Consumerism by Design: A Study of its Development in Post-World War One America
By Joe Miller
Cover Image: A typical product advertisement of the 1930s, epitomizing many points discussed in this dissertation (Packard Automobile, 1937)
A dissertation presented at the University of Northumbria for the degree of BA with Honours in Design for Industry, 2015
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Consumerism by Design: A Study of its Development in Post-World War One America
Contents Introduction ...........................................................................................................3 Chapter I: Public Relations and the Rise of Consumerism................................5 Chapter II: The Evolution of American Design in Consumerist .......................11 Chapter III: The Ethical Dilemma of Designed Obsolescence..........................18 Conclusion..............................................................................................................24 Bibliography...........................................................................................................26
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Introduction For approaching one hundred years, American society has been driven by a socioeconomic construct known as consumerism, to which goods are perpetually being acquired and replaced by consumers. Now a foundation for many cultures across the globe, its primary function is in fuelling commerce, subsequently providing us with relatively stable economies and a constant source of employment. “Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction and our ego satisfaction in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing rate,” explains Victor Lebow, a prominent economist in 1955. (Lebow, 1955) The United States is now home to more shopping malls than high schools, with the average American generating 52 tons of garbage by the age of 75. (Mindfully.org, 2008) However, despite this, prior to World War One consumerism was largely in its infancy; while machines of the industrial revolution had transformed America’s factories, advances in phycology and communication technologies would still be required to progress the movement. Referencing from a vast assortment of sources, ranging from books to journal articles and documentaries, this dissertation will demonstrate three linked yet highly distinctive chapters. All of which will explore a selection of fundamental components and influential events in America’s development of this ideology, going on to evaluate the ethical dilemma of its potentially unsustainable nature. A special focus will be placed upon design’s role within it. An examination into the inception and application of public relations will form the basis of part one, describing how a reincarnated form of wartime propaganda would become a great weapon of consumerism, responsible for some of the greatest feats of mass manipulation. This chapter will study the psychoanalysis behind public relations and why its influence on marketing has been so great, whilst proving historical context for the following chapters. Part two will evaluate the evolving role of design and designer, within America’s newly consumerist culture. Focusing on several key figures and 3
companies, this chapter will uncover techniques and philosophies that helped shape the period. Expanding upon chapter one, the co-dependent relationship between design and public relations will also be explored, as big business combined the two to offer products of unlimited desire. Finally, part three will discuss the ethical dilemma of designed obsolescence, looking back at its origins to consider its future. This chapter will demonstrate the importance of obsolescence within consumerist culture, hearing from its advocates and critics to ultimately investigate its sustainability and overall value to society.
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Chapter I – Public Relations and the Rise of Consumerism Propaganda, a word left distorted by the sinister connotations of war, is a practice found in almost any society, whether it be social, religious, economic or political indeed anyone with a set of beliefs, who sets out to make them known, is practising propaganda. It was precisely this negative association that led a young press agent, named Edward Bernays, to first coin the term, ‘Public Relations’ – a propaganda for peace time. America, since the late 19th century, had been a mass industrial society, with urban populations soaring to new levels and business leaders buoyed by a new sense of confidence following the First World War. It became Edward Bernays’ ambition to earn money through influencing the masses. Astounded by the success of wartime propaganda, his eyes were opened to the possibilities of regimenting the public mind (Bernays and Miller, 2005); he surmised that, “If you can use propaganda for war, you can certainly use it for peace.” (The Century of the Self: Happiness Machines, 2002)
Figure A: A propaganda poster used during the First World War (US Navy, 1918)
‘Making the world safe for democracy’ was a big slogan as the First World War concluded, and one that helped spark Bernays’ ideas of mass manipulation. “If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it?” He 5
questioned, “The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits.” (Bernays and Miller, 2005, p.47) Bernays’ ideas were of great interest to the corporations, as a new fear of overproduction grew in concern. Production between 1860 and 1920 had increased by 12 to 14 times, while the population had only increased by a factor of 3. (Psywar, 2010) Worried that people might soon have enough goods and cease buying, they turned to those in public relations. "We must shift America from a need- to a desires-culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed." wrote Paul Mazur, a leading Wall Street banker at the time. (Mazur, 1928) However, it was the theories of Edward Bernays’ uncle, a physiotherapist called Sigmund Freud, which armed early PR men in their pursuit of mass influence. Up until this point, factual argument and rational persuasion had been the main tools of mass persuasion. It was widely believed that behaviour was driven by information, and therefore, if you could provide people with enough factual knowledge they would be