new and not seen before. Hard to find a good example though.
Absolutely right. I am convinced that cars designed for younger buyers are based on their own, and their children's toys such as whizz wheels and transformers: all quirkiness and angularity!
Images of lifestyle have always been used to market cars but Volvo now seem to have taken this to the extreme. Their own customer facing magazines do not even mention cars now but instead softly portray the world's concept of scandi design in all fields and its association with their own products.
