Design influences, styles and movements | AQA A-Level Product Design 7552 Notes

AQA section 3.2.2 covers the principles of Arts and Crafts, Art Deco, Modernism (including Bauhaus) and Postmodernism (including Memphis). Understanding a movement means connecting its historical context and principles to the design decisions that resulted.

Read section 3.2.2 of the AQA specification ↗

Arts & Crafts

Context

Arts & Crafts developed in Britain in the late nineteenth century during rapid industrialisation. It was partly a reaction against the poor quality, loss of individuality and working conditions associated with some factory mass production. Designers such as William Morris wanted everyday products to be useful, beautiful and well made.

Philosophy

The movement valued skilled craftsmanship, quality materials, useful products and honesty to materials and construction. Rather than disguising how an object was made, construction and natural material qualities could become part of the design.

Arts & Crafts designers also questioned the separation of the designer from the maker. Traditional craft gave the maker greater involvement in the complete object rather than reducing work to a single repetitive factory task.

Style

Arts & Crafts designs commonly used natural and organic forms, British flora and fauna, repeating patterns, handcrafted details and visible material qualities. Furniture and products often used relatively simple functional forms with construction or joinery treated honestly rather than hidden beneath unnecessary ornament.

Materials and manufacture

Natural materials such as timber, metal, textiles and ceramics suited the movement’s emphasis on material quality and skilled making. Traditional techniques and hand processes were valued over anonymous low-quality mass production.

This created an important trade-off: skilled craft can produce individual, durable and carefully made products, but it is generally slower and more expensive than high-volume industrial manufacture. Arts & Crafts principles can therefore be highly suitable where longevity, material quality and individuality are priorities, but less suitable where the main requirement is inexpensive production for a large market.

Key designer

William Morris.

Specific examples

Strawberry Thief, 1883 and Willow Bough, 1887 use detailed repeating natural imagery and show Morris’s strong influence from plants, birds and the natural world.

Art Deco

Context

Art Deco developed strongly after WWI. New technologies, processes and materials had developed, travel increased, and society experienced economic and social change. The movement reflected optimism about modern life, technological progress, comfort and luxury.

Philosophy

Art Deco celebrated modernity, technological progress, luxury, glamour, wealth and status.

Style

Art Deco used bold geometric shapes, symmetry, ornamentation, streamlined forms, clean forms and modern materials. Chrome, glass, polished woods and luxurious materials were commonly associated with the style.

Influences

Cars, aircraft, skyscrapers and other symbols of technological progress encouraged streamlined and futuristic forms. Consumer culture also increased demand for products that communicated wealth and success.

The highly finished materials and decorative detailing could make a product visually distinctive and communicate quality or status, but these features could also increase material, manufacturing and labour costs. Art Deco styling is therefore particularly effective when appearance and perceived value are important rather than when minimum cost or material efficiency is the main requirement.

Common imagery

Art Deco used motifs such as the rising sun, shells, half moons, American skylines, Egyptian themes and mother-of-pearl imagery.

Key designer

Eileen Gray.

Specific example

Bibendum Chair, 1926.

Modernism / Bauhaus

Context

Modernism developed alongside industrialisation, technological development and major social change. Following WWI, designers increasingly wanted to create products and buildings suited to a modern industrial society rather than reproduce historical decorative styles.

Philosophy

Modernist design prioritised function, simplicity and modern production. Bauhaus aimed to connect art, craft, technology and industry. Unnecessary decoration was removed and materials were used in ways appropriate to their properties and manufacturing processes.

A key connection for AQA is the development of furniture suitable for mass production. Simple forms, standardisation and industrial materials could make repeatable manufacture more practical than highly decorative craft production.

This approach can reduce unnecessary parts and make products easier to reproduce consistently, but functional simplicity is not automatically the best response to every user or market. Products intended to express identity, luxury, tradition or emotional value may deliberately use decoration or more individual forms. The suitability of Modernist principles therefore depends on the design brief rather than simplicity being inherently superior.

Style

Modernist and Bauhaus products used simple geometric forms, clean lines, minimal decoration, visible structures and modern industrial materials.

Materials

Tubular steel, glass, metal, concrete and other industrial materials became important.

Key designers

Walter Gropius, Marianne Brandt and Marcel Breuer.

Specific examples

Gropius’s Bauhaus Dessau, Brandt’s MT49 and Breuer’s Wassily Chair.

Postmodernism / Memphis

Context

Postmodernism developed as a reaction against conventional design and strict Modernist functionalism. Your course describes it as embracing complexity, contradiction and diversity and producing designs intended to provoke reactions.

Philosophy

Postmodern designers rejected the idea that function must completely determine form. Design could communicate emotion, humour, symbolism, personality and historical references.

Style

Postmodernism used humour and personality, retro references, deconstruction, unusual forms, bright colours, decoration, symbolism and asymmetry.

Memphis

Memphis was a particularly expressive form of Postmodern design associated with Ettore Sottsass. It used bright and clashing colours, geometric shapes, patterns, asymmetry, unusual proportions and plastic laminates.

These choices can give a product a strong identity and make it memorable in a crowded market, but an unusual form or deliberately provocative appearance may reduce practical efficiency or appeal to a narrower group of users. In a product whose purpose includes self-expression this can be an advantage; in a safety-critical or highly functional product it may be less appropriate.