Brussels Style vs East German Design

ブリュッセル様式 / 東ドイツのデザイン

Brussels Style comes from Postwar Industrial Design and East German Design from Regional Graphics. Both are read here as style. They are reached for with different intent, which is the fastest way to tell them apart.

Brussels Style

Brussels Style — 《ブリュッセル万博 チェコスロヴァキア館》1958年 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0Brussels Style — ヤロスラフ・イェジェク《磁器セット エルカ》（撮影 Jan Jeništa）— Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.5Brussels Style — 《ブリュッセル様式のプラスチック製ボウル》（撮影 Jenikjejenjeden）— Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

The bright socialist-bloc modernism named for Czechoslovakia's triumph at Expo 58: asymmetric curves, thin splayed legs and atomic patterns spreading thaw-era optimism from housewares to animation.

East German Design

East German Design — VEB Elektrogerätewerk Suhl《ハンドミキサー AKA electric RG28s》 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 deEast German Design — マルガレーテ・ヤーニー《業務用食器シリーズ rationell》1969–70 Colditz Porzellan — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0East German Design — ゲルハルト・シェーネ設計《タイプライター Erika》DDR博物館蔵 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

The everyday design of the GDR under a planned economy. Plain plastic goods born of shortage, the artless graphics of state advertising and the lyricism of DEFA film posters are now being reappraised as the style of a vanished state.

Brussels StyleEast German Design
Era1958–1960s1949–1990
FamilyPostwar Industrial DesignRegional Graphics
KindStyleStyle
CuesAsymmetric organic curves / Thin splayed legs / Atom and star patterns / Pastel against blackSimplicity bred by constraint / Artless state advertising / Plastic color / Lyrical film posters
Best used forExhibition and broadcast design built on postwar optimism · Unifying housewares and screen graphics under one vocabulary of curvesEveryday goods made from few materials that must sell without ornament · Film and theatre bills carried by one image instead of a star's face
TypeLight hand-drawn sans headlines, set at a tiltPlain medium-weight sans, small, gathered in one place
CompositionCompose off center and run diagonal movement through the white spaceOne image held large, a single line of text below
MaterialPastel fields with fine black line, splayed legs and atom motifsMolded plastic in primary hues, few inks on rough paper
CautionPasting on atom motifs and thin legs leaves it indistinguishable from Western mid-century modern, and the thaw era brightness never arrives.Using a simplicity born of shortage as a nostalgia sign drops the constraint that made it, leaving a souvenir that copies only the colors.

Put these two together

Postwar Industrial Design ／ Regional Graphics

IndexStyle