Design History

La storia dei futuri non è una disciplina, eppure a un bisogno di storia corrisponde sempre più un bisogno di futuro. Come è possibile coniugare questi bisogni a partire dalle culture del design? La dimensione anticipatoria del progetto, la necessità di pensare criticamente a futuri possibili e desiderabili,
il destino culturale dei processi e delle strumentazioni concettuali e operative, attraversano il testo come
un campionario di visioni nate nel momento in cui
le culture italiane del progetto incontrano, da una parte, gli approcci proposti dagli studi sul futuro e, dall’altra,
i temi dell’ambientalismo, per unirsi a una critica della contemporaneità e proporre riflessioni ancora oggi attuali. Queste narrazioni raccontano uno spaccato della storia del design italiano e documentano una possibile traiettoria della relazione tra culture del progetto, futuri e sostenibilità che matura a cavallo tra gli anni Sessanta e Settanta. Al tempo stesso, sono un’occasione per stabilire relazioni con ricerche in atto; per accogliere nuove prospettive di lettura delle vicende storiche del design contemporaneo; per interrogare l’impatto degli strumenti, degli approcci, dei processi impiegati dalle culture del progetto e dai suoi attori per prefigurare scenari futuri; per verificare i percorsi attraverso cui attivare una conoscenza dinamica della temporalità della nostra cultura materiale; per aprire a una riflessione metodologica multidisciplinare.

During the 15 years of civil war (1975–90), political posters filled the streets and charged the walls of cities all over Lebanon. As the ongoing war formed an intrinsic aspect of everyday life in Lebanon, the graphic signs and political rhetoric of posters became a prevalent sight/reading that shaped the cityscape. The political parties strove to legitimize and sustain their political struggle while battling for power and territorial control. Their military engagement on the battlefronts was coupled with a relentless battle of signs and symbolic appropriation of territory through extensive poster production and distribution.

How to make sense of political posters’ nature of operation in the context of civil war? How does one poster, out of many on the same wall, hail to a specific person and at once be contested by another?
If we begin to rethink the concept of propaganda and question the models of communication on which its various definitions are built, perhaps we could move beyond the reductive notions of ‘mass persuasion’, ‘coercion’ and ‘deceit’. We could then undertake a more complex examination of the posters as inscribed in the socio-political institution of political communities during civil war time. In this chapter, I present the limits of the concept of propaganda and argue for alternative theoretical tools, which allow me to advance a conceptualization of political posters as symbolic sites of hegemonic struggle over meaning and political discourse.

These two chapters provide an illuminating political and cultural history of the interior design of India’s presidential residence which was originally designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens to be the house for the British viceroy. They also provides a detailed catalogue of select artworks kept in the house. Rich illustrations reveal how the interiors stand now, and they are contrasted with archival photographs that show how the house has evolved over the past 90 years including previously unpublished plans and sketches for the décor of the interiors of the house some of which date back to as early as 1914—these provide a rare
glimpse into how it was originally intended.
While the architecture of the actual edifice of the Rashtrapati Bhavan may be Lutyens’s most enduring legacy, the interiors of the building preserve a much more versatile history. These chapters trace how Lutyens achieved a stylish interior that accommodated the tastes and needs of various British aristocratic residents, politicians and bureaucrats, but equally had to impress an Indian public—for which, it needed also to incorporate a vocabulary of Indian design ornament. After the independence of India, many symbols of the colonial empire were rendered inappropriate and the interiors of the Rashtrapati Bhavan had to be transformed into the home of the president of a democratic republic with a rich history. This glimpse into the tastes of its different residents and the compulsions that guided them traces a most telling history of a changing world.

A common ground is emerging for social and cultural studies of design. Design history is exploring the socially constructed and networked nature of our material surroundings; at the same time, STS is investigating design as the interface between humans and technology. This common ground is particularly interesting where it intersects with the rapidly growing fields of environmental history and environmental humanities. Today, environmental concerns, especially issues of sustainability, are essential parameters in all design practices. However, this ‘green revolution’ is a glaringly white spot on the design historical map, still awaiting its scholarly historicization. Historical understanding of, and critical reflection on, the rise of sustainability as the primordial trope in design discourse is essential to building a solid knowledge base and to underpin present and future decision-making. This article will argue for the urgency of charting this terrain, and call for design history, design studies, STS and environmental history to join forces in the pioneering efforts at studying histories of sustainable design.

