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The rest of us loved it," recalled Bill Moggridge, co-founder of the IDEO industrial design group. Among the old guard was Vico Magistretti. "This furniture offers no possibility of development whatsoever," he declaimed. "It is only a variant of fashion." Although originally Memphis Design emphasized rigid geometry, a popular reinterpretation has been to work flowing, oblong organic forms back into the composition. Rather than a radical departure, these are a natural evolution of the squiggly lines and circular shapes that were popular with the original Memphis. These include the abstract shapes and colors of Cubism, De Stijl and Harlem Renaissance art.
The Memphis Design Movement Is Having a Moment - Curbed
The Memphis Design Movement Is Having a Moment.
Posted: Mon, 29 May 2017 07:00:00 GMT [source]
My Modern Met
The death of Sottsass in 2006 had a defining impact on the re-emergence of Memphis design. After his death, interest began to grow in the previously negatively critiqued design style. After Sottsass’ death, there was an overwhelming resurgence of Memphis design, especially in the fashion industry. Iconic fashion houses like Missoni, Karl Lagerfeld, and Christian Dior were heavily influenced by the style to such a degree that entire collections were designed with the style in mind.
DO: design your own Memphis inspired piece of furniture. Make sure you think about colour, shapes and patterns!
Most of the notable Memphis designers were a direct result of the Memphis group, the most popular being Ettore Sottsass, the leader of the group. Two other significant designers were Martine Bedin and Nathalie Du Pasquier, who is responsible for the recurrence of modern Memphis design. Instead of the popular “form follows function”, Memphis designers preferred the motto “form follows fun”, wherein lies the perfect description of what Memphis design was all about (fun) as well as emphasizing what it is not (functional). Memphis design was all about bringing out the fun and crazy side of humans and evoking positive emotion, even though it was a rebellion against something that the group considered stark, cold, and boring.
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A design style is never fully considered a design style until we start seeing evidence of it on the exterior of the buildings around us. Memphis architecture didn’t emerge until much later when the design style made a reappearance. The Dream Come True Building by Camille Walala drips with the bold colors and patterns of Memphis design. Memphis design style is one of the easiest styles to identify, because of its overwhelmingly bold use of graphics and colors. Bright primary and secondary pastel colors such as blue, yellow, red, orange, purple, and green are used in different geometric shapes, squiggles, dots, and lines. Original Memphis Group pieces are collectible and are out of reach for many people.
With Sottsass as the point of reference for the group, and with his life partner Barbara Radice as cultural coordinator, the first collection of 55 pieces was presented in a gallery during Salone del Mobile in 1981. It showed it was possible to change the aesthetics of not just the shapes of furniture and objects, it was an opening igniting the creativity of young architects and designers,” Leclerc says. Sottsass left Memphis after a few years in 1985 and founded his own practice, Sottsass Associati—a firm that continues to operate today—and his focus once again turned to architecture, with projects like the design of Milan’s new Malpensa airport in 2000. Though Sottsass tended to describe himself as first and foremost an architect, he was something of a “Renaissance man.” He was also an industrial designer, a painter, a writer, a curator, and a photographer.

The modern Memphis design trend
Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users. The current Memphis movement is even more chaotic and unorganized than the original Memphis movement. Original Memphis characteristics are much more eye-catching and recognizable than modern Memphis, where more subtle characteristics are made use of, and no strict rules apply. It is also still available to purchase from the Memphis group website for a hefty sum of money. Although the movement only lasted a relatively short time, the impact of Memphis is still very much felt today.
He's written for Creative Bloq on design and branding matters since the site's launch. Part of a marketing drive, the quartz-faced, analogue timepiece was never actually sold as a standalone item, but offered as a freebie if you upgraded to Mac System 7.5. The mismatched terrazzo colors, paired with Sottsass' "Bacterio" print and a pink handle, feels like a blast from the past. Christian Dior’s 2011 Fall collection was one of the most mainstream events that made people aware of the style again. To most people’s surprise, the original apple watch was not the digital face that most people sport on their wrists today.
Although the trend was certainly alluring and gained a cult following, it was commercially rejected, which meant demand for the style began to dwindle fast. While Memphis Design was short-lived at the time, the nostalgic trend continues to inspire modern-day designs. Because of the name, most people are led to believe that the Memphis design movement originated in Tennessee, however, this is not the case. Memphis design was born in Milan, Italy through the designer Ettore Sottsass, who was the founder of the Memphis group.
