Design History Year Dot

Year Dot – 5000BC Our ancestors had to design and make all the things to help them survive Skin, bones, sticks and leaves Earliest known: stone tools (2.5 million years ago) Stone Age: 30,000 years ago Bronze Age: 10,000 years ago Iron Age: 3,000 years ago By end of last Ice Age Europeans clearly interested in appearance over function

5000 BC – 400 AD Bronze discovered by accident (3600 BC) The plough: 3500 BC (farming economies) Neolithic’s responsible for potter’s wheel The bow lathe: 3000 BC (furniture) Beginning of trade (1600 BC) – leads to a need for transportation, book keeping & writing tools ‘Keeping up with the Jones’ – status through possession Mass production? ¾ million Roman nails found by Hadrian’s Wall (AD 87)

400 – 1800 BC Invention of paper and gunpowder (1400) Paper – transformed the transmission of ideas Johannes Gutenberg (German) (1400): developed the first movable type printing method – mass production, the basis of consumerism The first illustrated encyclopaedia – 1493 The foundations of the industrial age – 1650 The first successful coal-powered engine – 1712 James Watt – perfected his design for steam engines (1769) Neoclassical – Chippendale furniture (1718 – 1779)

Michael Farraday designed the first electric motor in 1821 Joseph Henry perfected his electromagnetic motor in 1821 Frederick William Herschel invents contact lenses – 1827 Louis Daguerre & William Henry Fox Talbot – designed the first cameras (1830) 1837 – London School of Design Michael Thonet in 1842 perfected a method of bending strips of laminated beechwood – led to his mass produced No. 14 chair

The Great Exhibition (of Industry of All Nations) – 1 st May Devised by Prince Albert Joseph Paxton designed the Crystal palace in Hyde Park (pre-fab) Exhibited ‘naturalism’ – flowers & leaves Demonstrated the gap between design in Europe & America: Europe: usefulness second America: mass production to improve the quality of life 1851

Alexander Graham Bell – invented the telephone in 1876 Lewis Edson Waterman – designed the first fountain pen (1884) William Morris – influential craftsman on European Design, critical of mechanisation Birth of Arts & Crafts Movement Morris loathed Mass Production but understood its place – he wanted products to be made well. Art Nouveau (1895 – 1905) – ‘the evocation of the spirit of the plant’ (not popular in Britain)

Art Nouveau descended over Europe – rich ornamentation Roots in natural forms of Arts & Crafts Lasted until about 1914 Which way to go? No war, improved communication between artists & designers What are the principles of design? Encouraged by Studio Magazine (1893) Henry van de Velde – pioneer of the Deutscher Werkbund (1907) – believed the need for well-designed mass-produced goods Charles Rennie Mackintosh – straight lines and simplicity

De Stijl was first formed in 1917 as a magazine Led by Theo van Doesburg Used primary colours, divided areas with straight black lines Influential designer – Gerrit Thomas Reitveld (Red/Blue Chair) Lasted until 1926

Design school born in Weimar, Germany Established by Walter Gropius, a machine age successor of William Morris ‘Truth to material’ ‘Form follows function’ Craftsmanship, art & architecture overlapped The Bauhaus