section 52:New Changes to UK Design Patent Law

Like many seismic events, you would be forgiven for not having noticed the gentle pre-rumblings about a change to the UK patent law which is due to come into effect in just a few weeks time. On July 28^th the ‘Repeal of section 52 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988’ comes into force allowing industrial designers and their families the right to retain, reassert and legally protect the copyright of their designs for up to 70 years after the death of the creator. Previously limited to only 25 years after the design was released, the revision brings it into line with wider European law.

This repeal, which was lobbied by the powerful design community, is aimed at protecting industrial scale designs (where more than 50 copies of an object have been made) from open plagiarism within the retail market. It will perhaps correctly bring to an end the era of knock-off Corbusier, Eames and Egg chairs that currently flood the market place, yet by potentially reasserting protection on current and out of date designs (as well as having no exemptions for second hand goods), it could have important knock-on consequences for the secondary market. While the focus has been on furniture design because that is where most current patents seem to lie, the change is an umbrella one that could include anything from jewellery to home ware.

What will be affected?

The technical jargon from the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) is that the industrially produced design must be ‘a work of artistic craftsmanship’ to qualify meaning the form must clearly outweigh its function. The IPO acknowledges that their definition is open to interpretation which is worrying  when you consider that every mass produced object of the last 100 years has been actively shaped by one designer or another. From cutlery to lamps, sideboards to bridges, we live in a world dominated by industrial design. Until now in the UK, our utopian principles have led to an accepted understanding that good design should remain available for the benefit of all and where plagiarism and subtle adaptations arose, these have always been a forgivable consequence of the industry. In 2011 it was estimated that the replica furniture industry in the UK accounted for only 7% of total UK furniture sales. Yet as European courts tightened their own legislation a few years back, the emerging internet allowed the UK to become a supposed hub for replica goods and push the onus back on the UK to tighten up as well.

How the Antiques field may be impacted

There are several ways that the antiques industry may be affected by the repeal and these changes have come about at a time when the interest in mid-century design is at its peak.  Under the new rules any credible design produced since 1946 ( as well as some older ones still under contract) could potentially be covered by copyright.  Although there will be a 6 month grace period until January 2017 to allow people to clear their stock or make necessary changes, the new law makes the sale of unendorsed design classics in the UK illegal. This change may bolster consumer faith and spending back onto the original vintage or endorsed items, yet will also surely see prices rise as well as the market thins out. It will mean that even as a private individual you won’t technically be allowed to sell your fake Corbusier armchair anymore even if you’ve had it since new from the 1970s. You will still be allowed to own it, but only officially produced versions by Cassina will be permitted for resale.

A second area that will affect the education, heritage and publishing industry the most is that the law will also apply to copyright protection on 2D photographic representations of such objects as well. Potentially hundreds of art, antique and reference publications may have to be modified and republished (at a cost to the publisher) to ensure there are no infringements made.

The Future

While the IPO feel the ‘artistic’ requirement of industrial design makes qualification for such copyright potentially hard to obtain, there is also no question that it will have long term impacts for many people. Already many interior designers are saying the change will push their costs sky high and magazines will have to be very careful when they are photographing on location. Publishers are facing massive short-term financial loss, and for their part auctioneers and dealers will have to be constantly vigilant for unofficial examples.  It is the open-endedness that is troubling. The IPO say a design is protected due to its form and not its attribution. Therefore just because you do not know its makers name does not preclude it from protection. One wonders if all this uncertainty may actually push interest back onto genuine antiques which are free from such complications?

Last word 

Unlike art, genuine uniqueness in the design world is actually a rare thing. Constrained by form and function, its a world instead of inspirations and subtle modifications towards the more perfectly balanced form.  If the changes to the law mean the best of design becomes the preserve of the rich, then that sadly goes against the principles why many took to the drawing board in the first place.

For more information, relevant guidance is available via the www.gov.uk website or email  section52CDPA@ipo.gov.uk

Chairs image attribution: by Boa-Franc

Subtle Design Variation in Mid Century Lighting

There is nothing more pleasing than good design, and the cult of the inspired designer is stronger now than ever before. The best pieces quickly spread to become instant icons and while thousands of words of praise are often heaped on them, really just a split second glance tells you everything you actually need to know. Like a good painting you don’t need to understand its historical significance to just appreciate it.

