Modern American Product Design

By Alex Brown

1.0 INTRODUCTION

By 1900 American industry had become at least as powerful as the European nations although, because it was geographically and politically isolated few in Europe were aware that this was the case. However, in 1917 when America entered the First World War on the side of the British and French against the Germans it became clear to many that the United States was now a world class industrial power. Its ability to produce and supply war material to its forces in Europe and help the allies win the war put it at least on the same industrial and economic level as Britain, France and Germany.

Twenty years later America would have surpassed the Europeans to become the world's foremost industrial and military power and have developed a clear-cut American design style and image. 

2.0 THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN DESIGN CULTURE  

It had been shown in the great International exhibitions since 1851, that the Americans were extremely inventive and original in their design of products and the organization of their their manufacturing systems. The 'American system' as it was know was the basis of real mass production techniques. The classic example of this was the mass production of the Model T Ford automobile in 1908 which finally overcame the handicraft approach to building cars and set the standards for organizing factory production everywhere and for all types of products. 

The design problem, (if it can be called that), was that while American products were convenient, practical and relatively cheap, American design was still a pale reflection of European tastes. It had not as yet developed its own unique character. While European design shifted towards the Modern through the Arts and Crafts, Werkbund and Weimar School of Arts (later Bauhaus), the Americans were taking a different and much more practical route towards the same end.  

European artists and designers had sought Modern design through the ideas and philosophical concepts such as 'truth', 'morality', logic and 'functionalism', etc, etc., but they had always seen themselves as separate from industry and trade - which were regarded as socially inferior occupations. Art and design were regarded as 'intellectual' activities which had a high social status. The American attitude to industry was quite different and much more positive. 

3.0 THE ORIGINS OF AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN 

At the end of the First World War in 1918 a new wave of immigrants poured into America. In this case however there were also many professionally-educated immigrants from Europe. Amongst these were John Vassos, an illustrator from Greece, Raymond Loewy an engineer from France and an Australian graphic designer Joseph Sinel. Expertise from immigrants such as these combined with Americans such as Walter Dorwin Teague and Norman Bel Geddes - both advertising artists, Henry Dreyfuss and Russell Wright - both theatre set designers would result in the formation of the American industrial design profession. 

It is significant amongst these men who would create industrial design, only one - Raymond Loewy - was an engineer. This indicates that the origins of the design profession in the States was very different from that of Europe where the pioneers of the design profession were architects, furniture designers, artists and intellectuals.  

What one could call the 'MEDIA - SALES - MARKETING' end of the spectrum would dominate the American design professions.  

4.0 POST WAR AMERICAN INDUSTRY

American industry had expanded rapidly in order to produce material for the war. At the end of the war, this enormous industrial capacity was turned to produce domestic products and satisfy an expanding consumer market. This led to a rapid growth in the automobile industry and to a desire for other consumer products which Americans had invented such as fans, electrical irons, refrigerators, cooking stoves, washing machines, the phonograph (record player), wireless sets (radios), etc. etc.

Before the war many of these items had been luxuries but the changed social conditions after the war, (particularly for women who had worked in war production factories), meant that Many of these domestic products had become time-saving necessities for the new domestic lifestyle of the American people. 

Another aspect of the American situation was that for the Americans, the stimulus to Modern design was not a highly theoretical or intellectual one as it was in Europe. It came directly out of the conditions of American consumer products industry which was much more highly developed than Europe, fiercely competitive and much more driven by sales, marketing and advertizing. The relation between these areas and industry was much stronger in the United States.  

So too the power of marketing and advertizing to promote sales had been well understood and developed in America since the late 19th century. It affected all aspects of industry including design. More so than in Europe, sales and consumer tastes drove industry and design. 

5.0 THE NEED FOR AN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN PROFESSION 

One particular event provoked American manufacturers to seek out design professionals to help them style their products and in the process form the Industrial Design profession. That was the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Arts which took place in Paris. 

