20thC Design

The week 3 reading was “Twentieth Century Design” by Jonathon M. Woodham. Throughout the text Woodham investigates the bigger issues of design and industrial culture throughout the world, and explores ideas such as national identity, pop and post modernism, and contemporary ideas of nostalgia and heritage.

Woodham highlights the wider issues of design, and focuses on the Modernism and the history of design in the moral and political dimensions throughout Europe, Scandinavia, and North America. He explores modern movement design during the First World War, The Bauhaus, as well as the Frankfurt kitchen.

As the granddaughter of a veteran, I was very interested in this weeks lecture, in particularly in the rise of graphic design and the idea of propaganda posters used throughout WWI. It was through WWI where the importance of graphic and visual design was established and further developed. Propaganda posters were produced around the world for three main reasons: to recruit troops and encourage people to enlist, to sway the public at a mass level and further appeal patriotism, and to induce guilt onto people for letting others face danger.

Similarly, the depiction of woman used in propaganda posters was very fascinating, as the idea behind the poster differed depending on the target audience. Woman were used on posters as vulnerable and needing protection, as role models helping with the war effort, and as metaphors for patriotism and national symbols; they were also used to further induce guilt onto the public, where slogans such as “If you cannot join him – You should help her” were used.

 

References:

Woodham, J M 1997, Twentieth-century design, Oxford University Press, pp. 29-63.

Figure 1: IWM, (n.d.), If you cannot join him – You should help her, Art.IWM PST, Accessed: 14 August 2018, https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/31061