There s plenty of conjecture behind just what makes an object great, but the best designs are often the most successful meeting point between production and consumption.  Put another way, its a design where both the producer and the end user shake hands in mutual admiration since the needs of both have been most fully met. Cultural theorist Pierre Bourdieu calls designers ‘cultural intermediaries’ and there is much truth in that, but too often design history is only told through a few select milestone pieces we choose to deify. The rest somehow slip into the shadows and when finally rediscovered years later, are labelled ‘in the style of’ offerings instead.

A book I read some time back said to be the best at anything, you just need to do the same as everyone else but 5% better.  I would argue that in all but a few cases, top industrial designers are no different. Thumbing through a book I picked up recently confirmed this 5% rule to me.  Though reprinted in 2012, the book was originally published in Germany in 1953. Entitled ‘Modern Lighting of the 50s’ the book showcases a wide range of lamps from the years just before 1953 from major designers and companies across Europe and America.

All but one of the images below are reproduced from the above mentioned book and show variations on two interconnected design forms that were clearly innovative and fashionable at the time:  the adjustable scissor stand and the dual functioning table/wall lamp. These are not copies or design forgeries, but the natural variations that emerge when leading designers go head to head over the same concepts. Most interestingly the one lamp that was not included in the book is the scissor lamp from the Frenchman Boris Lacroix (colour image shown) that has widely become known as the leading  example of that form.  While certainly the most elegant of all the variations listed below, Lacroix’s lamp which came out around the same time as all the others, is probably the only example many collectors will be able to name. This show’s the stark truth of the 5% rule……….

The return of the eclectic collector……

Compared to the recent past there is a lack of ease about much modern collecting.  Ask the average person what pieces or styles they buy and most will admit: “I buy what I like”. At face value the phrase tells nothing, merely frustrating and challenging the seller to fine tune their telepathic skills. But look deeper and perhaps it speaks volumes about the world we live in and a new relationship with the objects we choose to call our own.  “I buy what I like” may mean just that: objects with a personal and emotional connection.   In a world drowning in ‘stuff’, perhaps people are beginning to re-evaluate, buying only those pieces that ‘speak to them’ no matter how outwardly random the selection. Its a very post-postmodern principle, a landscape where the individual collector now actively dictates the rules of the game, not the other way around.

This approach is also not ‘collecting’ for financial gain (although plenty of that still goes on), but a going back to basics. Its primordial, anti-establishment and warm-hearted. Its a return to the random contents of children’s pockets and of the Gentleman’s curio cabinet. Animal, mineral or spiritual, these often smaller-sized objects are not reflective of the bold stained glass panels of history, but the humble shards of everyday life.  Taxidermy, tribal artefacts and antiquarian trinkets (which have all seen a peak in salerooms recently) meet in equal measure on the shelf to be shared, discussed and most of all-just admired. A reaction to our ever more virtual lives, these objects are often very sensory. Tactile, warm, loved, weathered and individual, patina it seems still matters.

If collecting in the recent past was about depth of understanding, then maybe now its all about breadth. Nostalgic objects, querky objects, objects that tell us a story. Like a child picking blackberries we are choosing to forage our goods carefully but widely. Given the overload of our modern world, some carefree abandon is hardly surprising.  To upcycle Churchill: ‘Never before in the field of human history has so much been owned by so many, be it old or new’.  We are choosing to dabble and taste and taste again with as many antiques as we please. To keep up we only ask for bite-sized mouthfuls. We no longer need to understand or even own the global history of corkscrews, radios or silver napkin rings, merely the one in our hand.  And yet these shallow tasters, purchased and placed together on the shelf, are important. They become the public statement of our own individuality. While iconic collectors of the past like Pitt Rivers may have been laughed at for their own randomness, we are now turning full circle again. The 17^th century enlightenment provided an explosion of new ideas for early collectors to go rummaging in. Today’s collector will likewise run wild in the 24/7 shopping arcade (and limitless library) of the internet.

