History of Modern Design - Final Paper

ARTH300: History of Modern Design - Final Paper

Choose an example of contemporary design (an object designed after 1975) from a catalog, advertisement, or exhibition. Describe your example carefully. Relate it to other similar products from the recent past or from the present in order to demonstrate its distinctive characteristics, whether physical or in terms of technology and interactivity. You must relate your example to recent perspectives on design, and include one or more of the following themes: Postmodernism, Information Design, Softness, Interactivity, Green, and/or Critical design. How does the object relate to the experience of contemporary life? How can it be used to gauge or understand an aspect of modern living?

Please follow all the requirements

PAPER should be 1000-1200 words in length, should be double-spaced in 12-point Times New Roman, and should have one-inch margins. Please submit papers as either MS Word documents or PDFs. Refer to the paper guidelines at the end of the syllabus (and posted on Blackboard) for additional details on how to compose a good paper.

Written assignments should reflect improving conceptual, analytical, and writing skills. Students are encouraged to become familiar with and make use of the following basic sources for information pertaining to materials, techniques, movements, and the backgrounds for individual designers. Physical books are on general reserve in the Hagerty Library:

1. Grove Art Online is an excellent resource available through the Hagerty Library Website (link from “Databases”) 2. Jonathan Woodham, A Dictionary of Modern Design (Oxford: Oxford Reference, 2004) 3. Lucy Trench, ed., Materials & Techniques in the Decorative Arts: An Illustrated Dictionary (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2000) 4. Hugh Honour and John Fleming, The Penguin Dictionary of Decorative Arts, 2e. (London and New York: Viking, 1989) 5. Clive Edwards, ed., The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015) 6. Metropolitan Museum, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, www.metmuseum.org/toah/

Please make use of these resources rather than picking and choosing among hits on Google searches, as these frequently do not provide accurate information. Do not cite Wikipedia as a source, but the references section of Wikipedia articles can sometimes be useful in pointing you to published scholarly sources.

Grading Rubric:

1. title - Includes appropriate keywords(eg. movements designers, types of objects) about the subject of the essay and also suggests an argument or question)

2. length - 1000-1200 words

3. formatting - adheres to required formatting guidelines, including double-spacing.

4. documentation - references, quotations, and/ or evidence for thesis and are acknowledged properly in the text with thorough footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical references.

5. Thesis statement - has a clear, succinct thesis statement (preferably stated in one sentence in the introductory paragraph, and/or in the concluding paragraph)

6. Evidence (direct observation) - thesis statement is supported by plentiful evidence derived primarily from direct observation, comparison and contrast with other objects, augmented with information from readings, or other sources. Evidence addresses objectives of the assignment.

7. Writing style - writing is clear, logically organized, and free of erros in grammar and syntax.

Helpful readings:

Ezra Shales, review of Safe: Design Takes on Risk, 2006

Paola Antonelli, introduction to Design and the Elastic Mind, 2008

Christina Cogdell, review of Design and the Elastic Mind, 2008

Robert Venturi, “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture,” 1966

Barbara Radice, “Memphis and Fashion,” 1984

Americans with Disabilities Act, 1990

David H. Rice, “What Color is Design?” 1992