History of Design Theories

Begining of 20th century, we have had different design philosophies developed by painters, architects and musicians. Those were successful and valid because of need of consistency for community. This consistency became their identity which lead to standardization and styles, which grew with industrialization.

All these philosophies varied in believing the best possible form though their solution to the problem remained same.

The earlier forms of products were unembellished. The significance of ornamentation in the products and architecture is seen after the settlement of economics and evolution of atheism. Ornamentation is something very own to the people irrespective of the function of the product. later it became an integral part of design.

Architects and designers were experimenting with new materials and developing products using their own formulated hand-rules. All of them believed in 'FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION'. People were embracing the mass produced industrial products as it was economical.

Form and Design Philosophy

Form is an individualistic expression of designer who is influenced by design philosophy (adopted or one's own). There is this strong link between designs by different designers following the same philosophy. All these theories includes the cultural aspect and ergonomics as their integral part. For example: Compare Japanese product with Japanese citizen you will find its relationship with their culture, architecture and physiology.

There were some design movements which has affected the designs like Art Nouveau, De Stijl, Bauhaus, Art Deco, Modern Italian. These movements have some hand-rules which are reflected in all the products designed in that era. The effect of these theories was such that the designers started practising in the same line of thought. Designers individual work style, differentiated them from others.

Some of the philosophies are

Bauhaus

Designers in these early decades were caught up in the slipstream of their artist contemporaries. The consideration while designing

• Form should be evolved considering cube as a basic unit. Why a cube? and not a sphere. It is easy to define any point inside and outside cube in coordinate axis. Cubes can be arranged in any space more effectively than sphere and there would be no intermolecular gap.
• reduction of the things to their basic components.
• motifs stand as a metaphors for wheels, piston rod and other mechanical elements.
• curves are dependent variable of material properties.
• forms are dependent variables of function, manufacturing process and invidualistic style.
• adopt a common ratio proportionate system.

De stijl

According to their philosophy, design should contain certain characters as:

• form should evolve from basic geometrical figures for the ease of manufacturing.
• standardization of material in a product.
• rest of the handrules were same as Bauhaus.

Scandinavian

• More sympathetic to human scale.
• Modern Sculptured forms.
• forms were inspired from natural floral patterns and organic curves.
• organic curves as main design elements.
• each designer was using ratio proportionate system.
• Forms based on the constraints of their own manufacturing process.

Modern Italian

• use of cheap materials and expressive forms with bright colours.
• concept of throw away products.
• primary aim to catch the attention of young market.
• forms are abstract and inspired from thoughts rather than any physical being.
• more than a total functional form, it represents an individual expression or a piece of art.
• many new materials have been experimented which are absolutely artificial.

All these above theories still hold good because of their openness and satisfaction to the human aesthetic requirements.