We've been looking at the happenings of design in the free world in class, so I thought I'd have a quick look at what happened on the other side of the 'Berlin Wall'. This was a time when design and manufacturing technology stood still, household items were simply labeled with no excess packaging and products were functional and very spartan. Plastics were thought of as 'western' and 'modern' by the Stalinists so therefore banned in the early years. Early on a chap called Mart Stam made his mark on DDR design and it stuck for a while. Mart Stam was a Dutch man who penned many chairs that looked like Marcel Breuers or vice versa!(Thats another story)
In the interests of the environment and sustainability, we may have to
seriously look at this way of simple effective and minimal design for
packaging. Not to mention that they were locally made too. Though I
can't vouch for the quality of any of it. Tesco's, Sainsbury and Marks
& Spencer use a similar style for their homebrand foodstuffs today.
Here is something to ponder. The new Fresh n' Fruity packaging looks kinda cool and contemporary, but if you had 5 minutes to run into the supermarket to grab some milk, bread, eggs and strawberry yoghurt....... try and find it when the shelves are full of THAT packaging. Its too busy. Hurts my eyes.
Hedler, E. (2004). DDR Design: East German Design 1949-1989. Köln: Taschen
Good post Carey. I went to Berlin (East and West) numerous times during the 80's and early 90's. Visited the department stores in East Berlin where the electrical department had 100 versions of the same TV for sale - on a waiting list of course.
Did Stam of Breuer design the first cantilever tube steel chair?? Check the model S33 by Stam and the B33 by Breuer.....and then there is Mies in 1927
Posted by: Roger Bateman | 10/13/2009 at 10:27 PM