Wedgwood - the first industrial designers

The Week 4 article entitled 'The First Industrial Designers' by A. Forty from the text book Objects of Desire, provides a case study of the work of Josiah Wedgwood and his porcelain company of the same name.  The article provides us with a background of how his porcelain was made, the materials and the finish, as well as the method of sale.  This was significant as Wedgwood adopted a different means by which to sell his wares.  The traditional method was to sell to merchants or directly to markets but Wedgwood adopted a method of selling to order through either a catalogue from which the customer could select from or by providing a sample. 

This method of sale required Wedgwood to have a consistent product that was the same as the sample.  This was difficult as Wedgwood wares were all hand made, therefore there were naturally differences in manufacture.  Wedgwood had to solve these issues with the type of material he used.  Greenware was too inconsistent in colour and glaze so through experimenting Wedgwood came up with Cream Ware which was more consistent under different firing conditions.  The next step was to change the process of manufacture to one where the craftsman has influence in the process.  He did this by adding extra steps to the production, allowing him to hire less skilled workers and because of the design of the process still get a consistent result. 

The article explained the way Wedgewood refined his designs to come up with good looking neo-classical shapes that were easy to make.  He cut the number of various shapes and increased the motifs or prints to provide larger variety.  This enabled Wedgewood to limit downtime in setting up for a new shape.  Wedgewood produced wares that were both consistent in quality and met the needs of the consumer in terms of asthetics, usabiltiy and streamlined production.
This is a useful article which provides insight into how a successful company used the design process to create symmetry in both production and style.

Something that it caused me to ponder on was whether art must always answer to economics?  Would these designs be famous if they were too expensive to be economically successful? And should production and economic rationalisation dictate design?

On Taste

The Week 3 article by Robert Clay titled On Taste is from the first chapter of the book Beautiful Thing 2009.  It was an interesting and thought provoking article. This article begins by pointing out that taste is inextricably linked with fashion and design. The author poses the question "what is good taste" and then begins to explain that taste is a very subjective thing that is influenced by culture, fashion and time.  The author goes on to point out that every movement in design has had its critics and that there are universal ideals that describe good design.  The author then goes on  to explain these ideals in greater depth.

The ideals Stephen Bayley lists are:
1. An intelligibility in form so you can understand its purpose.
2. A coherence and harmony between the form and details.
3. An appropriate choice of materials to the function.
4. An intelligent equation between construction and purpose so the available technology is exploited to the full.

The author goes on to address the different design cliches and movements that hve given rise to these them. Bayley then presents the reader with a few case studies, such as one on the crock-pot by Michael Graves and one on Go furniture by Ross Lovegrove. The article concludes with a look at architecture and interior design in Thailand.  By this he makes a connection with design and the context of culture. This provided me with an insight into Thai architecture such as the need for steep pitched roofs that flair out at the base, and the reason behind the materials. This article caused me to think beyond my own ideas about taste and the need to be educated and informed in the history of design.

Printing comes to Europe

In the Week 2 article Printing comes to Europe(1998) by P Meggs we learn about the history of typography and the spread of this great invention throughout the civilized world. This invention marked one of the great advances in civilization, as prior to the invention of printing,  books had to be hand manuscripted. As this was time consuming and painstakingly done books were extremely expensive and were only available to the elite. By the middle of the 14th century paper mills were up and running throughout Europe and the invention allowed block printing to come into being. The method of block printing is where timber blocks are carved into stamps and pressed onto paper.  It is not known whether this early form preceded  the typographic book as there is little evidence left of very early prints. However it was Johann Gutenberg an apprentice goldsmith who came up with the systems and subsystems necessary to print to typographic book. Gutenberg used his skills in mixing metals and engraving to make the type blocks and began the process to print the Holy Bible. In 1450 Gutenberg borrowed eight hundred guilders from Johann Fust a German business man and just two years latter Gutenberg needed another eight hundred gilders in which he also borrowed from Fust, a decision that proved to be costly. In 1455 as work on the book neared completion, Fust sued Gutenberg for the cost of unpaid loans and interest Gutenberg begged Fust to give him more time but Fust declined and seized possession of all Gutenberg's equipment and the unfinished Bible. Fust was then able to get Gutenberg's assistant Peter Schoeffer to agree to come and work for him, as well as many other staff and in 1456 Fust completed the first run of the forty-two line Bible. Fust and Schoeffer went on to print many other works establishing a hundred year family dynasty in printing and publishing. Gutenberg went on to establish another printing shop and some years later appears to have printed a reprint of the forty-two line bible as well as other religious books. However the most interesting point in the article to me, is that it appears that copper plate printing (the printing of illustrations through engravings onto copper plates) had its roots in Gutenberg's workshop  That begs the question that if Fust had not sued Gutenberg how different would early books have been, would they not only contain print but also illustrations as well?
This was a great article that enlightened me to the beginnings of one of the greatest inventions of civilization, that is the printing press.

Computers and music composition.

Reynolds, N.  (2002) Computers, Creativity and Composition in the Primary School: An Analysis of Two Compositions: Australian Journal of Music Education volume 1(16-26) retrieved from Informit database 15 September 2010

This artical by Reynolds looks at eight students of grade three and grade four

Digitizing the Art Room

 

SHIN, R. (2010). Taking Digital Creativity to the Art Classroom: Mystery Box Swap. Art Education, 63(2), 38-42. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database.

This article by Shin looked at taking digital creativity into the art classroom. Shin mentioned how this generation is so tech savvy and that educators need to use new technologies in their teaching and not just consider these technologies "as  a detrimental part or contempary pop and visual culture". the paper firstly explored the concept of digital creativity and then looked at case studies into three separate art activites that classes done using web 2.0 technologies. This was a great article that will really help my research.

Creativity and technology

Hay, Stephen and Kapitzke, Cushla(2009) ''Smart state' for a knowledge economy: reconstituting

creativity through student subjectivity', British Journal of Sociology of Education, 30: 2, 151 — 164

This article didn't offer a whole lot in the way of research is was basically about governance and society and looked at how the state of Queensland has used industry and school partnerships to design courses around industry requirements such as aerospace and minning. This article was insightfull  and it did allow me to see creativity from the view of entrepreneurship, and how skills or attitudes like responsiveness, foresight, and adaptibility are the kinds of traits we need to instill in our students

Last Post

I decided to embed this video as it is one that really inspires me as a future educator.  Sir Ken Robinson talks about the state of our education system today and where he sees it needs to go.  The other reason is to demonstrate I can embed videos as part of my whole blogging experience!  :)