Dear Sir,—As a member of the D.I.A. I am looking forward to the appearance of the first number of Design for To-day with much interest, and as you have been kind enough to invite correspondence I am going to tell you what I am hoping for in the new Magazine. Of course these are only the views of one member and you have thousands of others to consider, but I will give them for what they are worth.
In the first place I want to learn something from Design for To-day. To learn if possible the fundamental principles of good design. As a motor engineer, all I have been able to learn so far from the D.I.A. is that Fitness for Purpose is the supreme test. That beauty should be in the form of the article itself and not in added ornamentation, and of course that it should express to-day’s ideas, and not copy ideas of past ages. That is about all I have been able to learn of the fundamental principles, and surely there must be much more to learn?
Next—I hope we shall be shown plenty of examples of good design and bad, side by side, as in a recent number of the Listener, with criticisms of their respective merits and faults.
Then, I hope we shall be kept informed of good examples of construction in modern materials— such as wireless cabinets in moulded bakelite, bathroom and kitchen fittings in stainless steel, buildings and bridges in ferro-concrete, and so on.
You certainly have unlimited scope. Isn’t it a fact that the whole country is cluttered up with rubbish at present? Thousands of factories are turning out “junk.” Whole streets of shops are displaying goods which it can be no pleasure to live with. Our old industrial towns require pulling down and rebuilding. The contents of our homes want burning and replacing with simple, straightforward stuff.
In conclusion, I hope that Design for To-day will not consider the small articles of everyday use as unworthy of notice. For instance, the knives and forks which we all use to-day were designed hundreds of years ago and do not appear to have been given a thought by designers in recent years. Our toasting-forks seem to be cast in the same mould that was used fifty years ago.
Let us know what others are doing. The annual competition of industrial designs of the Royal Society of Arts for instance. Also, the activities of the National Alliance of Art and Industry (of the U.S.A.).
And please do not write above the head of the ordinary man and frighten him away under the impression that “Design” is only for a peculiar and superior few. And I hope that it will not be only for people “of good taste” or who think they have good taste, but for people of bad taste as well.
Personally I believe that the dislike of ugliness is universal, but suppressed in those who have to live with it- TOM B. WARD.
Bradford.
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DESIGN in the HOME
EDITED BY NOEL CARRINGTON
Demy 410. 192 pp., with 530 illustrations
15s. net, by post 15s. 9d.
The main sections of the book deal with—Interior Design and Equipment—Furniture—Lighting (Daylight and Artificial)—Heating—Bathrooms—Kitchens —Pottery and Glass—Silverware—Fabrics and Rugs and Wallpapers
This is a practical book which explains itself mostly by means of illustrations, 530 of them in all, each carefully selected. Long titles amplify the photographs, and short sectional introductions explain the idea.—The idea is Design, not Fashion. By design is meant primarily “Fitness for the job,” it being understood that “fitness” embraces pleasantness to the eye as well as efficiency.—It is about contemporary designers’ work for life to-day. It is not about antiques, nor about Modernism.—The houses, rooms, and things illustrated are British, so that if the reader wants them, he or she can almost certainly buy them.— In short the book is for those people who care about Beauty and want to realise it in their own homes.
“This is a beautifully produced book, replete with excellent illustrations, which should be in the possession of those who are furnishing a new home or refurnishing an old one.”—building societies gazette.
ILLUSTRATED PROSPECTUS ON APPLICATION
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THE ART of FLOWER ARRANGEMENT in JAPAN By A. L. SADLER, M.A.
Professor of Oriental Studies in the University of Sydney and
Professor of Japanese in the Royal Military College of Australia
With a preface by Lionel Lindsay. Demy 8vo.
With 200 illustrations. 12s. 6d. net, by post 13s. 3d.
This book should be invaluable to all interested in modern decoration and design. The Art of Flower Arrangement in Japan is a definite Art which has been developed for centuries and its principles are particularly applicable to the decoration of the modern Western Interior.
As our wood engravers and printers learned economy of line and colour from Japanese woodcuts, so our decorators can learn from the Way of Flowers (the Japanese name for this Art) a philosophy of the principles of simplicity of design, while the illustrations will give them innumerable examples of floral decoration suitable for panels, embroideries, wall papers, curtains, etc., all of which can easily be adapted in practice.
