Design

Design is the process of giving form, style, and visual appeal to the many objects used by consumers [Page 438]in their daily lives. All types of mechanical and electronic devices, from Airbus planes and Toyota automobiles to GE appliances, Apple iPhones, and Sony HDTVs, bear the mark of design professionals, such as engineers, industrial designers, and corporate colorists. Branded goods, from the General Mills cornflakes stocked by the supermarket to the Clairol hair dye sold by the discount store, come in paper containers designed by packaging experts and graphic artists. Whether it is purchased on Main Street or at the suburban mall, clothing is also a designed product, created by specialists in fashion design and merchandising.

Design is as old as civilization itself, and the ability to design objects that are both useful and beautiful distinguishes humans from other animals. When ancient artisans made and decorated the first knives from iron and the first glass vessels from melted sand, they were exerting the human skill in design. In the ensuing centuries, craftsmen refined those skills as they made goods for local and regional consumption, from woolen fabrics for clothing to wooden utensils for food. In the small craft workshops of the medieval era, the fabricator and designer were often the same person. The guild system evolved as a gatekeeper, overseeing entry into the various crafts and monitoring quality control. Design elements, such as the quality and quantity of decoration, distinguished one workshop from another, giving birth to competition. As global trade expanded during the Renaissance, artisanal workshops grew in size, job specialization was introduced, and design emerged as a job that was distinct from fabrication.

Fittingly, the word design entered the English language in 1588, just as Europe inched toward the industrial era. The Oxford English Dictionary defines design as a plan or scheme devised by a person for something that is to be made, including objects in the “applied” or “industrial arts.”

Design blossomed as an occupation during the British Industrial Revolution of the mid-1700s, the golden era of applied arts. The heightened demand for fashion goods like belt buckles and colorful teapots led English entrepreneurs to build the world's first factories. They introduced the assembly line and separated design from production. Talented workers who combined practical knowledge of manufacturing with an artistic eye became among the most highly revered and best-paid employees. Factories in Europe and North America relied on these artistic workers to keep tabs on consumer tastes and to add value to the product. These factory designers often combined on-the-job experience with formal training in drawing and color theory at design schools in England, France, Germany, and the United States that were created to train designers for the industrial arts. Most designers were men, although women were sometimes employed as designers for textiles, pottery, and clothing. The terms designer, decorator, or artist referred to a design department employee who worked under the guidance of the factory's chief designer or art director.

The factory designer flourished during the Victorian era, when falling prices and the rise of the new middle class created a market for highly embellished household goods and personal fashion accessories. In the United States, consumers benefitted from the deflationary economy, as those with discretionary income could buy more for their dollars. A burgeoning consumer culture, fostered by masscirculation magazines, advice books, and downtown shopping streets lined with retail stores, encouraged the acquisition of durable goods that hallmarked middle-class status. New industries and industrial districts dedicated to furniture, ready-to-wear, jewelry, and crockery sprung up across the Midwest and Northeast, from Philadelphia and St. Louis. Every factory needed staff designers to copy high-style goods imported from Paris, Vienna, or London in ways that suited American tastes and pocketbooks.

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