© 2003 by Design History Society
Design and the Domestic Persuader: Television and the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Promotion of Post-war ‘Good Design’
Kent Institute of Art and Design
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Abstract |
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In March 1957, Design Magazine was to claim that since the immediate post-war years television had played a major role within the assertion of design's economic, social and aesthetic value to ‘a wider public than ever before’. This was achieved through the promotion of the importance of ‘good design’, not only in educational programming, but also in the sets and furniture used within studio backgrounds. From 1946 onwards, the BBC had joined forces with the Council of Industrial Design to assist in the development of a specific policy of design promotion within its early television service. This association developed because is was coherent with the BBC's ambitions to use television, like radio before it, as an instrument of national improvement. This paper provides an account of the, often problematic, alliance that was to emerge between these two bodies, for although brought together by seemingly similar ideologies, they operated from differing criteria. Over the following decade the BBC's approach towards the propagation of 'good design' was to diverge from the Council's suggestions as television began to develop its own identity and attitude towards design.
Key Words: British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) • consumers • Council of Industrial Design (COID) • design • popular entertainment • television set design