Week without the Others!!!

Well I thought it would be a great time to catch up on any outstanding work and although my progress was not as good as it should have been I did go up to London to the Victoria and Albert Museum to see some exhibitions. The reason I went was because I saw and advert for an exhibition of Illustrator Awards. I did however find some other interesting stuff here I will show you.

This exhibition demonstrated many different pieces from the 16th to 18th century, the image here was the most expensive and important item in the dinner service. It had become an essential element of the very grandest English dining tables by the 1730's and remained a focus for inventive design throughout the 18th century.

I also looked at some old paintings that included alot of people, landscape and movement. There were not many paintings of objects as there are today.

Next exhibition was from 19th and 20th centuries. Firstly the 19th century; Ideas about design have been transmitted in many different ways, by word of mouth, on paper and by the objects themselves.

Official concern about the quality of design grew during the 19th century. Following the Great Exhibition held in London in 1851, exhibitions and exhibits from many different nations were increasingly seen as a means of informing designers, manufacturers and the buying public on matters of design as well as being seen as a way of stimulating production.

Some posters were included here but unfortunately did not come out very well some were held in Paris in 1925. It gave special prominence to the decorative arts. It reasserted France of the definitive venue for the artist-decorators' style which combined elements of the historic and exotic with the bright colours and angular forms of contemporary painting. The style subsequently acquired from the title of this exhibition, the name Art Deco.


Exotism - a term applied to design implies an interest in appropriating the otherness (now labelled Art-Deco) of distant lands, including the unexplored territory of the designer;s sub-conscious. Present in the picture below was used between 1920 and 1940. These influences can be used in many ways including:

through form, that is through the shapes of objects as in the jar.

through subject matter, as in scenes or things associated with distant parts or in surreal combinations and settings.

through techniques and materials, that is through ways of making derived from other cultures.

Surrealism, an international movement of the 1920 and 30's involving all arts.



Furniture and radios from 1900's, funnily enough most of these are sold in high streets for a rather expensive price. Seems style is being recycled.





The exhibitions also gave information on inspiration for designers and how we extinguish art from craft and craft from product design.

For example the greater speed with which machines work can influence design in a direction compatible with machine production. Their relationship with craftsman has been complex. One hand machines can reduce the drudgery of production, on the other they can stifle individual self expression. While machines themselves do not cause the division of labour, their management has often encouraged it.


With the 1990's influence coming from the above it was interesting to see the transition. Many of the designs in this exhibition I related to, maybe that is because I remember them so vividly or because modernism is my thing. I remember in the 90's shrinking crisp bags under the fire and selling them at school as badges. Bizzare I know but the fascination with logo's becomes clear here.