Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Machine Art: One plinth per object, evenly spaced, with nothing added to the background plane. Cover over any trim or moulding rather than working around it
- Type
- Set in Machine Art's manner (Only the object's name and its maker, small, in one undecorated face. No adjectives), and let Ulm School (HfG Ulm)'s lettering (One sans face, three sizes at most, everything ranged left) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Machine Art's material (Metal, glass and porcelain as they come from the factory. No paint and no pattern, so that tooling marks and sheen are all there is to see); bring in exactly one thing from Ulm School (HfG Ulm) (Neutral surfaces with one or two colors allowed to mark function).
- Colour
- Build on #B9BEC2, #F2F1ED, #1E1F21 and admit one accent from #f6f2da, #969a9a, #121110.
Where they fight
These are already listed as related entries, so the join should come easily.
Caution
- Machine Art Assuming the work is done once the objects are undecorated leaves the room and the fixtures decorated, and the forms lose to the pattern around them.
- Ulm School (HfG Ulm) Borrowing the grey and the grid without deciding the reasoning leaves nobody able to justify a rule, and the system collapses as elements are added.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Machine Art (style, 1934) and their accent from Ulm School (HfG Ulm) (style, 1953–1968). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Machine Art exists for: shooting a set of parts or tools by stripping every pattern out of the background and the fixtures and giving each object its own plinth, or selling an undecorated product on a page that leads with the form alone and holds the feature copy back. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Machine Art - Utilitarian factory parts set out one to a pedestal, spaced apart - Mouldings on walls and ceilings screened over, leaving a background with no pattern in it - The objects are springs, pans and instruments, things never made to be looked at - Manufacturers' names standing where an artist's name would normally go Composition: One plinth per object, evenly spaced, with nothing added to the background plane. Cover over any trim or moulding rather than working around it. Type and lettering: Only the object's name and its maker, small, in one undecorated face. No adjectives. ## Accent comes from Ulm School (HfG Ulm), used sparingly - Method and system - Grids and modules - Ornament excluded - Design as science Let one material quality come from it: Neutral surfaces with one or two colors allowed to mark function. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #F2F1ED, carry the structure in #B9BEC2 and #1E1F21, and let a single accent come from #969a9a. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: technique, calm, futurity, trust. ## What goes wrong - Machine Art: Assuming the work is done once the objects are undecorated leaves the room and the fixtures decorated, and the forms lose to the pattern around them. - Ulm School (HfG Ulm): Borrowing the grey and the grid without deciding the reasoning leaves nobody able to justify a rule, and the system collapses as elements are added. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Machine Art 1934 / Style / Modern Design Movements
The name of an exhibition the Museum of Modern Art held in New York from March to April 1934. Springs, pots and pans and scientific instruments, all factory made and all utilitarian, were placed on pedestals and treated as sculpture. Philip Johnson screened the walls and ceilings of the museum's nineteenth century brownstone to hide its mouldings, so that undecorated objects could be seen against nothing.
- Ulm School (HfG Ulm) 1953–1968 / Style / Postwar Industrial Design
Founded by Max Bill as the Bauhaus's successor, the school redefined design as science, method and system. Its collaboration with Braun made the functionalist face a world standard.
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