persuaded. However, Freud proposed that primitive desires of the unconscious mind governed human decision making far more than reason, likening the conscious mind “to a fountain playing in the sun and falling back into the great subterranean pool of subconscious from which it rises.” (Thiessen, 1997, p.285) He also believed that the subconscious desires of an individual were more freely expressed when part of a crowd, stating that, "in the mass, the individual finds himself in conditions that allow him to shed the repressions of his unconscious drive-impulses. The apparently fresh qualities that the individual then exhibits are in fact the expressions of that unconscious." (Freud, Underwood and Rose, 2004) Ivy Lee, another prominent PR man and counterpart of Bernays, confessed to “finding the Freudian theories concerning the subconscious mind of great interest,” stating he felt that, “publicity is essentially a matter of mass phycology.” (Ewen, 1996, p.131) In applying Freud's theories to the business and political arenas, Bernays would become enormously successful, showing corporations how they could link mass produced goods to the unconscious desires of the masses. He made people want things they 6
didn't even need. "Now when we have anything to sell to the American people," declared Rodger Babson, an influential business analyst in 1921, "we know how to sell it." (Ewen, 1996, p.131) Expert in turning inanimate objects into powerful symbols, symbols that could provoke irrational behaviour through links to subconscious desires, Bernays originated the practise of engaging customers emotionally, rather than appealing to their intellect. (The Century of the Self: Happiness Machines, 2002)
Figure B: (Hammer Motor Company, 1905)
Figure C: (Ford Motor Company, 1967)
Examples of car advertisements Pre and Post birth of Public Relations
The difference between these two advertisements perfectly illustrates the change from rational persuasion to an emotional appeal based upon our unconscious desires. The Hammer Motor Company advertisement from 1905 (Figure B) highlights the quality of craftsmanship, engine design and dependability. There are no people featured on the poster. In stark contrast, the 1967 Ford Mercury advertisement (Figure C) focuses on a man’s desires; to have a beautiful family, feel masculine and live a life of leisure – the American dream. Although it may be irrational to expect a car to provide you with anything other a means of transportation, by making it a symbol of such things, people 7
could be persuaded to purchase products that linked to their desires. The underlying message of almost all advertising had changed to one of - ‘happiness is achieved through consumption’ (Psywar, 2010). Citizens became consumers, quashing corporate fears of over production. Perhaps Bernays’ most famous example of this was in convincing women to smoke. Working with the American Tobacco Company, he set out to double their cigarette market, by breaking the taboo on women smoking. He employed Dr A.A. Bill, a leading psychoanalyst based in New York at that time, and one of the first operating in America, to find out what cigarettes mean to women. He told Bernays that cigarettes were a symbol of the male sexual power and that, if Bernays’ could associate cigarettes with the notion of challenging male power, women would smoke, because then they would have their own penises. (The Century of the Self: Happiness Machines, 2002)
Figure D: Images from the Touches of Freedom marketing campaign (American Tobacco Company, 1929)
Bernays did this by orchestrating a press release and photo opportunity, both new and experimental techniques at the time, in which he persuaded rich young women to join 8
the popular Easter Day Parade in New York, concealing cigarettes under their clothes. Following his instruction, they were to light and smoke these cigarettes in a dramatic fashion. However, Bernays also informed the press, claiming that a group of suffragettes were planning to stage a protest by lighting, what he called, ‘touches of freedom’. This single symbolic act had linked cigarettes with the idea of power and independence for women. Therefore, all of those who support this form equality must also support this symbol – women smoking. Becoming addicted to nicotine does absolutely nothing to make women any freer however, but it could make them feel that way. The sale of cigarettes to women began to rise. Bernays had made it socially acceptable for women to smoke. (The Century of the Self: Happiness Machines, 2002, Psywar, 2010) However, it was not only wartime propaganda that inspired this sudden shift in marketing techniques. Cities acted as centres for change, filtering out through the emergence of a mass media. With electricity rapidly becoming available across America, new technologies, such as the radio, allowed for information to spread further and faster than ever before. Cars were also growing evermore in popularity and road infrastructure followed. Citizens of the 1920s were first to witness the phenomenon of roadside billboards, as giant advertising boards were constructed alongside the new highways. (The Century: America's Time, 1920-1929 Boom To Bust, 1999) Without these advances, public relations would have struggled to achieve the same level of success, as influence requires communication. “Without the film and radio industries, it is doubtful that the mass-production-consumption culture could have fastened itself on the country as rapidly as it did,” suggested American historians Mowry and Brownell (Ewen, 1996, p.220). The 1920s also saw the expansion of a brand new consumer construct known as credit. ‘Buy now, pay later’ became the order of the day. By 1927, 75% of all household goods were bought on credit (The Century: America's Time, 1920-1929 Boom To Bust, 1999), many of which were ordered from catalogues, a then newly developed method of shopping (BBC, 2014). These new methods of commerce, in combination with America’s advanced mass-producing factories, had made consumption easier than ever; public relations needed only to provide the drive - to make citizens want what America had so readily available. However, public relations would not pursue this goal 9
alone; the aforementioned period would oversee a new era of design, as it became more and more integral to the success of big business.
