Art Deco. Hedonism. Glamour. Luxury:
Art Deco Style is one of the most influential design movements of the 20th Century.
Although it was considered to be highly functional, it emerged as a purely decorative style, meaning that it's primary purpose was to be beautiful and ornamental. But more than an artistic-style, it has evolved to represent a particular lifestyle, an attitude towards life. It evokes images of nonchalant Wall Street suits leaning against a slick Manhattan bar, with a cigar in one hand and a slinky, red lipstick'ed blonde, dripping diamonds, in the other.
Or imagine the French Riviera, circa 1929 - real-live pin-up girls lounging around in candy-coloured bathing suits, fawning over the muscled beefcake keeping guard on the beach.
The Art Deco Style insinuates a lifestyle of pleasure, leisure, excess and all-out glamour.
Architecture, Interior & Graphic Design, Jewelry and Fashion in the 1920's and 1930's were all given a glamour-injection thanks to the Art Deco movement.
In recent years, this ultra glamorous style has seen a massive resurgence. So many of today's condos, hotels, nightclubs and restaurants have been 'art-decofied'. The world of fashion and jewellery has also jumped on the bandwagon.
But as the world tries to grapple with the doom and gloom of a global recession, our fascination with such a non-practical, hedonistic style seems, umm how can I say this politely? - out of whack.
Yet, it's precisely this swing towards prudence and thrift that makes us crave extravagance and superfluous luxury all that much more.
Art deco fonts:
If Art Nouveau was about finding beauty in organic intricacy, Art Deco was perhaps about finding beauty in geometric simplicity. First appearing in the 1920s and 30s, Art Deco made a comeback in the 1970s and 80s as well.
Almost by definition, Art Deco meant sans serif type. The most common such face is Avant Garde (1974, Lubalin), which is striking but hard to read at length. A more graceful geometric sans is Futura (Renner, 1927-39). There are also more quirky faces in this category, such as Kabel (Koch, 1927-30). A recent popular Art Deco display face is ITC Anna (1991?).
Examples of deco graphic design:
History of the name 'Odalisque': An odalisque (Turkish): Odalık) was a female slave in an Ottoman seraglio. She was an assistant or apprentice to the concubines and wives, and she might rise in status to become one of them. Most odalisques were part of the Imperial Harem, that is, the household of the sultan.
(Jean-Auguste-Dominique-Ingres, La Grande Odalisque, 1814)
Odalisque:
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