After the Industrial Revolution, Industrial Design emerged as a formal entity, driven by the principles of functionality and mass production. During the same period, the proponents of the Arts and Crafts movement concerned themselves with rediscovering the richness and beauty of making high-quality products-attributes they felt were absent in the mass produced ones. This essay will discuss their contrasting design philosophies, production techniques, economic impacts and the legacy of both these schools of thought using the example of German designer Michael Thonet's No. 14 chair, the first known mass manufactured chair and the widely popular Morris chair, produced by William Morris and Co., a prominent manufacturer of arts and crafts products.

A graphic design is the art of visual communication which combines text, images, and graphic elements to convey information to an audience. It is predominantly use in a ‘Publication Design’. Visual hierarchy is the key element of any effective visual communication. It is an order, which directs the reader to absorb information in a particular way. ‘Contrast’, one of the principles of design is the key element preferably uses to show visual hierarchy. This technique makes composition of a page effective and dynamic.  While observing Indian medieval manuscript designs, use of principles of design in planning of design is noticeable.  A new technique called ‘Eye Movement Tracking’ is applied to study manuscripts. Equipment records observer’s attention while looking at a visual design. This method to study layout design can give a new dimension in understanding medieval Indian Art and Design knowledge, and Indian Graphic Design Ideas applied in designing Manuscripts

The rapid expansion of post-war infrastructure in Britain brought new emphasis to the landscape architectural profession, no more so than in the development of its motorways. In this paper I will examine one short section of the Lancashire-Yorkshire (M62) Motorway at Scammonden near Huddersfield. Scammonden was the world's first dam-motorway hybrid and the six-lane carriageway travels across the top of a reservoir dam. The adjacent Scammonden Bridge was the was the longest single-span non-suspension bridge in the world when it was built. The site was complex in its topography and environment during the construction phase, but was no less politically complex in its approvals, covenants and multi-agency production. Using archival sources I will show how the entire landscape composition was bound in legislation and co-produced by designers, engineers, civil servants, politicians and contractors. Using Zeller's (2010) conception of the 'dual - physical and discursive - construction of landscape', the net result, 40 years later, will be considered in terms of its consumption - technologically constructed and invisible or environmentally designed and objectified. I will explore the idea of infrastructural landscapes as co-produced objects realised through such means as design-engineering-construction and policy-legislation-statute.

It is my belief that graphic design history has too often been presented through a parade of styles and individual achievements devoid of significant social context, and that this tendency has obscured much of the richness and complexity of its development. In contrast, this book is ...

More than 50 years have passed since the first international organisations of design were established to gather practitioners and professional associations worldwide. Among these, the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) and the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (Icograda) have played prominent roles in formulating international design standards and representing the design professions.

In this exhibition, documents from the ICSID Archive (1957-1989) and the Icograda Archive (1963-2003) – both held in the University of Brighton Design Archives –  have been selected to highlight how these networks moreover acted as key sites of encounter for practitioners and their professional associations through General Assemblies, international congresses, collaborations and publications, which favoured transnational exchanges and wide-ranging debates.

The world diagram on the wall – inspired by Peter Kneebone’s original design displayed in the glass cases, and altered to reflect the actual landmass of each continent– presents information about the members of both Councils between 1957 and 1989, emphasizing their global constituencies and reach.

Supported by the modern European Zionist movement, the Bezelel Academy of Art, Jerusalem, was founded in 1906 by Lithuanian artist and Zionist Boris Schatz. In the early years of the academy, work produced by students exhibited the political complexities presented in the Jewish return to Eretz Israel. The expression of concepts addressed in modern Jewish identity and Zionist ideologies were utilized in creative processes of visual communication and design. As most faculty and students were immigrating to Mandatory Palestine from Europe, the academy’s curriculum was developed through the culmination of styles and materials reflective of both European art and design canon and biblical allegory and Hebrew typography. This essay discusses the philosophies and aesthetics that influenced the progression of the Bezelel Academy of Art, Jerusalem, in its founding years.

Subjects covered in the book range from the late 19th century to the present day, and include the Sydney Opera House, the Post-It Note, Coco Chanel's classic suit, the Sony Walkman™, Hello Kitty™, Helvetica, the Ford Model T, Harry Beck's diagrammatic map of the London Underground and the Apple iMac G3.

This handsome volume provides a treasure trove of 'stories' that will shed new light on the iconic designs that we use without thinking, aspire to possess, love or hate (or love to hate) and which form part of the fabric of our everyday lives.

