William Morris – Beauty of Practicality
2023-03-27
Morris believed his responsibility was “to revive a sense of beauty in home life, to restore the dignity of art to household decoration.Read More →
Paul Rand (1914 -1996) – Designer who led the way
2023-03-24
Paul Rand, was a seminal figure in graphic design who made innovative visual identities for some of America’s major corporations and book and magazine publishers
We all have seen the designs of Paul Rand at some stage of our lives. He had a career spanning nearly seven decades. There is the seminal logo for IBM and the logo for ABC. There is the Westinghouse logo, the logo for NeXT computers. There are posters and packaging, book covers, record covers and a multitude of magazine covers.Read More →
Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) – Symbolism and Metaphor
2023-03-19
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist that lived most of her life and physical pain, yet she continued to paint until her death, her artwork records her suffering and experiences as a woman. She was born to a Mexican mother and a German father.Read More →
Capitalisation rules – the basics
2023-03-16
If you have ever read an old newspaper (early nineteenth century) and you look carefully at the old broadsheets. You will notice that words are capitalised here and there and that the rules of capitalisation, some of which you will learn shortly, seem nonexistent.Read More →
Domus (1928) magazine devoted to design & architecture
2023-03-13
Gio Ponti founded Domus in 1928, this journal devoted to architecture and design, originally named “L’ Arte della Casa,” has been at the forefront of design debate in Italy. In the 1930s, it was mainly concerned with a Novecento aesthetic, but it also paid attention to more radical tendencies, as Persico’s 1934 article “A New Start for Architecture” exemplifies. Read More →
Orrefors Glasbruk a Swedish glassware manufacturer.
2023-03-10
Orrefors Glasbruk is a Swedish glassware manufacturer. An ironworks was established in 1726 on the property of Halleberg ( the Orrefors estate), Socken, Småland. Read More →
Jasper Morrison (b.1959) – British Designer, quirky, understated furniture
2023-03-08
Morrison produced quirky, satiric, understated furniture. His 1986 South Kensington flat was widely published in design magazines. He designed 1988 Door handles I and II, and a 1989 range of aluminium handles produced by FSB in Germany. Read More →
Design History – 40s & 50s the age of the Graphic Designer
2023-03-06
The 1940s and 1950s the age of the Graphic Designer. Designers, illustrators, and artists used their talents to disseminate information.Read More →
Oscar Onken (1858 – 1948) and the ‘The Shop of the Crafters’
2023-03-05
Oscar Onken (1858 – 1948) was an American entrepreneur. He was professionally active in Ohio. Onken was a prominent businessman and philanthropist. Impressed with the Gustav Stickley and Austrian stands at the 1904 St. Louis ‘Louisiana Purchase Exposition,’ he founded The Shop of the Crafts in Cincinnati in 1904. Read More →
Gio Ponti (1891-1979) Italian designer, writer and teacher
2023-03-04
Gio Ponti was an influential writer, teacher, and practising architect who was one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century Italian design. In a long and illustrious career, he worked in a wide variety of design fields, from interiors to furniture and product design, understanding the value of craft traditions alongside creating a new aesthetic.Read More →
Jan Tschichold (1902 – 1974) – Swiss Typographer
2023-02-21
German-born, Tschichold is one of the most outstanding and influential typographers of the 20th century, He cleared away the old typography of pre-1925 and made room for a modern, structured and regulated new typography. His work is characterised by rigorous structure, asymmetrical placement of contrasting elements, and layouts based on horizontal and vertical underlying grids.Read More →
Paul Bacon (1923 – 2015) – created looks for books
2023-02-21
Paul Bacon was not a household name, but anyone who has a passion for books will have seen his works. Bacon was an artist, who used minimal imagery and bold typography to sell famous novels such as, “Catch 22” by Joseph Heller, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest’s and Phillip Roth’s “Portnoy’s complaint?Read More →
Million Mark Note – Design Classic
2023-02-20
The Bauhaus was the most well-known design school of the 20th century. Herbert Bayer created notes in denominations of one million, two million, and two billion. The designs exemplify the ideology of hardline Modern Movement graphics.Read More →
Herbert Bayer (1900 – 1985) – Universal Typeface – Bauhaus Master
2023-01-10
The universal typeface, 1925, was a geometric alphabet based on bar and circle and was designed by Herbert Bayer. READ MORERead More →
Antonio Citterio ( b.1950 ) Italian furniture designer
2023-01-10
Antonio Citterio is a leading Italian architect and interior designer, furniture and industrial designer. Citterio explored the possibilities of new materials and technologies rather than aligning himself with New Design’s more fashionable aesthetics.Read More →
Deutscher Werkbund German artistic and production association
2023-01-09
The organisation, Deutscher Werkund was founded in Munich (1907) to improve products’ design through the joint efforts of artists, craftsmen, and manufacturers: its leading lights were Behrens, Theodor Fischer, Hermann Muthesius and Fritz Schumacher.Read More →
Émile Bernaux (1883 – 1970) French sculptor and furniture designer
2023-01-09
Émile Bernaux was a French sculptor and furniture designer. He was born in Paris in 1883.Read More →
Maiolica tin-glazed earthenware, a product of the Renaissance
2023-01-09
Maiolica is a tin-glazed earthenware that was produced during the Renaissance in Italy. The name comes from Majorca, the island from which, in the 15th century, a lot of Hispano-Moresque tin-glazed pottery was brought into Italy. The technique of covering with a tin glaze earthenware was similar to that used elsewhere in Europe for delftware and faience.Read More →
Rodolfo Bonetto – Italian furniture & industrial designer
2023-01-07
Rodolfo Bonetto (1929 – 1991) was Italian furniture and industrial designer. He began his design career at the Pininfarina automobile body design firm. In 1958, he founded his studio. Between 1963-69, was a member of ADI (Associazione per il Disegno Industriale) advisory committee and participated in numerous other professional organisations. Read More →
Robert Bonfils (1886 – 1972) French Graphic Artist
2023-01-05
Born in Paris, Robert Bonfils was a French graphic artist, painter, and designer. He studied at the École Germain-Pilon in 1903 and at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1906.
He worked for Henri Hamm, a furniture designer. His work included paintings, bookbindings, ceramics for Sèvres, Bianchini-Frerier silk, wallpaper and interior design layouts. He designed the tea room at the Au Printemps department store in Paris. With depictions of the seasons, he decorated the wall.Read More →