Twentieth Century Design Reading Notes

• Modernism and MOMA, New York (p155)
  An "international style", a rather modernist canon of taste, emerged in the '50s.
  
  
• The corporation and cultural heritage (p159)
  Cassina promoted the international style through the marketing of furniture by contemporary Italian designers as well as the 'Masters' series of pass classics.
  　more info on the Masters' series--
  
  1. Foundation le Corbusier
  
  Involvement in cultural activities of Italian companies such as Olivetti have helped establish the company's personality as cultural, film and photography also helped communicate corporate identity across borders.
  
  
• The New International Style (p160)
  Among the permeating modernist canon of taste, design groups such as Memphis take another passage. Centered around Ettore Sottsass, Memphis is famous for its bold decoration and seemingly mundane materials, fusing contribution of designers from all over the world. The success of Memphis forms a "New International Style" whos products are preserved for an affluent elite as works of art.
  
  Compared with their functionist counterparts, companies such as Officina Aleesi and Swid Powell also succeeded in carrying out the notion of "design as art" in the '80s.
  
  1. Officina Alessi: Tea and Coffee Piazzas
  2. Swid Powell: Founded by former Knoll International employees Nan Swid and Addie Powell.
     
     
• Design Promotion, Profession, and Management (165)
  Private and State-funded organizations were established all over the world in the mid twentieth century to promote design as a profession to business and manufacturing communities. The conbination of design and other fields of studies such as ergonomics, anthropometrics, cybernetics, marketing, management...etc, and the concern for method and system in design contributed to the field of design management.
  
  The establishment of industrial design associations dated back to as early as 1845. The distrust between artists and manufacturers, however, challenged the efforts to promote handicraft in industry.
  
  //This is exactly the situation companies in Taiwan will face while attempting to move from second-tier manufacturers to first-rate brand in the world. Besides those successful partnerships, we should also study failed ones to learn a lesson.
  
  Changing naming of design associations revealed that the status of design was yet to be clarified in the mid-20th century.
  
  Reflecting on Design Promotion in Taiwan (Ling)

• The design prefession in interwar years (p168)
  What are the advancement and protections of the interests of design professionals? Intellectual property? workshops?
  
  Channels of design promotion
  

  • associations - SIA: yearbooks, magazines;
  • Council of Industrial Design (COID): Design Index
  • mass media - BBS: Herbert Reed, Nikolaus Pevsner
  • exhibitions - "Britain Can Make It" and "Festival of Britain"
  • education
  • research

• The design profession: fresh opportunities after 1945 (p170)
  
  roles of different parties
  
  
  • designers
    intuition, individuality
  • advertising co.
    marketing, advertising
  • manufacturers
    product development, manufacturing, retailing
  • engineers, scientists
    new technology, materials
  • customers
    purchasing power, a testbed
    
    Industrial design consultancy: Bassett-Gray Group, London office of Raymond Loewy Associates, Design Research Unitemerging markets - consumerism v.s. sustainability
    
    [ref] Designing Britain: 1950-1970
    
    [ref] Business UK
    

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