AEG Corporate Identity vs Arts and Crafts

AEGの企業アイデンティティ / アーツ・アンド・クラフツ

AEG Corporate Identity comes from Modern Design Movements and Arts and Crafts from Craft Movements. They are reached for with different intent, which is the fastest way to tell them apart.

AEG Corporate Identity

AEG Corporate Identity — ベーレンス AEGタービン工場 1909（CC BY-SA 4.0）AEG Corporate Identity — ヴァイセンホーフ住宅展 1927（CC BY-SA 4.0）AEG Corporate Identity — ペーター・ベーレンス設計 AEG 電気ケトル 1909（ケルン応用美術館） — Wikimedia Commons / CC0

Products, factory and printed matter all handed to one architect, so that a company looked as though a single hand had made it. The lettering, objects and buildings Behrens drew for AEG from 1907 became the prototype of corporate design.

Arts and Crafts

Arts and Crafts — William Morris, Strawberry Thief, 1883 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domainArts and Crafts — ウィリアム・モリス『柳の枝』1887 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domainArts and Crafts — ウェッブ＆モリス レッドハウス — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Returns material and handwork to the center of design, joining every detail of daily life under one conviction.

AEG Corporate IdentityArts and Crafts
Era1907-19141860s–1910s
FamilyModern Design MovementsCraft Movements
KindStyleStyle
CuesCompany lettering drawn from geometry / Products built as one family of forms / A gabled front of steel and glass with the ornament taken off / One hand visible from kettle to catalogueRepeating plants / Flat contours / Density of handwork / Colors from nature
Best used forAligning products, printed matter and buildings under one corporate standard · Putting the design criteria for mass production into words a company can shareHonesty for long-lived tools and household brands · Uniting pattern, letter and material in one story
TypeOne typeface fixed as a standard, sizes and margins given as numbersSerifs or ornamented letters that feel hand-cut
CompositionProducts and advertising built on one grid and one dimensional systemRepeat plants and creatures with the seams hidden
MaterialStandard industrial materials, with quality carried by the finishDeep indigo, plant-dye tones, off-white; keep the texture of paper and cloth
CautionReading standardization as sameness, making everything one shape and skipping the argument about quality, which lands in dull mass production.A floral print alone loses the conviction. Align material, making and a structure that lasts.

Put these two together

Modern Design Movements ／ Craft Movements

IndexStyle