Design  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Revision as of 20:06, 25 June 2014

Cenotaph for Newton (1784) by French architect Étienne-Louis Boullée was designed but never built, see paper architecture

The Trylon and Perisphere, two modernistic structures at the New York World's Fair of 1939-1940
Photo: Trylon, Perisphere and Helicline (Samuel H. Gottscho)

1872 photograph of the western face of the Greek Parthenon

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Wikipedia Wiktionary Shop Featured: Rhombicuboctahedron by Leonardo da Vinci

Design, usually considered in the context of the applied arts, engineering, architecture, and other such creative endeavors. In the context of this wiki design is defined as "the art of designing", as in Danish design of furniture is world-famous. As such, we will consider the fields of industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, interior design, and decorative art. Design differs from industrial design in that the latter is always meant for mass production, whereas the former may also mean one-off production.

Design and art

Today the term design is widely associated with the Applied arts as initiated by Raymond Loewy and teachings at the Bauhaus and Ulm School of Design (HfG Ulm) in Germany during the 20th Century.

The boundaries between art and design are blurred, largely due to a range of applications both for the term 'art' and the term 'design'. Applied arts has been used as an umbrella term to define fields of industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, etc. The term 'decorative arts' is a traditional term used in historical discourses to describe craft objects, and also sits within the umbrella of Applied arts. In graphic arts (2D image making that ranges from photography to illustration) the distinction is often made between fine art and commercial art, based on the context within which the work is produced and how it is traded.

To a degree, some methods for creating work, such as employing intuition, are shared across the disciplines within the Applied arts and Fine art. Mark Getlein suggests the principles of design are "almost instinctive", "built-in", "natural", and part of "our sense of 'rightness'." However, the intended application and context of the resulting works will vary greatly.

Related

applied arts - architecture - car - cult objects - decorative arts - fashion - furniture - "good design" - graphic design - industrial design - interior design - object - product - technology

Movements: art deco (1925-1950) - art nouveau (1880-1905) - atomic age - Arts & Crafts (1851-1914) - Bauhaus (1920-1930) - International Style - Jet Age - machine age - Memphis Design group - pop (1960-1980) - postmodernism - space age - streamline moderne (1925-1950)

Designers: Joe Colombo - Luigi Colani - Ray and Charles Eames - Piero Fornasetti - Carlo Mollino - Gaetano Pesce - Dieter Rams - Ettore Sottsass

Connoisseurs: the Fiells - Stephen Bayley - Philippe Garner - Bevis Hillier - Penny Sparke

Magazines: Domus magazine

See also

• Graphic design
• Design Academy Eindhoven
• Vitra Design Museum

By region

• Dutch design
• Italian design
• American design
• Scandinavian design