Chart: Art Deco

I hope these links are starting to look a bit clearer - remember to consult the timeline I posted earlier, I know I do it all the time, these movements get so confusing especially when we start looking at the 1920s up until the 1980s then it sort of starts to make a little bit more sense again. On to today's design style:

Art Deco 1920 – 1939

- Although it had traces of Art Nouveau in its designs, Art Deco was mostly inspired by the geometric flatness of Egyptian and Mayan art.

- These features can also be seen in Cubism which was also a prominent art style at the time 

- The Chrysler Building by William Van Alen is one of the most iconic designs of this time

- It's very obvious that the Golden Age of Hollywood and the constant opening of new theatre houses had a huge impact on the style

- Some of the designs created at the time were looking forward to the ideals of the Bauhaus such as Eileen Gray's Table

REFERENCES:

Thomas Hauffe, 2001. Design: From the Industrial Revolution to the 21st Century (Flipguides). Edition. Dumont Monte.

Charlotte & Peter Fiell, 2012. Design of the 20th Century (25). Edition. Taschen.

Chart: Art Noveau

As mentioned before, this post will also cover the chart for my second task. This time I will be talking about:

Art Nouveau 1880 - 1910

Alphonse Mucha

Japanese Wood-Block prints

- One of the key inspirations of Art Nouveau had to be Alphonse Mucha's posters which were also inspired by Japanese prints.

Poster for Moulin Rouge - an icon of La Belle Epoque

Death of Queen Victoria

- It thrived during the French Belle Epoque. Even in England, especially when Queen Victoria died and her son King Edward VII started reigning. The King was known for his promiscuous behavior.

Influenced by the natural curves of nature.

                       

- Was inspired by the curves found in nature such as the whiplash curves of a tendril.

Hector Guimard

Paris Metro Entrances 

Van de Velde Desk 

Rene Lalique Brooch 

Emille Galle Lamp

Louis Comfort Tiffany Lamp

- Hector Guimard and Henry Van De Velde were two of the most influential designers of this time along with Rene Lalique, Emille Galle and Louis Comfort Tiffany 

'The Kiss' Gustav Klimt

- One of the most popular artists of the time was Gustav Klimt.

REFERENCES:
Thomas Hauffe, 2001. Design: From the Industrial Revolution to the 21st Century (Flipguides). Edition. Dumont Monte.

Charlotte & Peter Fiell, 2012. Design of the 20th Century (25). Edition. Taschen.

Chart: Arts & Crafts Movement

Part of my second task is to create a visual infographic or 'chart' where I show, with as little text as possible, the links between 5 design movements after the research I have carried out through my blogs.

My five chosen movements are:
- The Arts & Crafts Movement
- Art Nouveau
- Art Deco
- The Bauhaus
- Pop Design

Obviously, since there will be hardly any text on the chart I have to write down exactly what I intend to link somewhere and that is here. For this and the next four blogs I will be revisiting the above mentioned styles and movements and conducting more research on them than I have already done for my previous blogs. However I will do this more in the form of points which will be allocated to one of the pictures I will later include in my chart.

So let's start with the first one:

Arts & Crafts 1850 - 1914

Renaissance

Gothic Revival

Pre-Raphaelites 

Japanese Wood-Block Prints

- The two main inspirations for the Arts and Crafts movement were the Gothic Revival which came exactly before and the Renaissance who inspired the Pre-Raphaelites who went on to inspire William Morris. Japanese Wood-block prints were also a huge inspiration to William Morris

A.W.N. Pugin

John Ruskin 

- Another two pioneers who inspired William Morris were John Ruskin and A.W.N. Pugin, the latter was the first person to write about the idea of Form follows Function which would later be the defining ideal of the Bauhaus. 

Industrialism

- The most important defining factor of this movement is Industrialism. Had it not been for the cheap and shoddy products which were being created at the current time. Morris and his friends would have never decided to set up the company known as Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. 

William Morris

Brother Rabbit Wallpaper Design by William Morris

Willow and Tulip Wallpaper Design
by William Morris

- William Morris was the most influential pioneer of this movement. He is most known for his wallpaper patterns

Queen Victoria

- It's important to note that this was a time during Queen Victoria's reign who was one of the most resigned and traditionally virtuous monarchs when it came to her ideals. Her son on the other hand was the complete opposite which in my opinion would be one of the defining factors of the following style. I.e. Art Nouveau.

Arts and Crafts decanter showing the first
signs of Art Nouveau

REFERENCES:

N/A, (1874), William Morris [ONLINE]. Available at: http://www.friendsofthewmg.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/image0012.jpg [Accessed 22 December 13].

Thomas Hauffe, 2001. Design: From the Industrial Revolution to the 21st Century (Flipguides). Edition. Dumont Monte.

