From the ashes of the Great Depression, American Industrial Designers brought us the age of mass consumption with their "utilitarian art": sleek, sophisticated and beautiful objects that everyone wanted to own. (Part 5 of 6) Playlist link - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhQpDGfX5e7CJ87BDeuTdXTpxl0YM2Tdb --- Does American Industrial Design do it for you? Discover your design alter ego http://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/engineering-and-technology/design-and-innovation/design/design-nutshell Explore qualifications in 'Design and Innovation' with The OU http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/qualification/q61.htm ---

Comments

1. Can you give a reason why your globes exclude JUST New Zealand?
2. What was not mentioned is that literally the majority of the Futurama exhibition objects never made it into production because they were inpractical - especially the cars performed very badly. Also stylizing objects was very criticized very soon in terms of their design. This video is leaving out important information to make the argument sound valid, though it was really not.
3. Hypercommercialisation?
   Improved?
   Look, there is a reason why American Football (commercialball) hasn't made it outside the US.
4. no, it dosnt.
5. how could society afford if only produce floods on market ?
6. NO!
7. One could argue that the consumerism based on an abstract style used express oneself is in the end detrimental. Many of these products did not significantly improve and in fact the end result was a drawback in the advancement in the technical aspect of products. Rather than actually improving their product or showing some validated benefit, manufacturers instead improved marketing and decreased competitiveness. No new technologies were developed from the increase in marketing to the public and with an improved market competition and innovation decreased. 
8. It looks good, but without captions I can't follow a word as I'm deaf. I expect an Institution like OU to provide them.
9. In Tyler we trust.
10. yes it is but I agree with BDoug, it would be clearer to us to say 1930
11. so this is the start of materialism?
12. This video is jumping all over the place .... didn't the BOOM happen after the war??? American design didn't really take off until the late 40's- 50's... this video is filled with fail. Revisionist history.
13. yo! common, don't suck.
14. it's raymond loewy. not loewey.
15. Eames is awesome, but this is a double edged sword
16. I'd buy any product that had a commercial that was just 1:45
17. The crash, which "effectively erased consumer demand", happened in the 1920s.
18. You are disagreeing by the pure pleasure of disagreeing. The market crashed in 1929. That belongs to the 20's. The crisis is from the 20's. Simple.
19. as you correctly stated, the great depression started in 1929, so the great depression erased consumer demand in the 1920s, the very late 1920s and it continued in the 1930s, but still the 1920s.
20. Ed Bernays essentially invented the PR industry and was a massive influence on advertising as a result, helping turn US society from a culture of needs to a culture of wants using various psychological techniques uncovered and developed by his uncle Sigmund Freud. Without them, the mass shift to a consumer culture wouldn't have happened. Check Adam Curtis' The Century of the Self for more, if you're that way inclined....