Entre 1970 y 1986 se realizaron en el Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia, una serie de eventos que promovieron, entre otras cosas, nuevas miradas sobre el arte moderno. Las Bienales de Artes Gráficas, título que recibió este evento realizado en cinco ocasiones entre las fechas nombradas, fue un espacio de corte artístico que convocó a artistas de toda América a exponer sus trabajos en torno a técnicas en ascenso dentro del campo expositivo: el grabado y el dibujo. Pero así mismo, el evento, que contó (en gran parte de su trayectoria) con el aval de Cartón de Colombia para su realización, propuso una tercera categoría, el diseño gráfico, como parte de un programa expositivo de plásticas. Lejos de presentarse esta como una oportunidad para mostrar y difundir a la sociedad los ideales proyectuales sobre las cuales esta nueva disciplina se encontraba fundada, esta categoría resultó ser problemática para los nacientes diseñadores y planteó retos en términos logísticos para la organización del evento. Confusiones en torno a las prácticas expositivas del diseño por parte del museo, jurados únicos para todas las categorías, bases de participación ambiguas par el diseño, y en general, un cambio constante entre versión y versión en lo que a esta categoría respecta, son algunos de los principales asuntos que marcaron el paso del diseño por las Bienales, y que determinaría paulatinamente una lejanía entre ambas esferas de la creación, y cuya consecuencia vendría a darse por una ruptura categórica a principios de la década del 90. Es así como se presenta esta ponencia, como parte de la segunda fase de la investigación titulada Gráfica Rebelde, Una reflexión sobre la consolidación del campo disciplinar del diseño gráfico en Cali y su relación con la participación en las Bienales de Artes Gráficas entre 1969 y 1986, ganadora de la beca de investigación en Arte, Cultura y Patrimonio de la Convocatoria Estímulos Cali 2018, que construyó un archivo de trabajo sobre la participación del diseño gráfico en los eventos organizados por el Museo La Tertulia. El objetivo de esta segunda fase (y de esta ponencia) consiste en presentar un análisis de los discursos de participación en estos eventos por parte de los actores involucrados (diseñadores, artistas, organizadores y medios) y su relación con la consolidación del discurso proyectual relacionado con el campo del diseño, que particularmente fue en contravía con el campo expositivo artístico.

Although we have witnessed in recent years the growth of design history literature and the appearance of systemic works devoted to methodological issues and approaches, the question of the digital seems to have remained overlooked. Departing from the talks given and discussions carried out within the conference “Graphic Design: History and Practice”, this contribution aims to raise questions and address some issues that are important to consider if we intend to engage with the history of design and with design history in the digital age.

Arts and Crafts of Dutch Design is a core course of the MA Design Cultures at the VU University Amsterdam, which challenges assumptions of what constitutes ‘Dutchness’ and ‘Design’. For seven weeks, students do ethno- graphic research into the every- day material culture of the Bijlmer (a multicultural neighbourhood in Amsterdam), virtually absent in mainstream enquiries into Dutch Design. Drawing on constructivist theories of national identity, geography, and material culture, students redefine well-known but ultimately restrictive notions of Dutch identity and of design. Consequently, they are able to offer alternative, more inclusive accounts of Dutch Design. Joana Ozorio de Almeida Meroz, currently writing a PhD disser- tation on The History of the Construction of the Idea of ‘Dutch Design’ (1970 – 2012), jointly teaches the course with design historian and programme coor- dinator of the MA Design Cultures Javier Gimeno Martínez. Here, she interviews two student groups about their projects.

Este artigo trata sobre Norberto Bozzetti, designer gráfico brasileiro atuante desde a década de 1960. Seu portfolio registra o desenvolvimento de projetos de identidade visual para diversos setores da indústria nacional. Sobre suas vivências, relata a interação com o entorno físico e cultural impregnado pelo american way of life, além de ter sido influenciado pela cultura européia, sobretudo alemã. Este aporte acaba por lhe imprimir um padrão formal característico da geração modernista do design gráfico europeu, embora permaneça atento à estética contemporânea. O artigo ressalta sua atuação, pois, ao longo de sua carreira profissional, Bozzetti contribui para a consolidação de uma cultura de design.

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This article discourses on Norberto Bozzetti, a Brazilian graphic designer active since the 1960s. His portfolio presents the development of visual identity projects for several segments on the national industry. When it comes to his experiences, he speaks about the interaction with the physical and cultural surroundings impregnated by the American way of life, in addition to the European culture influence. This contributes to his assimilation of a formal pattern which characterizes the European modernist graphic design generation, even though he keeps himself aware of the contemporary aesthetics. The article points out his career once Bozzetti contributes to the design culture establishment.