American manufacturers found that they were excluded from the exhibition because one of the rules stated that all exhibits must be ORIGINAL. American consumer products while they were practical, convenient and at least technically original were IN STYLING TERMS usually based on existing and somewhat outdated European design styles. Thus for an exhibition of 'Modern Decorative Arts' they would be out of place. This event posed a threat to American exports and ultimately to the economy itself. For this reason manufacturers and government institutions sought positive action to re-style their products for a Modern (and exportable) market image. The American drive for Modern styling thus came about for the most practical reasons: sales.  

6.0 THE ART DECO INFLUENCE ON AMERICAN DESIGN 

In fact the exhibits displayed at the Paris Expo were not really 'Modern'. They were a fairly conservative version of the ART DECO style. (The name 'art deco' itself comes from the title of this 1925 exhibition - ARTs DECOratif). Art Deco was an 'almost Modern' style in the sense that it was non-historical, had smooth surfaces and used geometric and linear forms. However, unlike the radical Modern of the Bauhaus - economic and functional with its pure cubic shapes, dominated by the right-angle, white colours and almost complete lack of decoration - Art Deco was essentially decorative - using a variety of rich colours and materials. This style was an attempt to be 'modern' without losing the decorative tradition. It was a refusal to 'go the whole way' towards the severe forms of the Modern Movement. Ultimately it was a transitional movement. 

It was this style, however that American designers who visited the Exhibition brought back to the United States as an example of the best of Modern Design. It became very influential and formed the basis of the classic American STREAMLINE MODERNE of the 1930s and was used to style a vast range of products from cars, locomotives, ocean liners, refrigerators, interiors, radios, etc.  

Looking for an appropriate modern image, American designers saw in the aerodynamic streamlining of vehicles with their chrome trims or 'speed bands' a key image of the age. They applied it to almost everything - even things which DID NOT MOVE, like buildings. It was all a matter of image and styling for the market.  

This glittering, chromium, streamlined and Art Deco-inspired styling would influence American product design well into the 1950s, particularly in car design. 

7.0 ADVERTIZING ART BECOMES INDUSTRIAL DESIGN 

Further sources have to be mentioned in the growth of the American Industrial Design profession: 

a) Advertizing artists: 

By the 1920s, advertizing agencies who produced the illustrations of products for companies were being asked to enhance the image of those products. In effect they were being asked to re-design the product that they illustrated. The key issue as usual being to increase sales. The graphic artists who carried out this work formed another layer of the expanding industrial design profession 

b) Theatre set designers 

Aware of changing tastes and styles, department stores set up their own exhibitions of Modern (ie. Art Deco) design. To do this they would call in the services of theatre set designers who were able to create an image of modernity for interiors, furniture and domestic products.  

c) The Museums 

American museums had always seen their role not only as displaying historical objects, but also those of the modern era. More than this, they had taken up a position of PROMOTING GOOD DESIGN in American industry. This was particularly the case with the influential Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art (Moma) in New York who put on 'Industrial Art' exhibitions. Such displays influenced both potential clients and designers in favour of Modern Design. 

8.0 DESIGNING FOR THE BIG CORPORATIONS 

By 1927 Industrial Design as it was called was clearly established in the United States. By that time, the big corporations which dominated American industry had hired designers to style their products. Norman Bel Geddes and Raymond Lowey were hired to style (or re-style) cars. Walter Dorwin Teague was styling Eastman Kodak and General Electric products. General Motors, the biggest of the car companies had begun to hire its own stylists. 

The motivation for American companies was NOT to achieve an Art - Industry synthesis for rational production as the Werkbund in Germany, but strictly to STIMULATE SALES. In that sense, American Product design can be seen as a superficial exercise in styling - simply 'wallpapering on' a new image every year. However, it can also be seen as being much more responsive to consumer interests and fashions. European design of the time was much more elitist (snobbish?).  

9.0 SURVIVING THE DEPRESSION 

Much more so than in Europe, the American home was equipped with all sorts of time and energy-saving products. The radio had taken over the living room, the refrigerator had taken over the kitchen and, most importantly, the car had redefined the American way of life. The AMERICAN DREAM was taking shape. 

