Chapter 17 explores the field of Design. "Design," saw its evolution during the 1920's, when people involved in the graphic arts, industrial arts, crafts, and architecture began to be referred to as "designers." Their job was to design products that could meet the needs of an urban society. Designers could take any object or product—a shoe, a chair or an automobile, and make it both functional and appealing. Design is so intimately tied to industry that its origins can be traced back to the advent of the industrial age.

After reading this chapter, you should:

1. know what these influential designers and cultural catalysts contributed to the field of design:
   • Josiah Wedgwood
   • Joseph Paxton
   • William Morris
   • Philip Webb
   • Gustav Stickley
   • Frank Lloyd Wright
   • Siegfried Bing
   • Louis Comfort Tiffany
   • Antoni Gaudí
   • Le Corbusier
   • Piet Mondrian
   • Gerrit Rietveld
   • Liubov Popova
   • Walter Gropius
   • R. Buckminster Fuller
   • Norman Bel Geddes
   • Charles Eames
   • Eero Saarinen
   • Raymond Loewy
   • Ettore Sottsass

2. know the definitions of key terms relating to design and design history including:
   • Art Deco
   • Art Nouveau
   • Arts and Crafts Movement
   • Constructivism
   • De Stijl
   • Jugendstil
   • pluralist aesthetic
   • streamlining

3. consider the relationships between "ornamental ware" and "state furniture," and "useful ware" and "workaday furniture!" You should also consider what Wedgwood and Morris might have contributed to the field of marketing.

4. know what the Arts and Crafts Movement was, where it started and who was instrumental in founding it.

5. understand how different designers defined "simplicity."

6. know the differences between Art Nouveau and Art Deco, the two decorative movements that swayed the look of design, architecture, and decorative arts at the beginning of the twentieth century.

7. understand the significance of the 1925 Paris Exposition. What did the exposition do to promote Art Deco, as well as the reaction against it.

8. understand the evolution of International Style, in contemporary design and architecture. You should know the significant role that the Bauhaus played in the new style.

9. see the contributions made by artists and designers working in the De Stijl and the Constructivist movements.

10. see how science and technology initially fueled the advent of streamlined design, which in some cases evolved to a decorative style.

11. understand what "contemporary design" is, and how it finally resolved the issues of designing in either geometric or organic styles by basically combining the two.

12. see how the Italian designer Ettore Sottsass, who spearheaded a design group called Memphis in the mid 1970's, fueled a style and philosophy where personal expression takes precedence over mass appeal.

Like the last chapter—Architecture, Chapter 17 ends with a discussion of Postmodernism, the willingness to incorporate anything and everything into a given design. "Stylistic pluralism" in contemporary design is illustrated by looking at several examples of corporate identity packages; a traditional one—Coca-Cola's famous bottle, and two non-traditional groups—the designers at MTV® and at Swatch® Watches, who conceive of their design identities as kinetic and ever changing variations of a basic theme.

The development of the pluralist aesthetic has been amplified by reaction in the design community against the "good taste" of aesthetic mass consumption. In The Critical Process, Andrea Zittel attempts to eliminate one single reference point of time. As we begin this new century, what will become our new aesthetic? In the 1970s, Minimal Art, which had already diminished both the image and the artist's role in creating the image, led to Conceptual Art, which in some cases was simply text provided by artists to describe or suggest a set of activities. Feeling that they had nowhere to go, a group of young artists rebelled against the "non-visual" style of Conceptual Art, and returned to the basics—sculpture, painting, drawing, photography, and printmaking. In one sense, these artists brought "visuality" back to the visual arts. Have we now reached a point that seems the opposite of this dilemma? How much more information can we pack into a pluralist vision?

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