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].

Organic Design

Okay, so this is basically another design which happened during the others, which naturally means that it drew inspiration from them. If I had to try and determine what this style was without reading or being taught about it, I would say that this is a Modern movement which basically followed in the footsteps of certain Art Noveau branches as well as Art Deco and the Bauhaus.

Falling Water by Frank Lloyd Wright is made of organic products rather
than designed with organic shapes

Although the naturalistic forms which were popular in the Art Noveau and Deco styles could be argued as organic, they weren't. Organic forms are largely abstracted shapes, they are forms which cannot be said that they resemble some object. When you consider it, it did have the same level of functionality that the Bauhaus were looking at creating but still had just enough ornamentation to make it a work of art in itself.

Now the word 'organic'can either refer to the curvilinear shapes of some of the designs or the material they were produced in. Even at this point in time designers were becoming more and more aware of how important it was to use organic materials over man made materials.

While Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Frank Lloyd Wright can be considered as the first two pioneers of this style, Alvar Aalto and Charles Eames were two of its greatest advocates. Their designs contrasted heavily with the stark cold geometry which was being created under the cap of the International Style.

Alvar Aalto was one of this style's greatest pioneers

I suppose you could say it was a time of great change, where everyone felt the need to make themselves heard. It seems strange to think of the first half of the 20th century as a time when design boomed when in reality the economy was worsening by the minutes, especially during the first three decades.

This design style was not only popular in the latter part of the first half of the last century but it regained popularity in the last decade as well. I suppose this might've had something to do with the space culture that was popular at the time. Some consider it to still be going to this day - and I don't blame them, although nowadays we have a new word for it - Ergonomic design.

Although ergonomics is the study of the shapes of the human body and how the body works in relation with a particular product, you could argue that the majority of ergonomically created designs have an organic form to them. When you think about it logically, it's much more comfortable to use a computer mouse with an organic form rather than one that has a more geometric form. Why? well mostly because the human body itself is an organic design.

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

Unknown , (2013), Falling Water by Frank Lloyd Wright [ONLINE]. Available at:http://www.fallingwater.org/img/home_assets/FW_FALL_01.jpg [Accessed 30 November 13].