Richard Mille's Colorful RM 07-01 Celebrates Summer Year Round - Forbes
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The Memphis movement marches on
Colorful terrazzo pieces on a white background are used throughout Memphis-style furniture pieces. Made of colorful marble chips poured in concrete, these terrazzo pieces look fun and unique, yet still like a natural material. Today, terrazzo can even be found in many textile designs that can be used throughout interiors. Other pieces of furniture and lights were made from industrial materials – printed glass, celluloids, fireflake finishes, neon tubes and zinc-plated sheet-metals – jazzed up with flamboyant colours and patterns, spangles and glitter. By glorying in the cheesiness of consumer culture, Memphis was "quoting from suburbia," as Sottsass put it. "Memphis is not new, Memphis is everywhere." Matteo Thun described Memphis as "a mental gymnasium".
But, the squiggles, bright colors, and wacky shapes still live on, thanks to contemporary designers. For proof, look no further than the Instagram account of Raquel Cayre; she shares archival images of Memphis pieces as well as objects, interior, and architecture that carries on the spirit of the group. The 1950s/60s mid-century modern and 1970s minimalism were about structure and straight lines. To counter that, Sottsass centered the group's thinking around “radical, funny, and outrageous”—essentially, disregarding what was considered in “good taste” at that time. The geometric shapes of Art Deco, the color palette of Pop Art, and 1950s kitsch inspired their unusual aesthetic. Memphis designers favored geometric shapes like asymmetric triangles and circles that were placed unconventionally.
Along with Sottsass, with whom she had lived since 1976, she became the driving force and artistic leader of the movement. She also published a number of articles and a book about on Memphis and it's members. Jasper Morrison remembers breaking into "a kind of cold sweat" and a "feeling of shock and panic" when he stumbled into the opening of a design exhibition at the Arc ’74 showroom in Milan on 18 September 1981. "It was the weirdest feeling," he recalled years later, "you were in one sense repulsed by the objects, or I was, but also immediately freed by the sort of total rule-breaking." Let us know if you're a freelance designer (or not) so we can share the most relevant content for you. These can include watercolor and acrylic paints, overlaid sketch illustration, rough paper cut-out edges, and gradients.
The Streamline Moderne was sometimes a reflection of austere economic times; sharp angles were replaced with simple, aerodynamic curves, and ornament was replaced with smooth concrete and glass. The movement was designed to provoke an emotional response and was never intended to be timeless or mainstream. Driven by form before function, the polarizing style is recognized by its bold colors, clashing patterns, and radical approach to design. Its visual impact is perfect for making modern-day statements whether it be with fashion, graphic design, architecture, interior design, or visual arts. As with all Memphis style designs, graphic black and white stripes and bold Memphis patterns with vibrant and contrasting colors were displayed on the models with the iconic shapes and squiggles also included. Chunky, cubist-like shapes adorned the models’ heads and made the fashion statement of the century.
Instead, it was a design that came much earlier, in 1995 with a Memphis aesthetic. The watch was never officially sold as a standalone product but was given away as a freebie when customers upgraded their Mac System 7.5. The five-story building can be seen on Great Eastern Street in Shoreditch and was designed by Walala very recently, in 2015. The entire structure rests on a plinth that is covered in the signature Memphis-style black squiggles on a white background. Laminate afforded them endless possibilities through the experimentation of shapes and colors. During the past ten years, she has collaborated with companies such as “HAY”, where she created bags with Memphis style patterns.
Sottsass was considered the key source of inspiration and the binding force within Memphis, along with his partner Barbara Radice. His contributions to the group included furniture, lamps, ceramic and glass objects, as well as decorative patterns for material. This is why many designers these days have opted to use miniature, scattered shapes and lines in order to hint at Memphis Design rather than give their project over completely to flashy graphics. Doing so allows them to capture some of the jubilant energy that Memphis evokes without all the provocative spectacle. The Memphis Design movement is one of unlikeliest success stories in the history of design. Like so many artistic reactions, it began as an outlet for its creators, a way to rail against and confound elite sensibilities.
In 1957, he joined forces with Poltronova, a furniture and interior design company, where he was appointed as an artistic consultant. Although it began with furniture, the style proved popular enough to extend to general art, graphic design and fashion. The intentional “bad taste” fit in neatly with the decade that saw the rise of glam metal, shoulder pads and parachute pants, Mohawks and big hair perms. The Memphis Group made its debut at the 1981 Salone del Mobile of Milan, a renowned furniture fair. Their style, while attention-grabbing, was commercially rejected and instead attracted a cult following.