Design through time
Nicholas Oddy took us on a journey through time, analyzing some of the most extraordinary pieces of engineering and design in regard to, what makes them Great Design?
We started in 1829 with the ‘Rocket’ designed by George Stephenson. It was built for, and won, the Rainhill Trials held by the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1829 to choose the best design to power the railway. Stephenson came from a poor background and no access to education. When he was 17 he paid for his own education and started to get interested in team-driven machinery. With his rocket he became a national hero and a pioneer for self-help and engineering. No question, Georg Stephenson was a great engineer and designer, but was his work truly Great Design?
Our next step brought us to the opening of the Forth Bridge in 1890. It was the longest Cantilever Bridge in the world and has been granted Unesco World Heritage Site status. It was designed by Sir John Fowler and Benjamin Baker and became a Scottish Icon. It is Great design due to its engineering excellence. There is no decoration, the structure itself creates the shape.
In the 1903 Ford founded his automobile company and started with its black elegant row seaters a global success. But it was more his capitalist and forward thinking attitude which was outstanding. He believed in empowering people and goods for all. Manufacturers should be able to afford the products they produce and therefore, Fords employees earned very high salaries. Ford tried to produce something that worked well, but was also cheap enough to be sold to everyone. Ford is an example for Great Design because of its economic structure and social beliefs behind it.
Contrarily, VW struggled of his social beliefs. It supported the Nazi-regime during the second world war, but survived this with an image change and its ‘Beetle’. But can you call something Great Design with a bad history?
America produced one of greatest designers in the 1940’s. Henry Dreyfuss is remembered for his design of the Western Electric telephones, which were widely used from the 1930s through the 1960s, and the the NYC Hudsons streamlined casing for 20th Century Limited. It could be criticized, that this casing is not an example of honest design. Instead of changing the interior structure to increase efficiency, a streamlined meta cover was added. His designs sold enormously, but was it because of its name or because of his products.
Another example of this phenomena is Raymond Loewy (right), an industrial designer famous for his Coldspot refrigerator. He changed the cover design annually to encourage more sales. You could call this not honest design, but his products sold really well, so is it Great Design in an economic sense?
Contrarily to this, Margaret Calvert was all for timeless design. 1965 she got asked to design the new traffic signs for Great Britain. She did this so successfully, that other countries implemented her designs on their roads. The graphic design is clear, easy and quick to understand without any reading involved and timeless due to the use of the basic shape of cars, bikes and clothes. In the road sign above you can pot a slight hint of feminism, with the girl leading the boy over the street. It is a subtle design, which we see every day.
Another classic design which we see everywhere is the safety bicycle. An inexpensive, fast, healthy and environmentally friendly mode of transport, which is highly popular and hasn’t changed his fundamental shape since the mid-1900. It was developed step by step by various different people, but we miss a name, a Great Designer behind it.
And if we get a great Designer, we celebrate him or her. Everything he or her does, is just amazing! Examples for this phenomena are Le Corbusier or Philip Starck.
Finally, we end up with IKEA. The individual products might not be called Great Design, but the marketing, the service and the shop are!
So, looking back at history, what is Great Design?
Is it great engineering and skill, is it because of great social beliefs behind, and can make negative moral make it bad design? Is it great design if it is sold in vast numbers, or if it is timeless and doesn’t change with time? Or does it need a name, a Great Designer to produce Great Design? And where do we put service design?
I think that all of these above are true to a degree, but every person has to choose their priorities individually.
For me personally, I would call something Great Design if it reflects the social beliefs behind it and uses clever engineering to solve problems. If it is also a timeless design and economically beneficial design it is true Great Design.