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Chapter II – The Evolution of American Design in Consumerist Culture Public relations and consumerist culture brought great changes, not only to the behaviour of citizens but also to design. American design especially, became driven by the market, capitalism and consumerism. Designers served corporate America by catering to the needs of manufacturers, which meant working in the mainstream, reducing focus from the designer’s self-expression. This however, did not mean a diminished role, it was a collaboration; designers and manufacturers worked together to create and recreate products relevant to consumers, in order to sell as many as possible. An industrial designer named Raymond Loewy, renowned for a plethora of design efforts in a career that spanned over 70 years (between 1909 to 1980), understood, like Freud and Bernays, that what people wanted didn’t need to be rational. He felt that good design not only attended to the dreams and desires of consumers, but that it also had a responsibility to keep clients in the black. He stated that, “designing industrially without having the marketplace in mind would be both unethical and/or ineffective.” (Loewy, 1979, p.8) Dick Powell, of leading design consultancy SeymourPowell, describes Raymond Loewy as “the first design consultant, the first person to really marry commerce and art into one seamless offer that manufacturers were interested in and people needed. What Raymond Loewy brought was pizazz, excitement and emotion to functional objects.” (The Genius of Design, Designs for Living, 2010) Figure E: A pencil sharpener designed by Raymond Loewy. (Estate of Raymond Loewy, 1933)
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Figure F: Old Coldspot Refrigerator (Sears Archives, 1931) Figure G: Loewy’s Coldspot Design (Sears, Roebuck & Company, 1935)
One of Loewy’s greatest successes was in redesigning the Coldspot refrigerator, a product he described as both “ill-proportioned” and “pitiful”. (Loewy, 1979, p.100) In part, he was able to accomplish this through ‘streamlining’, a term one would usually associate with the automotive industry, it was a styling technique Loewy advocated; using it, he could add something called, ‘emotional functionality’. This refers to the emotional bond we all form within milliseconds of encountering an object, before we even have chance to think about it. (Seymour, 2014) In applying this streamlined style, Loewy’s products engendered a sense of futuristic life, while allowing them to retain familiar functionality. He named this balance M.A.Y.A. - Most Advanced Yet Acceptable. “Our desire is naturally to give the buying public the most advanced product that research can develop and technology can produce. Unfortunately, it has been proved time and time again that such a product does not always sell well,” he explains. “The adult public’s taste is not necessarily ready to accept the logical solutions to their requirements if the solution implies too vast a departure from what they have been conditioned into accepting as the norm.” (Loewy, 1951, p.277) The end result – a 600% increase in sales of Coldspot refrigerators. Loewy had proven that appearance could definitely be a sales asset. Women wanted the Coldspot in their kitchens because they saw it as an expression of their ‘refined 12
taste’. However, he also added several intelligent improvements to his new refrigerator design. These combined to form ideal marketing material, fuelling content of advertising campaigns and sales pitches. Loewy’s refrigerator design conformed perfectly with the goals of big business and PR men such as Edward Bernays. It suddenly became a case study at marketing seminars and university courses - a lesson sales executives would not soon forget. (Loewy, 1951) After considering the public’s vast array of different desires, manufacturers also began offering a much broader level of choice. A fine example of this transition can again be seen in the automotive industry. Henry Ford, a man renowned the world over for his advances in mass manufacture, believed in building a single car for the ‘great multitude’. Created using the finest materials by the best men, but sold at an affordable price, Ford intended to fulfil the needs of the family and the individual, the wealthy and the everyman. (Ford and Crowther, 1922) The result was the Model T automobile, of which he famously remarked, “Any consumer can have a car painted in any colour that he wants, so long as it is black”. (Ford and Crowther, 1922, p.71) Doggedly, he stuck to these beliefs for as long as possible, but American consumers