An antiques industry that supports this level of individuality is to be fair, a constant head-ache to the trade. Its perhaps easier to accommodate by the auction houses, but gone are the days when any item would just sell itself, purely on its style, period or calibre.  For the modern collector though, its an exhilarating time with few boundaries.  While things may appear otherwise, I suspect most people’s eclectic decisions are not as random as we think. For instance the rise in interest in taxidermy, folk art and country chic may be because they speak of a simpler more organic world, devoid of Twitter and Facebook. We are also choosing items often that reflect our more noble traits like humour.

As a somewhat incurable collector myself, I know that I used to feel a sense of shame when choosing to jump ship from one collecting field to another. I would sell off the old to pay for the new, leaving only one or two token items to remind me of the journey and as a constant reminder for my lack of dedication to the cause. But that was then. Today I feel more comfortable jumping between fields and ideas, enjoying not just the items themselves but the tentative and exhilarating connections that emerge between them.  I can’t tell you the next object that will fire up my boiler……but that’s always been half the fun of collecting after all !

Eclectic table photo attribution: by denise carbonell; Pitt Rivers Museum photo attribution: by Dark Dwarf

Why we love the Mid Century? Why now?

Why Mid-Century, why now?

Two of the most important buzz words in the fashion and collectables industry today are ‘vintage’ and ‘mid-century’. Their combined shadow falls around us and spills over into the cultural dialogue of our everyday lives. From television and music, design and fashion to wallpaper shades, everything it seems deserves a light dusting of the vibrancy and certainty of that golden era.

The cultural archaeologist in me wonders why mid-century (compared to any other time) has become so universally appealing to us today? Is it that we are finally waking up to the genius of our parents and grandparents generation, or are we just temporarily disembarking for more selfish reasons?  The truth perhaps is wrapped in our constant need for both nostalgia and informed reflection.

A need for nostalgia

“Nostalgia is not always about the past” says Svetlana Boym who has written extensively about the subject, “it can be retrospective but also prospective. Fantasies of the past….have a direct impact on realities of the future”. It seems that what Boym is getting at is that the way we interpret our past often has more to do with our current needs than anything else.  It perhaps explains why today we love the security of collecting vintage items or revelling for example in the mid-century period. They allow us to escape our own turmoil and yet, like poetry or cartoons, answer pertinent questions about our lives and hint at an ideal of the future we hope to embrace.

Why mid-century now?

Its fair to say we can safely dabble in any historical period, and have extolled the virtues of many differing eras in the past. However, for many of us now, the mid-century aesthetic seems to be the most relevant. The post war years saw great change. From the dawning of globalization, of mass consumerism, the seeds of the digital revolution, the inklings of American pop culture and modern economics (to mention a few), these tectonic shifts have grown to become an important part of our personal identity today. The period also marks the final flurry of environmental innocence before the realisation in the late 1960s that our new lifestyles were not enhancing, but quickly destroying the Earth we lived on.  In many ways the post-war era should be seen as the embryonic form of our 21^st century world. To those looking to the past for answers, the mid-century becomes a point of 20/20 vision. Further back and things begin to feel a bit fuzzy and unfamiliar, further forward and the closeness becomes uncomfortable.

Curated nostalgia for the mid-century of course remains an important virtue. Guilt free we can relive the excitement of the space race, sense the confidence of scientific and technological progress and also revel in the nutty shapes and colours of alluring industrial design. But are we nostalgic for the real 1950s-60s as well with its class tension, political squabbles, nuclear threats and cold war freeze? Of course not, we’ll leave that to historians. Within the collectables trade we are looking instead for clarity. Pieces that define virtues and ideas we most admire today, and objects that sign-post us amid our own jumbled up and confusing lives. Mid-century admirers therefore swoon over the cutting edge beauty of Gio Ponti,  balance of Ray and Charles Eames or vision of Piero Fornasetti.  Unsurprisingly it is these champions of modernity that have led the salesrooms and seen stratospheric rises in value, while the backward looking revivalist pieces that actually dominated most makers catalogues at the time (such as Beautility, Stag or Lebus) remain largely worthless. Our demands clearly are high but also evolving, to reflect this the trend for mid-century has also not been static.

