Ideas for your Home - Council for Industrial Design, HMSO, c1950 - cover by Sheila Rusby
The post-war period saw a great flowering of 'industrial design' in the UK what with post-war reconstruction and a sense that in the new world more attention to the design and production of everyday living was vital. What is interesting, in comparison with today's 'free for all', is that even the Government thought it important to promote such ideas and practical advice through a wide programme of public information. To this end the Council for Industrial Design, and its Scottish Committee, were enthusiastic promoters of exhibitions and booklets such as this. As the note in this booklet states "they form an important part of the Council's activities in executing its task of raising the standard of design in Britain" whilst "buying wisely".
In those years of austerity such promotion must have seemed amazing - in terms of what was available, the use of materials, colours and form. This cover by Sheila L Rusby shows the 'new look' that was based on a house constructed by Utility Structures and furnished by John Hill and Phyllis Garbutt at the 1950 Ideal Home Exhibition.
BY the mid-1950s, with a change of government and a huge growth in the availablity of cheaper and more available household goods, the work of the Council and it's experts seemed to fade away. Indeed looking at what 'Hire Purchase' allowed by this time one could think had anything been learnt! But perhaps as we look back and recall the 'Habitat" generation is it worth remembering that there still was a market for thoughtful design at the time.
Ideas for your Home - Council for Industrial Design, HMSO, c1950 - cover by Sheila Rusby
The post-war period saw a great flowering of 'industrial design' in the UK what with post-war reconstruction and a sense that in the new world more attention to the design and production of everyday living was vital. What is interesting, in comparison with today's 'free for all', is that even the Government thought it important to promote such ideas and practical advice through a wide programme of public information. To this end the Council for Industrial Design, and its Scottish Committee, were enthusiastic promoters of exhibitions and booklets such as this. As the note in this booklet states "they form an important part of the Council's activities in executing its task of raising the standard of design in Britain" whilst "buying wisely".
In those years of austerity such promotion must have seemed amazing - in terms of what was available, the use of materials, colours and form. This cover by Sheila L Rusby shows the 'new look' that was based on a house constructed by Utility Structures and furnished by John Hill and Phyllis Garbutt at the 1950 Ideal Home Exhibition.
BY the mid-1950s, with a change of government and a huge growth in the availablity of cheaper and more available household goods, the work of the Council and it's experts seemed to fade away. Indeed looking at what 'Hire Purchase' allowed by this time one could think had anything been learnt! But perhaps as we look back and recall the 'Habitat" generation is it worth remembering that there still was a market for thoughtful design at the time.