Cautionary Tales

A Three-Dimensional Design student visiting the Visual Resources Centre recently was intrigued by this slide of a table lamp from the Design Council Slide Collection.  Why is the label inscribed with the word 'cautionary'?  Does the lamp have dodgy wiring?  Do its surfaces get too hot?  Or perhaps there's some other health and safety issue for which caution is advised.  Well, actually, the perceived danger is aesthetic rather than physical.

To understand the presence of this slide within the collection, and the meaning of its label, one needs to consider the context in which it was created.  The slide dates from the 1950s, when the Council of Industrial Design was engaged in a long campaign to raise the standard of design of goods made by UK manufacturers.  Its strategy was to increase both the demand for, and supply of, good design. For the CoID, 'good' design meant the application of modernist principles, and it favoured products with a distinctly functional appearance.  The table lamp shown in the slide, in its mimicking of an ornate Victorian street lamp, was the antithesis of this utilitarian aesthetic and was seen as representing  the worst excesses of popular taste.  Whereas most of the slides acquired for the collection during this period (such as the one below) show examples of 'good design', the 'Olde Worlde Lantern' was, in the eyes of the CoID, an example of 'bad design'.

Table lamp designed by H.C. Hiscock, 1954

The Design Council Slide Collection contains a wealth of primary source material relating to the UK government's interventions in the field of design in the post-war period. To find out more read our online learning resource at: http://www.vads.ac.uk/learning/dcsc/.

Online image resource passes 400,000 views!

View of Hulme, mid 1960s

An important milestone was reached this morning, when the images posted to the Visual Resources Flickr photostream attracted their 400,000th view since the first set was uploaded in June 2010. The response to the Flickr images has been very positive, and demonstrates the high level of interest in the material that the Visual Resources Centre has in its collections. The most popular  image to date is the above view of Hulme, taken in the mid-1960s when the area had been cleared for re-development. It's been viewed 3,473 times since it was posted on 14th October 2010.

Visit our Flickr photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mmuvisualresources/

Design Council Slide Collection images in demand

This year has been a busy one in terms of the number of requests to use images from the Design Council Slide Collection in various publications and exhibitions.  Most recently, the Victoria and Albert Museum requested use of this image in its new furniture gallery, which is due to open shortly.

Those Things childrens table, chair and stool in fibreboard, designed by Peter Murdoch and made by Perspective Designs Ltd. Winner of a Design Council Award in 1968.

Indeed, the V & A has been a major user of the Design Council collection this year.  It's main summer show, British Design from 1948: Innovation in the Modern Age was one of London's major cultural offerings during the Olympic Games, and the exhibition, together with its accompanying book, used several images from the collection.

A further book, Award Winning British Design 1957-88 was also published in conjunction with the exhibition, and this included over fifty images from the collection.









The Museum of Modern Art in New York used this image in its recent Century of the Child exhibition and related book

Installation view from the Design and Disability exhibition at the Design Centre, London in 1981.

and other recent licensees have included Shire Publications,which used four images (including the one below) in its 1950s Modern book by Susannah Walker.

Dining room with furniture by Kandya Ltd, c. 1952.

Introducing the Visual Resources Historypin Channel

The Visual Resources Centre has recently launched its new History channel.

Historypin is an online, user-generated resource that enables digital content to be 'pinned' to a map.  The map is integrated with Google Street View, which means that historic photos can be overlaid on contemporary images of the same location, and there is a fader control that allows you to vary the visibility of the superimposed photos.  You can also contribute textual content by adding stories, comments and other information associated with particular photos, video or audio.  There is also a free Historypin smartphone app that provides an augmented reality experience in addition to the features offered by the website.

If you're already familiar with the VRC's Flickr site (www.flickr.com/photos/mmuvisualresources/), you'll know that it includes many old photos of buildings and streets in and around Manchester.  The most recent upload included some pictures from the 1920s and 1930s from our fascinating lantern slide collection. Many of these images are now also available on Historypin, with more to be added in the future.

Visit our Historypin channel at www.historypin.com/channels/view/id/9230020/