Virtually every manufacturer now accepted the fact that the appearance of a product was vital to its survival in a very competitive market. It was very much this competitive environment in American industry which forced the pace of industrial design activity. Even the Stock Market Crash of 1929 which brought with it a major recession in the American economy did not stop the growth in importance of the profession. On the contrary, it became more important as manufacturers - struggling to survive - tried to stimulate sales by good styling.  

10.0 STYLING AND PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE 

American industry introduced a concept called 'PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE'. In the car industry this meant that new designs would be brought out every year. This would stimulate the consumers to buy cars every year - trading in their old models and therefore ensuring continued production at the factory. In effect the car was engineered to become obsolete and DESIGNED TO FAIL after a certain period. 

By the psychology of their advertizing, continuous re-styling of the models and planned obsolescence engineering techniques, the big car companies ensured continual sales turnover. The effect of this on car styling was: 

a) To require designers to come up with new styling ideas every year leading to a somewhat superficial and gimmicky quality in the design of some models.

b) There was a lack of integration between different parts of the American car since the 'visual part' the bodywork had to be regularly redesigned without affecting the engineering or mechanical aspects.  

The Europeans and later the Japanese took a much more integrated and rigorous approach to the design of their models and by the late 50s and the 60s were producing radical innovations in car design which could not be matched by the Americans. Their cars would remain somewhat inefficient by European and Japanese terms not simply in terms of size but in terms of utilization of space, (compact design), ergonomics, fuel economics and aerodynamics. 

This would result in a series of major crises for the American car industry as they lost large sections of their home market to more economic foreign models especially during the petrol price increases of the 1970s and the growing ecology movement.  

11.0 KEY DESIGNERS AND THEIR PRODUCTS (1) 

The first generation of American industrial designers who practiced in the 1930s esatblished a series of products and images which have become standard throughout the world and which had a major influence on future product design. As suggested above, American designers were more CONSUMER ORIENTED than their European collegues who tended to take a more abstract and rationalist approach to design. Some examples of the leading American designers and the products are given below: 

a) Raymond Loewy 

Arrived in the USA from France in 1919 and in 1927 set up his own design studio, Raymond Loewy Associates which became the biggest industrial design firm in the world. Lowey's design for the 'Coldspot' refrigerator of 1935 (for the Sears Roebuck company) gave a dramatic demonstration of the impact of design on sales. Earlier refrigerators had been monumental in appearance, set on high curved legs and had the cooling unit exposed. Lowey encased the whole in a plain white-enamelled steel box with a flush door with chrome hardware. The interior was carefully designed to accomodate containers of different sizes and shapes, automatic defroster, ice-cube trays, etc. The model set a new trend in refrigerator design and annual sales soared from 15,000 to 275,000 within five years. Lowey's design remains the basic model for present day refrigerator design. Lowey went on to do car design and interiors and other products for many major companies. 

b) Henry Dreyfuss 

Dreyfuss was one of the big three American industrial designers. Starting out as a theatre set designer, he set up his own design office in 1929. His work for the Bell telephone company in 1937 produced the basic and world standard design for the telephone handset. His approach was somewhat different to other designers. He demanded the most thorough ergonomic and engineering research before the design was finally produced. The telephone he designed was easy to operate, and the simplicity of the moulding made cleaningand servicing easier. Because of the success of this design Bell aksed Dreyfuss to work as designer on all their products. 

c) Norman Bel Geddes 

Bel Geddes began as a stage designer but in 1927 took up industrial design and his first project was to design car bodies for the Graham Paige car company. Bel Geddes designs were aesthetically pleasing but too radical for the company, which did not use them. However, his designs predicted many of the styling features which were to come later. He worked for the Chrystler car company and the Electrolux domestic products company. In his designs for futuristic aeroplanes and cars.  

Bel Geddes showed that he was an idealist and a visionary.  

