An Introduction to Design and Culture: 1900 to the Present by Penny Sparke

Author:Penny Sparke [Sparke, Penny]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781136474095
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2013-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 7.6 Apple Computer Inc.’s ‘Snow White’ IIc computer, 1984

(© frogdesign inc.)

Figure 7.7 Apple’s iPod touch, designed by Jonathan Ive, 2005

The computer both made redundant and transformed many of the roles that had hitherto been performed by the graphic designer. On one level, the advent of software packages, such as Adobe Photoshop, made it possible for large numbers of people to undertake work that had previously been the preserve of the trained graphic designer. On another level, the rapid expansion of the internet opened up a new area of design expertise – web design – that was to become a widespread activity, especially in developing countries such as China and India. In addition, the arrival of CAD (computer-aided design) systems transformed the ways in which many designers – architects and product designers in particular – went about their daily work. In the early days, the look of many products and buildings owed much to the constraints of that process and numerous curved products and buildings emerged as a result. Gradually, however, CAD programmes became more sophisticated and less aesthetically constraining.

In addition to transforming the design process itself, the digital revolution of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries also transformed manufacturing. In particular, it enabled a greater diversity of goods to enter the global marketplace. The shift away from Fordist mass production to what David Hounshell has called ‘flexible mass production’ in the 1920s had reinforced the importance of design in ensuring product diversity and the niche marketing that flowed from it.31 As a result of sociocultural change, the democratization of consumption and the move of manufacturers to large-scale batch production, the concept of the global niche market became increasingly visible later in the century. To appeal to their intended consumers, designers ensured that goods had distinctive identities and manufacturers increasingly modified their production systems to be able to produce enough goods with a sufficient level of diversity. Nowhere was that strategy more apparent, in the last years of the twentieth century, than in the example of the Swatch Company’s watches. They were produced in large numbers, at low prices, but with a huge stylistic variety that was constantly being updated. The Swiss company exploited technological innovation and virtuosity – Swatch were slimmer than watches have ever been – but they also brought about a sociocultural transformation in which the watch ceased to be an expensive object bought to last but was transformed, instead, into a cheap fashion accessory to be discarded when its style became outdated.

From the 1980s onwards, Japan, followed quickly afterwards by Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, China and India, recognized the varied needs of world markets and set out to cater for local and national taste cultures. Where television sets were concerned, for example, discovering that Germany favoured black cabinets while Italy preferred white boxes and Britain wood-effect plastic casings, the Japanese electronics manufacturer, Sharp, designed and marketed appropriate products for each country. Many Japanese manufacturers automated their production lines and used numerically controlled machines to make the necessary variants which it described as ‘many versions in small lots’.

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