Growing up

When Vintage first emerged as a recognisable brand a few years ago, the excitement was about revelling in kitsch cultural stereotypes. It was about forgetting the depressing tones of our own forced austerity (given to us by our government), and just joining in the fun of bold pencil skirts, retro kitchen cabinets, beehive hair and chauvinistic adverts. During the last few years though, Vintage has grown up. Now the mid-century follower is looking for the subtle sophistication of largely forgotten female fabric designers. They are researching the forward-thinking industrial designers (particularly those from Italy and Scandinavia), and learning how to design and live in a brand-new and fresh ‘mid-century modern’ interior. More and more, our love for the period has been about the recognisable names, something we can relate to in our brand driven world.

Mid-century it seems, still has much it can share with us and is not a spent force yet. As an evolving field there are still many discoveries to be made especially amid the plethora of home-grown but overshadowed designers and artists of the time. Personally I really admire those English designers such as Ernest Race or Sheila Bownas. Their conceptual designs have an atomic witty edge to them compared to the self-confident styling of the big continental luminaries. Combining slim space-age lines with bold splotches of colour this ‘atomic’ look is one that will surely become even more popular as we begin to properly revisit the excitement of the space race, and commemorate the 50^th Anniversary of the first moon landing in a few years time.

The final curtain

Constant nostalgia and reflection are fundamental elements for any healthy society.  Over time the mid-century appeal will naturally fade and new eras will be rediscovered and extolled. But when that happens, it will not be because we have milked the period dry, but because our current needs will have moved on also. Svetlana Boym tells us that every era is reinterpreted differently by every other one. Once our current fascination for the mid-20^th century finally fades, future collectors will forage for and interpret the post war years very differently to how we choose to see them today.

Ettore Sottsass’ Groundbreaking Synthesis 45 Office System

The Olivetti Synthesis 45 Desk System

Think of Ettore Sottsass and understandably most will think of his wild and wacky post modern designs of the early 1980s. As the driving force behind the Memphis Milano group who sought to parody and bring into question the self-assurance of Modernism, Sottsass was indeed an offbeat genius. But his career as a commercial designer started many years earlier and just like his contemporaries he too had been dedicated to the functionality of modern design.

In 1959 the 42 year old Sottsass was approached by the office company Olivetti and asked to design for them. His first work was on the Olivetti Elea 9003, an early mainframe computer. This was followed by a series of (now iconic) typewriters during the 1960s. While Sottsass was interested in efficient machine design, he knew that was only part of the picture.

Efficient office management through design had always been a popular field of study even from the late 19^th century, but the focus was more on the practical positioning of existing pieces rather than redesigning the objects themselves. When Sottsass suggested his idea for a fully integrated office range to Olivetti it was to become a pioneering project.

Synthesis 45 Range

Released in 1973 as the Synthesis 45 range (a reference to the 45cm base measurements used) the pieces and concept became an instant success. By deconstructing the tasks and tools of the office and redesigning each component to give it the space and ease of use it needed, the effect was a fully adjustable office environment that could be adapted to fit in any room. Importantly the desks were designed to accommodate early computers, typewriters and printers. Adjustable side tables and underside drawers could be easily swapped from left to right for the users preference, paper trays were raised and mounted on swivel joints to allow them to be angled for efficiency of use and smaller items such as pen trays were redesigned to interlink with one another as desired.

Looking back on the promotional images now it is easy to overlook how radical this all was in the early 1970s. The minimalist designs in plastic, steel and laminate look to our 21^st century eye like every other late 20^th century office around the world, and therein lays its importance. The Synthesis 45 concept was so successful an idea that it was quickly taken up by many other office furniture manufacturers since. Perhaps more important to its commercial success than its efficient but querky design was the fact that the desks were one of the first to actively accommodate the very machinery of business, and in particular computers. As office and home computers began to fully burst onto the scene in the late 1970s to early 1980s the Synthesis desks were already designed to accommodate them.

Practicality

Finally, the success of any industrial product must be down to its practical use. This Synthesis 45 desk set which I have offered for sale was all purchased brand new by the previous owner during the 1980s and was in continued use in their busy office until just a few weeks ago. That a set of office furniture can withstand 30 years of everyday business use in excellent condition, and then be fondly missed by its owner once sold says more about the success of Sottsass’ vision than any review ever can!