Woodham is Director of the Design History Research Centre, University of Brighton, and review editor of Journal
of Design History. His publications include Twentieth-Century Ornament: Decoration from 1900 to the Present.
Summary
The most famous designs of the twentieth century are not those in museums, but in the marketplace. The Coca-Cola
bottle and McDonald's logo are known the world over and may tell us more about our culture than a narrowly-defined
canon of classics. One of the world's foremost design historians, Jonathan Woodham takes a fresh look at the wider
issues of design and industrial culture throughout Europe, Scandinavia, North America, and the Far East. Drawing
on the most up-to-date scholarship, he explores themes such as national identity, the "Americanization"
of ideology and business methods, the rise of multi-nationals, Pop and Postmodernism, and contemporary ideas of
nostalgia and heritage. Woodham sets the proliferation of everyday design against the writing of critics as diverse
as Nikolaus Pevsner, the champion of Modernism, and Vance Packard, author of The Hidden Persuaders. The
history which emerges is clearly seen for what it is: the powerful and complex expression of aesthetic, social,
economic, political, and technological forces.