were veering away from his ‘one size fits all’ attitude towards one of consumer choice, whereby products were continually being redesigned to satisfy specific lifestyles and tastes. Once the world’s most innovative car company, “even Ford had been forced to bow before the god of obsolescence“, (Frederick, 1928, p.44) as they began losing ground to their rivals. One of which was General Motors (GM), who in June of 1927, opened their Art and Colour Selection Studio - the first ever automotive design department. Under the direction of Harley Earl, GM would soon doom Ford’s outdated philosophy through design, updating and changing their models each year. (General Motors, 2012) By the 1930s, colour had been introduced to all mass-produced vehicles across the GM line, while styling changes enabled brand differentiation, with the 1930 Cadillac Madame X V-16 establishing GM as a major player in the luxury car market. (Car Body Design, 2012)
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Figure H: Buick Y-Job, The world’s first ‘concept car’ (Old Concept Cars, 2013)
Earl also pioneered the use modelling in clay rather than wood, a design technique he would subsequently use in shaping the world’s first ‘concept car’ – the Buick Y-Job. The Y-Job represented a new approach in design and marketing, it allowed Earl and the GM design team to test the waters of public opinion in regards to new styling and technology. Its sleek body presented a long and low figure with flush door handles and recessed tail lamps, alongside futuristic power-operated windows, doors and convertible roof, all never before seen features. (King Rose Archives, 2009) In capturing the public’s imagination, the Y-Job validated Earl’s design ideas, while simultaneously giving substance to a dream car of the future, garnering plenty of publicity. In a PR stunt of his own, Earl even used the Y-Job as his own personal transportation, helping to fuel its promotion. (Mroz, 2011) In promoting Earl to Vice President, the first designer to reach such a position, General Motors demonstrated a new found importance for design within the manufacturing industry, which had now completely shifted from the practical all-in-one thinking of 14
Henry Ford, to products and concepts differentiated through design, embodying the new and ever changing desires of consumers. This attitude fused perfectly with the work of Edward Bernays and those in public relations, working in tandem to link products to our unconscious desires.
Figure I: Dreyfuss on the cover of Forbes Magazine (The Genius of Design, Designs for Living, 2010) Figure J: Dreyfuss’ Anthropometric figures, Joseph & Josephine (Henry Dreyfuss Associates, 1974)
Another great pioneer of American industrial design was Henry Dreyfuss. Comparable to Raymond Loewy, he was expert at making the advanced acceptable. His designs would empower big business, allowing them to sell millions of modern and futuristic products to average Americans. This may be most apparent in his design of the Model 302 telephone (Figures K and L): a technology that was still considered advanced in the 1930s. Dreyfuss’ design would bring a slice of modernity into the hands, and homes, of almost every American. However, feats such as this were not simply achieved through product aesthetics. Designers in corporate America had formed a rigorous approach to design, one that Dreyfuss significantly influenced. As an early advocate for 15
observational ethnographic research, he would become one of the first designers to methodically examine people as they used things, in a bid to understand how they interacted with them. (The Genius of Design, Designs for Living, 2010) Combined with a meticulous use of anthropometrics, even creating his own anthropometric characters to aid his study of the human body and its movement (see Figure J), he was determined to design products that the consumer would faultlessly enjoy. On the cover of his 1955 book, ‘Designing for People’ he states that, “We bear in mind that the object being worked on is going to be ridden in, sat upon, looked at, talked into, activated, operated, or in some way used by people individually or en masse. If the point of contact between the product and the people becomes a point of friction, then the industrial designer has failed. If, on the other hand, people are made safer, more comfortable, more eager to purchase, more efficient—or just plain happier—the industrial designer has succeeded.” (Dreyfuss, 1955) The model 302 telephone went on to sell roughly 160 million units and Dreyfuss’ techniques became commonplace, still being widely practised by the designers of today.
