• Enter your e-mail

RSS

Round the Square

Best of 09: The audacity of design

by Roger | January 8th, 2010

This post was originally published December 3, 2009.

The Great Depression, like our (not so) Great Recession, had psychological components which, while certainly a result of bank failures, bread lines, unemployment, and negative growth, also had a trajectory of their own. People were down, if not always out. The exuberance of the ’20s, much like our recent periods of exuberance, had shown that one could no longer count on, or trust, business as usual. Up, surprisingly, was not the only direction possible.

But some American designers––architects, graphic designers, film and theatrical designers, and practitioners of just-emerging industrial design––found opportunities in the destruction of the Depression: opportunities to craft household goods, transportation, and buildings that were more American than European; opportunities to express technological advances; opportunities to motivate customers by instilling hopefulness.

Whether consciously understood or not at the time, designers found themselves at a pivot point: traditional ways of doing business, of making technology available, of communicating, no longer worked well. The nation didn’t need another car, clock, bakery, train, or advertisement; it needed a different car, clock, bakery…ones that would change how people felt about themselves and their future. If government policies couldn’t lead the nation out of the Depression, industry would.

Believing in functionalism and turning away from ornamentation of the past, designers evolved a new style based on the aerodynamics of a teardrop, the fluidity of a curve, and the speed of a line. But beyond style, the design of the Depression promised a better world: clean, efficient, fast––and happier and more prosperous. Who wouldn’t want to have a bit of this vision in their home in the form of a streamlined vacuum cleaner, a refrigerator without a clanking motor on top, a car that looked like it was moving even when parked?

Newsreel iconography not withstanding, not everyone in the Depression was destitute, but the pall of the times kept people’s wallets closed. The energy and optimism of new design helped change that.

Ken Weber’s 1932 clock for the Lawson Company. Its tri-partite structure, compound curves, and articulated center stripe that frames the “digital” display, all pointed to the different future that this clock would herald each day(1). Walter Dorwin Teague’s Kodak Bantam Special camera, 1936, expressed the cylinders required for unexposed and exposed film—no longer hidden within a rectangular box—and the sleek, compact shape with its rhythm of black and chrome lines made people feel differently about taking pictures—and probably about themselves(2).

Ken Weber’s 1932 clock for the Lawson Company. Its tri-partite structure, compound curves, and articulated center stripe that frames the “digital” display, all pointed to the different future that this clock would herald each day(1). Walter Dorwin Teague’s Kodak Bantam Special camera, 1936, expressed the cylinders required for unexposed and exposed film—no longer hidden within a rectangular box—and the sleek, compact shape with its rhythm of black and chrome lines made people feel differently about taking pictures—and probably about themselves(2).

The Electrolux Model 30 vacuum cleaner of 1937 promised (and probably delivered) a new experience in housework; if Ginger Rogers were ever to vacuum, she’d probably be just ahead of this model in very high heels. Its design, diluted and in plastic, is with us still(3).

The Electrolux Model 30 vacuum cleaner of 1937 promised (and probably delivered) a new experience in housework; if Ginger Rogers were ever to vacuum, she’d probably be just ahead of this model in very high heels. Its design, diluted and in plastic, is with us still(3).

Corner bakeries, like this one designed by Raymond Loewy, promised a different experience than dingy alternatives. While the bread was probably the same, the design of this corner establishment—and many like it that spread quickly across the country—added value to the eggs and flour, and drove traffic)(4).

Corner bakeries, like this one designed by Raymond Loewy, promised a different experience than dingy alternatives. While the bread was probably the same, the design of this corner establishment—and many like it that spread quickly across the country—added value to the eggs and flour, and drove traffic)(4).

A few graphic designers and their clients began to look beyond the promotion of a specific product or transaction to advance an organization’s brand (although they didn’t used that particular lingo). Advertisements from Container Corporation of America challenged long-standing conventions: much as industrial designers and architects were working to streamline and simplify forms and develop a new approach to ornament, copy in these new ads was reduced to a phrase or two––and powerful design (often connecting symbols together to advance a concept and tell a visual story) took center stage, promoting the product at the brand level. The positioning the company gained from these design statements lasted decades.

Advertisements designed by Tony Zepf, Gyorgy Kepes, Herbert Bayer, Herbert Matter, and A.M. Cassandre (above) represented a major change in the advertising / design landscape.

Advertisements designed by Tony Zepf, Gyorgy Kepes, Herbert Bayer, Herbert Matter, and A.M. Cassandre (above) represented a major change in the advertising / design landscape.

Others were also beginning to integrate communications across media. Henry Dreyfuss, originally a theatrical designer, understood the need to reinforce a complete experience. His efforts and those of Egbert Jacobson at Container Corporation of America drove the movement towards unified corporate identities that would flourish in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

From the red carpet to the tailboard, from on-board stationery to plates, the signature 20th Century Limited “chimney” helped to define and add value to the experience of traveling on this train(5).

From the red carpet to the tailboard, from on-board stationery to plates, the signature 20th Century Limited “chimney” helped to define and add value to the experience of traveling on this train(5).

So now what?

We, too, could be at a pivot point. While it takes the benefit of hindsight to confirm, it does seem clear that many of our models and ideas are proving unequal to the tasks of understanding, interpreting, and reshaping our world to advance positive change.

We, like the designers of the Depression, are confronted with changes and opportunities––at individual, community, and global scales. Climate change, different sources and applications of energy, the social and health issues of aging Boomers, the proliferation of mobile computing….these are some of the opportunities for designers to analyze and synthesize, deconstruct and construct. As is the tidal wave of “more”––more products, promises, market segments, communication channels, choices, opinions, noise––and less trust in information received through traditional channels.

That it’s hard to take advantage of our potential pivot point doesn’t change the need or the opportunity to design products, brand / communication programs, and experiences that resonate with people on both rational and emotional levels, that reinforce people’s sense of their own personal brand, that help people to envision a future in which they’d like to be an enthusiastic participant.

The “modern” designs and designers of the Depression helped shape much of what we experience today, but this legacy is not enough for the times we’re in. What will be the next New Deal in design? The new 21st Century Limited? In fifty years will we be able to look back and see that the disruptions of our time were, in fact, departure points for a new voice, a new vocabulary? Will we be able to design hope into our lives?

Image credits:
1: Flinchum, Russell. Henry Dreyfuss: The Man in the Brown Suit. (New York: Smithsonian Institution and Rizzoli International, 1997), p. 53.
2: Bush, Donald, J. The Streamlined Decade. (New York: George Braziller, 1975), p. 19.
3: Greif, Martin. Depression Modern. (New York: Universe Books, 1975), p.178.
4: Ibid., p. 80.
5: Flinchum. Henry Dreyfuss. p. 61.

Categories Design

to our website



Leave a Reply