Final Year Studio - Research - Art Deco

Images courtesy of various websites, originally uploaded by Jimbo (Alan James Wellock).

Although this specific art movement happened in the 1920's and 30's it wasn't until 1966 that the term 'Art Deco' was coined. It took most of its initial influence from the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. An exhibition that unlike ones before it let the decorative arts in such areas as architecture, interior design and industry take centre stage. It emphaisised the modern and in some cases excluded types of art that depicted previous art movements.

It involved such art movements as Avant-Guarde, Cubism and Bauhaus but wasn't part of the Modernist movement as it was purely created for decorative and aesthetic reasons, a key factor maybe why it was so influencial to commmercial design for new mechanical and material industries. Its effect was so strong that even the Amercians who were not represented at the exhibition developed their own style, known as 'Streamlining.' This was design using clean lines and strong curves, and is most notibile in the production of mass produced items such as cars, architecture and furniture.

This movement is going to be a key graphical influence to my project as it was the first time that aesthetics were thought about as manipulation tools for depicting and easying the understanding of visual information. Even the American notion of 'Streamlining' attaches itself to the idea that strong lines and shapes can effect how we perceive coplex information, widening the 'Associative Bandwidth' of a medium.