Figure K: The Western Electric Model 302
Figure L: A 302 Colour Range Advertisement
(Lovine, 2012)
(Western Electric, 1949) 16
In designing such a wide range of desirable products, all intended to be replaced with newer versions as they were released, it was clear that design could positively influence the prosperity of business. However, the long-term sustainability of this mentality would soon be brought into question.
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Chapter III – The Ethical Dilemma of Designed Obsolescence Capitalism, consumerism and public relations may have opened the door for a new and highly profitable collaboration with designers, together shaping America’s objects and minds, but the result has not been without controversy. Not only in America have these cultures been so willingly adopted, almost the entire world now lives within societies driven by consumption, expending and discarding millions upon millions of products each year, therein lies the problem.
Figure M: Oldest Continually Burning Light Bulb (Wikipedia, 2013) Figure N: Shelby Electric Company Advertisement from the late 1800s (Bakoheat, 2013)
Would it surprise you to know that a small fire station in California currently houses a light bulb that has been continuously burning since 1901? 2016 will see its lifespan surpass one million hours, a staggering one thousand times longer than expected from common incandescent bulbs of today. However, chance alone has not produced this incredible result. Invented by a man called Adolphe Chaillet, it was manufactured in 1895 Ohio by the Shelby Electric Company, back when products were designed to last for as long as possible. (Figure N). Thomas Edison’s first commercial bulb, on sale in 1881, had shone an impressive fifteen hundred hours, and by the 1920s manufacturers proudly advertised bulbs capable of twenty-five hundred hours. There was a problem 18
however, as light bulbs became more lost-lasting, less replacements were required – if everyone had bulbs that lasted a hundred years, what would become of the manufacturers? Cue the phrase, ‘Product Lifecycle’, an expression that’s often churned out by corporations to describe a product’s end of life experience; it also plays sister to one that’s far less common - ‘Planned Obsolescence’. This refers to a product that has been intentionally designed to fail after a set amount of use, so as to maintain a consumer demand for said product. Paul Mazar, a then leading Wall Street banker, rather wistfully wrote this on the subject - “If what had filled the consumer market yesterday could only be made obsolete today, that whole market would be again available tomorrow.” (Slade, 2006, p.60) The light bulb was to become its first widespread casualty. Christmas Eve, 1924, a night that would prove fateful as business leaders met in Geneva to form a world-wide cartel, intent on controlling the global production of light bulbs. Known as the Phoebus Cartel, its members were comprised of manufacturing giants from across Europe, America, Africa and Asia, including General Electric, Philips and Osram among others. In agreement, they would concurrently reduce the lifespan of their products, creating light bulbs that required replacement far more frequently. Their new limit capped lifespans at one thousand hours, less than Thomas Edison’s first ever commercial light bulb. (The Light Bulb Conspiracy: The Untold Story of Planned Obsolescence, 2010) Eventually, a subsidiary of General Electric bought the Shelby Electric Company, halting all production of Chaillet’s amazing light bulb within a single year. (Bakoheat, 2013) The Phoebus Cartel enjoyed success with limited interference for approximately fifteen years, with its principal treat coming only from a small group (another cartel, perhaps) of Northern European light bulb manufacturers that declined to partake. If it were not for the outbreak of war, which prevented the continuance of these types of cross-border agreements, it is possible the Phoebus Cartel could have survived much longer. Unlike the Phoebus Cartel, a hugely influential industrial designer by the name of Brooks Stevens publicly promoted the practise of planned obsolescence throughout the 1950s. However, his interpretation was largely different. Rather than force obsolescence upon the consumer, he planned on seducing them with it. Very much a continuation General Motors’ strategies several decades earlier, he believed in the 19
constant redesign of products, “instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than necessary.� This was his definition of planned obsolescence, of which he reiterated in many speeches: Unlike the European approach of the past where they tried to make the very best product and make it last forever, meaning you bought such a fine suit of clothes that you were married in it and then buried in it, and never a chance to renew it. The approach in America is one of making the American consumer unhappy with the product he has enjoyed the use of for a period, have him pass it on to the second hand market and obtain the newest product with the newest possible look. (The Light Bulb Conspiracy: The Untold Story of Planned Obsolescence, 2010) While never designing a product to intentionally fail, he used previously mentioned techniques in design and public relations to artificially fuel a permanent desire within consumers, aggressively marketing new styling changes in order to give previous models a perceived obsolescence. Stevens went on to design over three thousand products in his lifetime. (Industrial Designers Society of America - IDSA, 2010)