Charlotte & Peter Fiell, 2012. Design of the 20th Century (25). Edition. Taschen.

Chronological Timeline of Movements

So in order to make things a little cleared I decided to compile a timeline of the major design movements

as you can see a lot of design movements and styles ran concurrently with other ones as I have already discussed in some of my other blogs. That's basically it for this entry, and since I created this timeline on my own there are no references but I hope this helps clear things up a bit more.

Design Style or Movement, What's the difference?

Okay so I've been talking a lot about how a design style is different than a design movement and today during a conversation with my friends we were discussing the same thing, so I thought before I continue with the rest of my blogs I decided I would write a short post describing this difference.

Let's start with a design style. A design style is literally a style which was prevalent at the time, so naturally a lot of designers were inspired by it but that doesn't mean that at the start of the style anyone set out to define a new style.

A design movement on the other hand is usually started when a group of artists agrees on a set of rules better known as a manifesto and designs within the context of those rules.

Some examples of Design Movements are: Arts & Crafts, Bauhaus and De Stijl.

while design styles were: Art Nouveau, Pop Design, and Streamlining.

I hope this clears things up a bit.

Post Modernism

Post Modernism is considered to be the style which broke down all the rules of the Modernist movements. It turned its back on their ideals and tried to re-introduce the idea of ornamentation which had been erased completely in the later modern movements.

This chair combines the perfect amount of functionality
and ornamentation in my opinion 

The start of this style (yes it is a style and not a movement) was practically Pop Design in the 60s as it rejected all of the International Style's rules. and started doing things a lot differently. Forms were more abstracted and to a lesser extent nonsensical. Pop design was a time when designers experimented with new materials and different ideas. Post Modernism as a style however saw the return of some form of functionalism but with more 'unneeded' ornamentation than before.

Post Modernism also used symbolism to help bridge the gap between different speaking countries - thus it became another international style. These symbols were not necessarily new innovative symbols - they were inspired by the early modern movements like Charles Jenks' Sun table and Chairs (chair pictured below) is inspired by Art Deco.

The symbolism in this chair is
reminiscent of certain Art Deco Patterns 

By the 1980s Post Modernism was the most influential design movement, it still had the colourful spontaneity of the 60s but when the 1990 global recession hit designers started using cheaper materials in order to keep Post Modernism widely accessible and thus it entered its minimalist phase where designers kept everything plain and simple such as Aldo Rossi's Conicle kettle for Alessi

Plain and simple yet still not common - the very ideal of Post Modernism

REFERENCES:

Charlotte & Peter Fiell, 2012. Design of the 20th Century (25). Edition. Taschen.

Thomas Hauffe, 2001. Design: From the Industrial Revolution to the 21st Century (Flipguides). Edition. Dumont Monte.

Unknown , (1985), Norbert Berkhof's Frankfurter FIII chair for Draenert [ONLINE]. Available at:http://www.edilportale.com/immagini/prodotti-thumb/b_prodotti-45929-rela597ae79-1fc5-ee2f-42ea-92fe5905fb63.jpg [Accessed 20 December 13].

Unknown , (1984), Charles Jencks Sun Chair. [ONLINE]. Available at:http://193.238.185.184/images/3027734?size=large&index=4 [Accessed 20 December 13].

Unknown , (1988), Aldo Rossi's Il Conico Kettle for Alessi [ONLINE]. Available at:http://www.huzza.net/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/1500x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/4/0/400100403716_1.jpg[Accessed 20 December 13].

Hi-Tech

This was a style mostly popular in architecture around the mid-1960s and ironically was inspired by both the geometric shapes found in modern movements and the Radical design ideals. It went completely against the excesses consumerism of Pop Design and focused on a more utilitarian design solution.

It eventually moved from architecture to interior design where designers were using industrial materials such as rubber flooring, clip-on lighting and galvanized zinc as shelving. This created a factory like interior and were usually coloured in primary colours as a nod to De Stijl.

Some examples of this style are:




REFERENCES:
Charlotte & Peter Fiell, 2012. Design of the 20th Century (25). Edition. Taschen.

Thomas Hauffe, 2001. Design: From the Industrial Revolution to the 21st Century (Flipguides). Edition. Dumont Monte.

Radical Design

Radical design was a simply the form of Anti-Design which had emerged in Italy. Rather than designers most of the creators of these designs were design groups such as Superstudio Archizoom and Gruppo Strum. They sought to destroy the ideals of the modern movements such as functionalism.

It drew inspiration from the plastic and cartoonish designs of Pop Design. They questioned the function of every product and, while they did leave some functionality, they distorted it and came up with new ideas and got to a point where it no longer put functionality first and in some cases didn't even consider it at all, they made purely decorative products. Furniture to them became a fashionable accessory.