12.0 KEY DESIGNERS AND THEIR PRODUCTS (2) 

d) Harvey Earl 

In 1927 Harvey Earl became director of the Art and Colour section of General Motors Corporation, the largest car and industrial company in the world. In 1937, he became director of Styling. In this position his personal tastes influenced the design not only of cars and trucks but also of many other machines (fans, refrigerators, radios, etc). 

Earl's contribution to what is now regarded as 'modern' design was enormous. In the 1950s he claimed to have personal responsibility for the styling of 31 million cars. His period of design at General Motors saw the development of the most extravagant American styling for cars. Lots of Chrome, streamlining, tail fins, wrap-around windscreens and so on. Influenced by Science fiction, aeroplane design and the shape of racing cars, Earl brought to car design a world of fantasy and pleasure which dominated the industry well into the 1970s.  

e) Walter Dorwin Teague 

Teague set up his design office in 1926 after studying art and working for an advertizing agency. His first important client was Eastman Kodak who commissioned him to design cameras and packaging for a popular range of cameras. Teague believed that consumers should get maximum pleasure out of the products they owned and his multi-coloured cameras with chrome-plated trims did just this. The camera became a popular consumer product.  

Teague's other work for office machines and industrial machinery showed that he was able to reduce a complicated clutter of gears, levers and bolts to a clean unified form that not only looked better but made the equipment easier to use. 

13.0 CONCLUSION 

American design had developed along its own path towards Modern design. Driven more by consumer and popular taste, it brought to product design a sense of pleasure, flamboyance and luxury lacking in European models. It dealt not only with the functional issues of the product but also with the dreams and aspirations of the consumer - that underlying desire for the 'good life' - which modern products represented.  

Fantasy became democratized and available to all in the evocative images of American product design. 

End

Detail Design: Furniture

                                    Detail Design :Furniture

By Alex Brown           

1.0       INTRODUCTION

For furniture as with any other designed product there are two basic aspects to the design:

a)         Appropriate function

b)        Appropriate image            

There are other issues involved in furniture design such as economics, single or mass production possibilities, technology, marketing and so on, but the issue of function and image remain central. Once these have been decided, the other issues can be addressed more easily.

2.0    APPROPRIATE FUNCTION

Furniture has certain obvious functions:

A chair:          for sitting on

A bed:             for lying on

A table:           for placing things on

A cabinet:      for putting things in

Shelves:        for putting things on...........and so on

The functional aspects of furniture have been thought about and worked on for at least five thousand years, because human beings have remained roughly the same shape during that time. Given the average shape and size of a human being, for instance, how many different ways are there of sitting down or placing things on a shelve?

The science of ergonomics (human dimensions re. the design of equipment) has produced information on the dimensions which are appropriate for almost all types of furniture use. By using these dimensions designers can produce objects which are, to some extent, AT LEAST, functionally adequate.

Clearly state the functional task and you will have already solved half the design problem.

What does this mean? It requires the furniture do the job it was designed to do. A piece of furniture is a machine for doing something. So, does the machine work well?

3.0    APPROPRIATE IMAGE

What is an appropriate image in terms of furniture design?

`Appropriate':          suitable for the particular situation. It also suggests that your expectations have been confirmed.

`Image':                     Overall shape, colour, materials, detail that defines a single identifiable object.

Appropriate Image in this sense means that FORM (its shape, colour and detail) of the object fits the circumstances in which it is to be seen and used.

For example: there is a great difference between the environment one expects to find in a disco as against a funeral parlour. What kind of music, colour or furniture would be appropriate to each? A chair designed or selected for one of these places might be very different from a chair designed or selected for another. The meaning of the chair is defined by the character of its environment.

The central question is, therefore, what kind of environment will this piece of furniture inhabit? Answering this question accurately narrows the design possibilities of the furniture that will be placed within it.  

4.0    ONE-OFF PIECES OR MASS PRODUCTION

           

Furniture in some sense has to be designed with a particular environment or place in mind - an environment which may already been designed and which will have its own colours, materials and lighting. This place gives the designer `clues' about the image required of the furniture. What should it look like in this place with this character.