Advertising posters for Stevens’ Designs, Figure O: (Modern Hygiene advertisement from LIFE Magazine, 1948) Figure P: (American Locomotive Company, 1939) 20
Evidently, planned obsolescence yields both rewards and immoralities when viewed from an economic stand point. Issues of sustainability however, seem to have been neglected or even unnoticed by the above-mentioned advocates of the practise. Serge Latouche, a noted critic of consumerist society, argues that, “we are sitting in a racing car that no longer has a driver, running at full speed and that will end up crashing into a wall or run off a cliff. Anyone who thinks that infinite growth is consistent with a finite planet is either crazy, or an economist.” (The Light Bulb Conspiracy: The Untold Story of Planned Obsolescence, 2010) But perhaps, what is seen as negligent today was mere thoughtlessness 60 or 80 years ago. Even nowadays many are still coming to terms with the Earth’s diminishing resources, so it may be reasonable to assume that in decades past, the world’s raw materials were seldom seen as finite. Nevertheless, in 1960, as businesses revelled in Brooks Steven’s promotion of planned obsolescence, Vance Packard penned his disdain for consumerism, initiating a push for the word to be use in negative contexts, as it is so often is today. (Glickman, 2009, p.265) He highlights planned obsolesce as consumerism’s ugliest of faces, branding it “the systematic attempt of business to make us wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently disconnected individuals.” However, while planned obsolesce may have been the brainchild of businessmen looking to sell more products, it wasn’t always used for such avaricious purposes. The Wall Street Crash of October 1929, and subsequent great depression, had triggered record highs in unemployment and a general decline in profits. Planned obsolescence was used during this period to maintain a steady demand for goods, aiming to stimulate the economy, get people back to work and keep them there. It was even proposed as legal obligation by Bernard London, a prominent economist and real estate broker. He put the concept into writing for the first time, stating: I would have the Government assign a lease of life to shoes and homes and machines, to all products of manufacture, mining and agriculture, when they are first created, and they would be sold and used within the term of their existence definitely known by the consumer. After the allotted time had expired, these things would be legally “dead” and would be controlled by the duly appointed governmental agency and destroyed if there is widespread unemployment. New products would constantly be pouring forth from the factories and marketplaces, to take the place of the obsolete, and the wheels of industry would be kept going and employment regularized and assured for the masses. (London, 1932, p.1) 21
Figure Q: Film poster for ‘The Man in the White Suit’ (British Film Institute, 2014)
This struggle between economic growth and sustainability has manifested itself in the form of several films, most notably the 1951 comedy, ‘The Man in The White Suit’, in which the film’s protagonist, a chemist portrayed by Alec Guinness, invents an unbreakable, dirt-resistant fabric. Believing progress has been made, he demonstrations the invention, initially exciting his bosses who envision a possible commercial advantage. However, the ramifications of manufacturing such everlasting clothes soon dawns on them, with one character conceding, “It’s a desperate situation, - for the whole industry.” After refusing huge bribes to supress his invention, the timorous chemist finds himself on the run, not only from the factory’s bosses, but also from an army of trade unions, who see nothing but devastation for their redundancyfearing members. (British Film Institute, 2014) ‘The Man in the White Suit’ spotlights a problem of inconceivable complexity, but one Michael Braungart and William McDonough have securitised in their 2002 bestseller, Cradle to Cradle: Re-Making the Way We Make Things. They submit that problems of 22
consumerism, such as wastefully planning obsolesce, are insolvable within a consumerist society. Instead, they suggest we completely overhaul the “one way, cradle to grave” manufacturing model that was established in the industrial revolution and continually augmented by Edward Bernays, Harley Earl, Brooks Stevens etc. - “What the planet needs is a major rethink; a new approach that directly combats the problem rather than slowly perpetuating it.” (McDonough and Braungart, 2002)