There really isn't any way to explain this style other than to show what was designed at this time, here are some examples:

Alessandro Mendini's Proust Armchair 

Alessandro Mendini was one of the most influential designers of this style 

Carlton Bookcase by Ettore Sottsass for Studio Alchimia

as you can see, there's no real inspiration which the designers drew on and no real sense of why they were designing something some way other than because they felt like making it red or blue or straight or curvy or whatever.

It was this ground breaking destruction of ideals that led to the eventual formation of the Post Modernism movement.

REFERENCES:
Charlotte & Peter Fiell, 2012. Design of the 20th Century (25). Edition. Taschen.

Thomas Hauffe, 2001. Design: From the Industrial Revolution to the 21st Century (Flipguides). Edition. Dumont Monte.

Unknown , (1978), Alessandro Mendini's Proust Armchair [ONLINE]. Available at:http://artblart.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/mkg_ideen_sitzen_mendini_poltrona_di_proust.jpg [Accessed 13 December 13].
Unknown , (1981), Ettore Sottsass' Carlton Bookshelf [ONLINE]. Available at: http://www.stylepark.com/db-images/cms/article/img/v318415_958_480_626-11.jpg [Accessed 13 December 13].

Pop Design

In the mid-1960s designers were beginning to question functionalism. They thought that less was a bore and wanted to bring back the so called 'useless' aesthetic and ornamentation which the modern movements had decided to do away with.

In Britain and America artists such as Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol were looking at mass media and new
aspects of everyday life such as advertising, packaging, comics and television for inspiration and naturally design followed. It wasn't long before everyday items such as coat hangers and television sets were being design in this all new colourful design style. 

Designers such as De Pas, D'Urbino & Lomazzi, and Peter Murdoch were creating designs which were easily disposable such as the PVC blow-up chair and the polka-dotted cardboard children's chair. This gave way to a new throw-away culture which I suppose we are still suffering from today.

Plastics were being used in everything and that meant that new types of plastics were being created. Everything became about fun, coat hangers were made to look like a cactus and television were designed like an astronaut's space helmet. This style drew inspiration from a wide range of sources such as Art Noveau, Art Deco, Futurism and Surrealism not to mention Psychedelia which was popular at the same time due to the use of drugs, and the low art culture as well as the space age which was continuously in the news due to the so called 'cold war' happening between Russia and America.

Here are some landmark designs which were created during this time:

Arne Jacobsen's Egg Chair is still very much in demand today

Here, Verner Panton was inspired from Mies Van der Rohe's Bauhaus style cantilever chair 

The consumerist culture grew rapidly overflowing into every aspect of everyday life
as can be seen from Andy Warhol's Paper Souper Dress

REFERENCES:

Charlotte & Peter Fiell, 2012. Design of the 20th Century (25). Edition. Taschen.

Thomas Hauffe, 2001. Design: From the Industrial Revolution to the 21st Century (Flipguides). Edition. Dumont Monte.

Unknown , (2013), Roy Lichtenstein [ONLINE]. Available at: https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-prn1/t5/50273_208462054615_2004963_n.jpg [Accessed 12 December 13].

Unknown , (2013), Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe [ONLINE]. Available at:http://artobserved.com/artimages/2008/10/andy-warhol-marilyn.jpg [Accessed 12 December 13].

Unknown , (2013), De Pas, D'Urbino & Lomazzi PVC Blow Up Chair [ONLINE]. Available at:http://image.architonic.com/imgTre/09_11/plastik-plastik-270_1G_br.jpg [Accessed 12 December 13].

Unknown , (2013), Arne Jacobsen Egg Chair [ONLINE]. Available at: http://www.mochatini.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/jacobsen_egg_chair_lp.jpg [Accessed 12 December 13].

Unknown , (2013), Verner Panton Cantilever Chair [ONLINE]. Available at: http://www.design-museum.de/fileadmin/_processed_/csm_PantonChair_Panton_01_8b1bdb4dd9.jpg [Accessed 12 December 13].

Unknown , (2013), Andy Warhol Souper Dress [ONLINE]. Available at:http://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ci/web-large/DT420.jpg [Accessed 12 December 13].

Post War Design

Unlike the other movements and styles, Post War design was not intended to look a certain way or be inspired by a particular style from history. Each designer was looking at new ways to try and sell more of his or her product over anyone else's.

Obviously the streamlining and organic forms were still very predominant in this era. One of the most important designers of  the Post War style was Raymond Loewy. He was considered to be the greatest pioneer of Streamlining and Post War Design.

During the second world war Germany and Italy had isolated themselves from any international design developments and they sought to nationalise uniform aesthetic principles. In America the combined effects of the Great Depression followed by the effects of the war had a huge negative impact on the economy and so designers were looking towards redefining old objects. The idea of stylising an object was born through streamlining.

