The Memphis Group

The Memphis Group were founded in 1981 and in general they believed that 1970’s design had become too bland and slick and that colour, humour and personality should be brought back into Product Design and Furniture design.The images on this page of some of the examples of 1970’s design which might prove their point. The images are not really representative of the true range of design in the 1970’s, however, but will provide a contrast to The Memphis Group examples.

Ettore Sottsass(14 September 1917 – 31 December 2007)

Founder of The Memphis group, he was an architect and designer. These are examples of some of his work. As you can see, they weren’t practical, but they were colourful and at the time were quite shocking in their use of colour and boldness.

Discuss the importance of the trendsetter in the context of modern design.

Your answer to this question should be structured as a paragraph, but I will bullet point the main things you should include.

• The Memphis group of designers wanted to bring a new creative approach to design.

• The designs were ground-breaking when they appeared at the time, during the 1980’s.

• The designs were eccentric, bold and ornamental.

• They often coated their furniture with lacquer, traditionally used to protect surfaces from staining and damage, they deliberately used this type of surface because it wasn't generally used in design and was a bit eccentric.

• Although The Memphis group ended in 1989, their influence has remained, designs produced by Alessi for example still use colour and quirky designs in their products.

• They were the first designers to make Products which had the same kind of shock value as Pop Art, with it's bold, shocking shapes.

The Carlton Room divider – Ettore Sottsass

Explain why the product you have chosen has been so influential, make specific reference to innovation and function

The Carlton Room divider is an influential piece of furniture because…

It uses cheap plastic laminated wood instead of expensive timber. This meant that colour and pattern could play much more of a part in the final piece.

It’s style has been copied often since to create cheap funky pieces of furniture for the mass market…think of Habitat and IKEA.

It’s bold and graphic style makes the look of the furniture (the aesthetics) more important than the function, this was an entirely new look in the 1980’s and opened up the furniture market to a different audience of younger design conscious buyers.

It challenged designers to look at new ways of using less conventional materials when making products and furniture, even for high end pieces.

It challenged the excepted ideas of ‘good taste’ in design as it uses clashing colours and pattern, introducing the idea of fashion to products and furniture.