Das nur sechs Jahre existierende Königreich Westphalen unter dem jüngsten der Napoleoniden Jérôme Bonaparte (1784–1860) – bekannt als „König Lustik“ − ist ein Musterbeispiel für den künstlerischen wie kulturellen Transfer zwischen Frankreich und Deutschland. Die in diesem Band versammelten Texte gehen den Fragen des französischen Vorbilds und Einflusses sowie den lokalen Tendenzen der Assimilation oder der Abwandlung des vielfältigen Kulturlebens in der westphälischen Hauptstadt und seinen Provinzen nach. Sekundiert durch eine Auswahl der die Themen »Kunst und Kultur unter König Jérôme« betreffenden Archive in Deutschland und Frankreich, bietet sich ein entscheidendes Fundament für das genaue Ausloten des Verhältnisses von Zentrum und Peripherie im napoleonisch geprägten Europa.

Malgré ses six années d’existence, le royaume de Westphalie dirigé par le plus jeune des Napoléonides Jérôme Bonaparte (1784-1860), surnommé le « König Lustik », apparaît comme un exemple paradigmatique des transferts artistiques et culturels entre la France et l’Allemagne. Les textes réunis dans le présent volume explorent les modèles et influences françaises de même que les tendances locales à l’assimilation ou à la modification de la vie culturelle multiforme de la capitale westphalienne et de ses provinces. Étayée par une sélection d'archives conservée en Allemagne et en France traitant de la thématique de « l'art et de la culture sous le roi Jérôme Napoléon », cette étude aspire à fournir une base essentielle pour l'exploration précise de la relation entre centre et périphérie dans l'Europe napoléonienne.

The manner in which our ancestors and ancestor species negotiated their physical and social environments has had consequences for how we engage with artefacts today. Like language, the ability to attribute significance and meaning to artefacts is evolved and consists of a suite of interconnected adaptations. A model is articulated which, it is claimed, accommodates all the possible ways in which humans attribute significance and meaning to artefacts. It consists of two halves. Each element is considered in turn and accounts of their evolutionary origins are constructed. This sequence moves from the oldest to the most recently evolved: thus the first half - the sensory-kinetic-affective mode - includes ancient, reflexive, sensory (including the physical and kinetic) and perceptual responses originating in our ancestor species’ negotiation of their organic and inorganic environment; and the affective responses such as technical and aesthetic pleasures arising from such responses. The second half – the symbolic-narrative mode - embraces the attribution of symbolic or narrative meanings to artefacts which, I propose, prefigured, or co-evolved with the emergence of language and, like language, is an expression of symbolic thought. I argue that where symbolic meaning is intentionally ascribed to an artefact, some account will be taken of the data delivered by the sensory-kinetic- affective mode, such that those intending the meaning will often seek consonance between that data and the meaning intended, in order to strengthen the power of the artefact to act as an agent of social mediation. A central role is ascribed to a sensibility towards style, as the mechanism by which the two halves are united. This sensibility is highly attuned to physical characteristics, with the objective of intuiting something of the character, make-up and therefore, likely future behaviour of the maker, owner, or other with whom the artefact is associated. I call this resultant data tacit social intelligence. It is argued that practices which evolved during the 100,000 years or so in which Homo sapiens created artefacts by hand, using simple tools, despite the changed circumstances of manufacture, economics, technology and social and political organisation, have persisted into historical times and remain active today . In particular , artefacts continue physically to represent accumulations of behaviour. Thus, in creating or choosing to be associated with an artefact, we are conscious that others will interrogate it for signs of the behavioural values we are seen to esteem.

Nel giro di un trentennio l’azienda Ducrot arriverà ad impiegare oltre duemila dipendenti e a dotarsi delle più moderne macchine per la produzione, avvalendosi, tra l’altro, di interi reparti di disegnatori specializzati. Ma è il sodalizio con l’architetto palermitano Ernesto Basile che consentirà all’azienda di raggiungere il picco della notorietà, specie
in seguito al successo riscosso dalle collezioni presentate alle grandi esposizioni internazionali di arti decorative, a partire da quella di Torino del 1902.

Making Disability Modern: Design Histories brings together leading scholars from a range of disciplinary and national perspectives to examine how designed objects and spaces contributes to the meanings of ability and disability from the late 18th century to the present day, and in homes, offices, and schools to realms of national and international politics. The contributors reveal the social role of objects - particularly those designed for use by people with disabilities, such as walking sticks, wheelchairs, and prosthetic limbs - and consider the active role that makers, users and designers take to reshape the material environment into a usable world. But it also aims to make clear that definitions of disability-and ability-are often shaped by design.