As I said before there really was no new style after the wars, simply a continuation of both the organic and streamlining forms, however it was an era when marketing a product well became really important and so did graphic design as a means of advertising. Raymond Loewy showed this in his design for the Lucky Strike cigarette packets and the iconic Coca-Cola drink dispenser. He was the first designer to be featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1949 along with the tagline "he streamlines the sales curve"

Carlo Mollino was another popular designer during this time, being Italian he was at the forefront of bel design which would happen about 10 years later. Mollino kept on working mostly with organic design after the war.  Scandinavian design was also rising in popularity, giving design a brighter, fresher, friendlier, more colourful look to already existing designs. Some, still very popular, designs of Post war Scandinavia are Poul Henningsen's

PH Artichoke Lamp 

lamp designs which if you ask me bear a striking, although more geometric resemblance to Louis Comfort Tiffany's Dragonfly lamp. Meanwhile in Germany, the Academy for Design in Ulm was opened in an attempt to reconnect with the Pre-war design traditions which had made made Germany one of the leading design cultures.

All of these helped raise the level of sales and profitability of manufacturing firms after the war which would later give rise to a huge consumerist culture in the 60s.

REFERENCES:

Charlotte & Peter Fiell, 2012. Design of the 20th Century (25). Edition. Taschen.

Thomas Hauffe, 2001. Design: From the Industrial Revolution to the 21st Century (Flipguides). Edition. Dumont Monte.

Unknown , (2013), Raymond Loewy Coca Cola Drink Dispenser [ONLINE]. Available at:http://megsmcg.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/loewy_coca_cola_designs.jpg [Accessed 10 December 13].

Unknown , (1949), Raymond Loewy Time Magazine Cover [ONLINE]. Available at:https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI4xSwzAxVEidRYowzMrtS5o8wwJZO3adlFWlKTou6Q3lRVLk5ufUvyMpwg99fEN0nE-BVP18cWIMkxJWY_dol1w-_nG68QGVVUoOhqtBsaviEIiyrpkb7YGuKlalvOBqoGcUsO4wSOi0L/s400/raymond-loewy-time-magazine.jpg [Accessed 10 December 13].

Unknown , (2013), Poul Henningsen PH Artichoke Lamp [ONLINE]. Available at:http://static1.bonluxat.com/cmsense/data/uploads/orig/Poul_Henningsen_PH_Artichoke_Lamp_pnq.jpg[Accessed 10 December 13].

Streamlining

I suppose streamlining could be considered a sub-chapter in the organic design book, mostly because of the tear-drop shape. This shape was originally used to help allow the transportation inventions move at greater speeds - I suppose that in this aspect it was similar to Futurism which was all about looking towards the technological advancements of the future.

Streamlining is one of those styles which can only be understood if you understand exactly the context in which it was created (yes some design movements and styles make sense on their own.)

Trains and cars were being streamlined to aid speed.

Streamlining a product was already immensely popular when the Wall Street Crash happened in 1929 which led to the Great Depression of the 1930s in both America and Britain and the loss of many jobs and consequently profit for manufacturers. It was simple really, people didn't have as much money in their pockets and so were buying less... we went through something very similar a few years ago when the global recession hit in 2008. In order to avoid having to close and save money at the same time, rather than coming up with new designs, manufacturers were hiring designers to simply redesign already existing products.

Again, it was a question of supply and demand, there was more supply available than demand from the consumer which meant that there was greater competition and it meant that design became a very important defining factor in advertising the product. Think about it this way, if you have seven differently styled lamps on a shelf, six are white and one is black, which is the one most likely to stand out?

This chair which resembles Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona
chair also had its legs streamlined.

This is the idea which the manufacturers were looking to recreate through streamlining. By simply redesigning the look of a lamp which you already make, you can still use the same components (therefore the same amount of expenses) but people are buying it more than before because they think it's a completely different product. It got to a point where products were being marketed solely on their appearance rather than performance. I suppose you could consider this the birth of the consumerist culture which later took over in the 60s. Either way, many companies which existed during the 30s and made it out of the Great Depression alive probably owe it to the streamlining phenomenon.


REFERENCES:
Charlotte & Peter Fiell, 2012. Design of the 20th Century (25). Edition. Taschen.

Thomas Hauffe, 2001. Design: From the Industrial Revolution to the 21st Century (Flipguides). Edition. Dumont Monte.

Unknown , (2013), Streamlined Chair [ONLINE]. Available at:http://www.curatedobject.us/photos/uncategorized/2008/01/06/black_chair.jpg [Accessed 04 December 13]

Unknown , (2013), Streamlined train [ONLINE]. Available at: http://cruiselinehistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/stream2.jpg [Accessed 04 December 13].