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Conclusion Good or bad, the events analysed in this dissertation have played pivotal roles in sculpting present day societies. Integral to each other’s ‘success’, public relations, design and obsolescence have worked synchronously to create and define a consumerist landscape. Throughout this dissertation clear links have been presented to support this conclusion. Public relations had unlocked and capitalised upon newly discovered workings of the mind, using new technologies of communication to implant citizens with the underlying thought - happiness is achieved through consumption, sparking an evolution of design that would see products continually restyled, always offering something a little newer, a little better. Two cogs of the consumerist machine kept running through obsolescence, which ensured a perpetual need for new things, even if the old had not entirely been consumed. Literary critic Larry McCaffery has summarised this state, describing it as a “desert inhabited by people who are, in effect, consuming themselves in the form of images and abstractions through which their desires, sense of identity, and memories are replicated and then sold back to them as products” (McCaffery, 1994) But with global resources waning, it is unclear for how long these precedents will continue to dictate our production culture. The made to break approach of the Phoebus Cartel or the throw-away attitudes of Brooks Stevens and General Motors, whilst highly successful in their own ways, may soon no longer possible. However, if we wish to direct the future of our design and economic development, it may be important to study their evolution, harvesting innovations and learning from mistakes. For example; the influence of designers Lowy, Earl and Dreyfuss has reached far beyond instilling desire in consumers, the methods and practises they implemented have enabled modern designers to create better things. Knowledge of their techniques and thinking has been firmly embedded within design teachings, bringing potential inspiration to future designers – one of whom might disentangle such sustainability woes. Similarly, the work of Edward Bernays, while at times being used for immoral purposes, such as convincing women to smoke, it could most certainly be used to convey a different message perhaps even convincing people to consume less one day. 24
Many elements explored within this dissertation reflect upon the human condition, a desire for the beautiful and impressive, its ingenuity, greed, profligacy and morality. It's a circle that is impossible to square. In this reveals the designer’s dichotomy, between generating desire for something that is not really needed and producing something efficient that will not need replacing; a conundrum central to all of design and manufacture. Comparable to that of a tight rope walker, it is clear that design must balance an act of form and function, while juggling both sustainability and productivity. If we are to overhaul this consumerist production culture, as suggested by McDonough and Braungart, it would certainly require patience.
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Bibliography Books Bernays, E. and Miller, M. (2005). Propaganda. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Ig Pub. Dreyfuss, H. (1955). Designing for people. New York: Simon and Schuster. Ewen, S. (1996). PR! A Social History Of Spin. New York: Basic Books. Ford, H. and Crowther, S. (1922). My life and work. Garden City, N.Y.: Garden City Pub. Co. Freud, S., Underwood, J. and Rose, J. (2004). Mass psychology and other writings. London: Penguin Books. Glickman, L. (2009). Buying power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Loewy, R. (1979). Industrial design. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press. London, B. (1932). Ending the depression through planned obsolescence. New York. Mazur, P. (1928). American prosperity. New York: Viking Press. McCaffery, L. (1994). Storming the reality studio. Durham: Duke University Press. McDonough, W. and Braungart, M. (2002). Cradle to cradle. New York: North Point Press. Slade, G. (2006). Made to break. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Thiessen, D. (1997). Bittersweet destiny. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers
Documentaries
Psywar. (2010). [film] Canada: Scott Noble. The Century of the Self: Happiness Machines. (2002). [film] UK: Adam Curtis (BBC). The Century: America's Time, 1920-1929 Boom To Bust. (1999). [film] America: American Broadcasting Company.
The Genius of Design, Designs for Living. (2010). [film] UK: BBC. The Light Bulb Conspiracy: The Untold Story of Planned Obsolescence. (2010). [film] Spain, France: Cosima Dannoritzer.
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Journal Articles Lebow, V. (1955). Price Consumption in 1955. Journal of Retailing, XXXI(1), p.5.
Magazine Articles Frederick, J. (1928). Is Progressive Obsolescence the Path toward increased Consumption?.Advertising and Selling, (10).
Online Videos Seymour, R. (2014). TED Talks: How Beauty Feels. [video] Available at: http://Seymour, R. and TED TALKS, (2014). How Beauty Feels, London, www.ted.com/speakers/richard_seymour. [Accessed 8 Dec. 2014].
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