Posters, at their origin, are a medium for commercial advertising. They belong to the modern world as, right from their first appearance, they were meant to serve the needs of an industrialised economy and were mechanically reproduced in multiple copies. As design artefacts they were designed to fulfill a dual role: to deliver a message and have a direct visual appeal. During the late 1920s and the 1930s and after their widespread use as propaganda tools during the 1st World War, posters became a powerful device for advertising campaigns in Britain and other European countries. This is evidently reflected in two promotional campaigns related to colonial Cyprus where posters were the primary communication channels: the first was a major promotional poster campaign inaugurated by the Empire Marketing Board (EMB) (1926-1933) with the aim to engage the British public in buying empire produce. In this context two posters promoted products of Cyprus. Two years later Cyprus' colonial administration decided to produce a series of posters locally, as part of a tourist publicity campaign, with the aim to attract visitors from abroad to major cities on the island. The present research draws upon posters identified at the Cyprus State Archives in Nicosia. The paper adopts a critical approach to the visual language and physical characteristics of a small number of surviving works. The primary aim is to examine the decision-making process, the commercial artistic practice and the printing technology through which these posters were produced. In addition, a comparison between the works produced by the EMB and those by the British administration in Cyprus allows to discuss how both the metropolitan and the colonial administrations mediated local culture to specific audiences and how it was visually inscribed by foreign and local artists. Until now, the historiography of modern Cyprus has mainly focused on politics; issues related to the social and economic life are less assiduously addressed. This paper argues that the history of design practice and artefacts can significantly contribute to bring to light important aspects of local social history during the colonial period. Posters are products of the socio-political, economic and technological context in which they are generated and result from a nexus of relationships between artistic, commercial and administrative forces. As such, and in combination with the available archival material, the posters produced by the EMB illustrate Cyprus' representation in an advertising campaign where the poster, being a decisive vehicle of British modernism, was employed to serve Britain's political agenda; similarly, the local posters provide evidence of the beginning of commercial art and the state of printing in Cyprus during the interwar period and give direct access to the ways in which the policy and ideas of the colonial administrators shaped the design of a promotional campaign. Both cases exemplify the role of design as an active force with an impact on the image of colonial Cyprus.

The drawings and photographs preserved in the Seguso Vetri d'Arte archive at the Giorgio Cini Foundation in Venice allow us to reconstruct the creative process that leads to the generation of glass objects and to analyse it in the light of the – physical and metaphorical – theme of reflection. Taking specifically into consideration the production of glass fish, we study, on the one hand, the techniques that have been adopted during the twentieth century to emphasize the three-dimensionality of the object, limiting its reflection and refraction; on the other hand, the features of living beings that are reflected in these creations at different levels. This analogy can be considered at a figurative level, but also at a deeper one, when a greater degree of abstraction is reached, dealing with the interaction of forces, which recalls some biological morphogenetic theories developed in the 1950s, highlighting the interdependence of form and matter.

Este artigo relata o processo de descoberta de registros de marca do final do século XIX e início do século XX no acervo da Junta Comercial do Estado de São Paulo (JUCESP), e descreve os documentos encontrados. Apresenta-se também uma breve análise formal da estrutura e do conteúdo dos artefatos que compõem esta coleção, visando demonstrar a relevância do material encontrado para a pesquisa sobre a memória gráfica brasileira.
Abstract:
This paper reports the process of discovery of trademark registers from the late 19 th and early 20 th century in São Paulo State Board of Trade (JUCESP) achieves, and describes the documents found. It also presents a brief formal analysis of the structure and content of the artifacts that make up this collection, aiming to demonstrate the relevance of the material found for the research on Brazilian graphic memory.

L'americano Charles Eames (1907-1978) è uno dei principali protagonisti del design per la poliedrica attività progettuale e comunicativa (dal disegno dei mobili a quello dei giocattoli, dall'allestimento di mostre all'attività di film-maker, dalla fotografia alla grafica pubblicitaria, dalle lezioni universitarie alle consulenze per il governo americano o indiano), per aver creato dei veri e propri archetipi del furniture design, per aver sempre perseguito una chiara impostazione del progetto. Insieme alla moglie Ray Kaiser (1912-1988) e ai numerosi collaboratori dell'Eames Office, egli ha composto un vero e proprio atlante del design, in cui creatività, senso del «gioco», libertà d'espressione e continua sperimentazione, su tecniche e materiali, non consentono una facile codificazione. Il presente contributo ne restituisce in sintesi la formazione intellettuale, le modalità della sua estetica, i rapporti con la cultura del tempo e i principali committenti, le opere principali.