On the other hand, furniture can also be designed for a general market where the exact character of the space (its colours, etc), cannot be known. The same piece of furniture could end up in several different environments.

These different circumstances require different approaches. For this reason we can look at two approaches to furniture design used by Interior and Furniture designers:

a)         Custom designed for a particular known environment (and possibly physically built-in).

b)         Designed for the general market and advertized through catalogues from which interior designers will select.

For economic reasons, in interior design it is a combination of the two approaches: part custom-designed, part catalogue selection.

5.0    DESIGN PROCESS

As always there are different ways of doing things but in the case of design there are two basic processes:

a)         Start from the functional aspect and develop the design image from there.

b)        Start from the image and modify the shape to deal with a functional issue.

Both approaches can lead to well-designed furniture (or any object). But...........remember - both issues have to be dealt with. There is no point in designing a comfortable chair if it looks clumsy or uncomfortable. No one will want to buy it. Equally, a dramatic and colourful piece of furniture might make people interested, but will they buy it if they can't use it easily?

This is what design is about: solving both the functional and image tasks. The end result must be an object which can be both physically and visually enjoyed.

It is as well to remember that, not only is a piece of furniture a machine for doing something, it is also seen as part of an environment. In this sense furniture can be thought of as pieces of sculpture which are placed within a particular environment and which reinforce its image or character. (or not). It is integral with its environment. It defines the character of the environment as much as the walls or floors.  Difficult, isn't it? Or is it?

Always refer back to the (imagined) environment for ideas about the design.

6.0    FROM FUNCTION TO IMAGE

With Approach a) above: the functional task - what the piece of furniture has to do -should be clearly defined first. Eg. If we design a chair: what kind of chair? Armchair, lounger, dining room, auditorium, conference, etc. etc. Decide!

The ergonomics for each type of chair can be researched quickly: height from the floor, location of back support, angle of back recline, and so on. This will give you a basic GEOMETRY for the chair - a basic grid upon which you can design the object itself.

Now! Like the human body itself, there are two aspects to the form of this chair:  The structure (skeleton) and the 'cladding' (muscles, skin) that give it shape:

a)         The seat/back/arm supports used by the human body. (Soft? Firm? Padded? Colour? Material?)

b)                 The structure or skeleton which holds these off the ground and in position. Eg. legs, frame, etc. (It must be strong. Metal? plastic? timber?).

This is where the design thinking comes in. Is the frame an obviously separate thing from the body support, or is it integrated into it?  What are the functional reasons for making such a decision? And what of course are the economics of materials and construction methods which limit the designers choices, for this or any other peice of furniture?

Is it possible to design something from a purely functional point of view?

The answer is probably not. The object has to be seen as part of an environment. It has to have meaning in that environment. Its visual qualities: shape, colour, texture and its form are therefore important.

The issue as always is: What do we want to SEE? Is the furniture an integral part of the space? Is the design of the chairs, cabinets, counters and desks consistent in IMAGE with the overall space?

Historical note: The major shift in the design of furniture occurred in the 1920s with the work of Marcel Breuer, Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. Until then chairs, for example were the 19th century heavily-padded type: the structure was INSIDE the padded form.

With the modern Movement of the 1920s, the structure was pulled OUTSIDE the general seating/support material and REVEALED (usually in stainless steel). The seating /back support material (usually leather) was slung on the steel frame. This clear separation of structure and form also took place in the architecture of the period. 

7.0    FROM IMAGE TO FUNCTION

With Approach b) the issues are very different. This starts from the idea of a shape which can give visual pleasure and interest and modifies it to let it carry out a functional task.

           

Where does one start with this approach?

START WITH THE IDEA OF PRODUCING A PIECE OF SCULPTURE - pure and simple - a self supporting shape which could be placed in an art gallery. (This is the have-fun stage!). You can do this by `free association' of ideas, playing with shapes you like, producing geometric assemblies, building rough models, etc. till you get something that looks `right', coherent, `interesting' to you. Don't be too cautious at this stage.

Remember: the practical problems of your furniture piece will already have been solved many, many times before. Furniture contractors are designing and building practical and ordinary items day by day.

Your job is to make furniture more interesting and beautiful. While you are doing this, in the back of your head your brain will also be checking the `sculpure' shape for functional possibilities. (Yes! you CAN think about two things at the same time!).

When you decide what kind of piece of furniture your shape can become apply the ergonomic grid to it and modify  the shape to make it work.

As you can see, most `designer' furniture is not very comfortable to use, but very interesting to look at. People buy it for that reason. Nothing is perfect, and everything can be modified to work in some way, so the bottom line from a designers point of view is:

Is this an interesting piece of furniture? Is it an interesting piece of sculpture? Look at what you have produced, what is the answer to this question?

8.0    COLOUR, TEXTURE AND DETAIL

Anything can be built, but not everything is worth building.

Shape, colour, texture and details: these are the visible and tactile aspects of design and can be manipulated to achieve whatever ends the designer wants.

COLOUR: Shape is a very powerful factor in appreciating objects but colour will affect the way people see the shape. The same object in bright red will be perceived differently from the same object in bright blue. You can use colour to control how people see the different parts of the object. The colours can be coded to express or emphasize different parts of the design. Colour can be used to visually distort the shape. What do you want them to see?

TEXTURE: Furniture is there to be touched and physically used. The texture of things is therefore important. Note the difference between the feel of leather, fabric, metal and timber. Warm, cool rough, smooth, both tactile and visual. You have control over this choice.

DETAILS: More than most other designed objects, furniture relies on details to emphasize its quality. This is because of its SIZE - it can be perceived, touched, picked up and used directly by people. While the overall shape/colour is important, details give the shape a particular character and scale which will be immediately percieved.

What are details? They are almost always the JOINTS or JUNCTIONS between different parts or materials of the piece. Depending on the design style it may be that the designer prefers to express the fixings and joints to give the object a `tougher' and more expressive look. Eg. by emphasizing the screwheads, rivets, seams, etc. Or it may be that he/she needs to smooth everything out. Its all a matter of design choice based ultimately on where the piece will be, in what environment it will be seen.

9.0    THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT

There is no such thing as a single piece of furniture designed to exist on its own. Think of furniture as SETS of objects related to each other. So too there is no such thing as a single light fitting designed to be seen on its own, nor an individual colour, nor an individual texture. The profession of the designer is to design complete environments

 . That is, totally integrated environments where all elements are conceived as part of the whole. Although there can be accents, highlights or 'special effects' within a space, these are meant to influence the space as a whole - to sharpen one's perception of it.

In a real sense the designer produces the equivalent of STAGE SETS. That is, probably temporary, yet totally believable environments which capture a particular atmosphere and provide a definite experience for the user. Does the space have a definite character where all the parts are carefully chosen to match each other. Is it a definite PLACE?

The answer to this depends of what one might call FOCUS. That is can the designer maintain a rigorous, consistent and continuous process of selection within the limits of his/her original concept. Can this concept be made real by bringing together all the elements of colour, shape texture and detail which are related to each other in terms of the concept. The concept is the framework, the pattern, the goal, the target, the idea, the guideline, the philosophy, the notion, the template.

In the movie industry, set designers certainly can and do - within the very tight functional and budgetary requirements of the movie. Whether that be a science fiction concept (Blade Runner, Alien) or historical drama, (The Red Lantern, Runs with Wolves), the environment of the SET and the detail of the PROPS make the whole thing believable. There is no conceptual difference between this and Interior Design or Exhibition Design. The end result is the creation of a whole environment which 'hangs together' in terms of the colour scheme, the shape of the space and the elements within it.

 

10.0  THE LAST WORD

There is no dining chair without a related dining table. Think of furniture as always having a surrounding environment to which it is related. Even single chairs will be grouped together. There is never only ONE chair in a room. Designers design environments. Furniture is part of that environment and it is the part which people use most immediately and directly. Keep switching focus between the WHOLE - the environment and its concept, and the PART - furniture and fittings and details.

END