Wednesday, August 8, 2018
Thursday, April 19, 2018
Thursday, April 12, 2018
The Secret History Of Russia’s Most Recognizable Brand
Originally shared by rare avis
How The Race To Space Influenced Soviet Design
Much of the design from the Soviet Union is lost to history, simply because no one was keeping tabs. There were many designers employed by manufacturers as “artistic engineers,” but the words “design” and “designer” were actually banned for much of the Soviet Era.
But a new book attempts to preserve the history of design in the Soviet Union from 1950 to 1989, both in consumer products and government-issued propaganda. Among the knock-offs of American products and socialist realist packaging design, one theme dominated much of the era’s aesthetic: space.
“You can’t imagine the number of objects that were called Sputnik,” says Alexandra Sankova, the curator of the Moscow Design Museum who put together Designed in the USSR, which will be published by Phaidon this month.
Symbols of space–and Russia’s supremacy in the Space Race with the United States–dominated textiles, household goods, and toys, not to mention books, movies, and music. One image in the book depicts the packaging of the Sputnik wind-up shaver, which was manufactured by the Leningrad Patefon Factory in 1968. While the shaver is front and center on the box, there are several rockets flying in the background–as if the connection between shaving and space is perfectly obvious.
The tenuous relationship between the space imagery and the device’s function isn’t isolated to packaging. A vacuum called Saturnas, which dates to the mid to late 1960s, is literally shaped like Saturn. The device, which takes the form of a sphere, was modeled after the American Hoover’s Constellation vacuum cleaner from 1955. But the Soviet version included a ring around the middle, giving the vacuum a space-age twist. The aesthetic also extended to home decor, with a nightlight shaped like a launching rocket, and food packaging, with multiple types of sweets decorated with yet more rockets shooting off into space.
One of the most fascinating space-age designs in the book is a confectionary tin from the Krasny Oktyabr Chocolate Factory in the 1960s. Its backdrop features a starry night sky and the customary Sputnik-shaped rocket emblazoned with the hammer and sickle, but it has some unlikely stars: the dogs Belka and Strelka, who the Soviets launched into space in 1960 and did a full orbit of Earth. “A funny thing is that dogs–the first cosmonauts–they’d be everywhere,” Sankova says. “They were superstars in the Soviet Union. A whole institute was producing these dogs as toys for children.”
Rockets even made their way onto the uniforms for the 1980 Olympic games, solidifying the emblem as a symbol of the country. The book includes the uniform for the Torch Relay, an all-white outfit with a stylized image of a spaceship on the front with a star at its tip, underlined by the Olympic rings. The reserve lamp for the Olympic flame has the same logo, which was designed by the students of the Vera Mukhina Arts and Crafts School in Leningrad under the guidance of designer Boris Tuchin. The fact that Sankova even has this information is evidence that by the 1980s, design was more established as a field in the Soviet Union.
Sankova started the Moscow Design Museum in 2012, and the book codifies some of the treasures of the new museum’s collections–both space age and otherwise. “The Soviet Union collapsed and now no one remembers what was there and who was responsible for design,” she says. “We have to preserve and study whatever we have.”
Even today, space remains a powerful tool for branding. Three of today’s most powerful business moguls–Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson–have all invested in getting to space. Literally transcending our planet to explore the stars is a powerful aspiration–one that will inspire us, and empower brands, for generations to come.
....
Phaidon: Designed In The USSR
[http://www.phaidon.com/store/design/designed-in-the-ussr-1950-1989-9780714875576/]
https://www.fastcodesign.com/90167789/the-secret-history-of-russias-most-recognizable-brand
How The Race To Space Influenced Soviet Design
Much of the design from the Soviet Union is lost to history, simply because no one was keeping tabs. There were many designers employed by manufacturers as “artistic engineers,” but the words “design” and “designer” were actually banned for much of the Soviet Era.
But a new book attempts to preserve the history of design in the Soviet Union from 1950 to 1989, both in consumer products and government-issued propaganda. Among the knock-offs of American products and socialist realist packaging design, one theme dominated much of the era’s aesthetic: space.
“You can’t imagine the number of objects that were called Sputnik,” says Alexandra Sankova, the curator of the Moscow Design Museum who put together Designed in the USSR, which will be published by Phaidon this month.
Symbols of space–and Russia’s supremacy in the Space Race with the United States–dominated textiles, household goods, and toys, not to mention books, movies, and music. One image in the book depicts the packaging of the Sputnik wind-up shaver, which was manufactured by the Leningrad Patefon Factory in 1968. While the shaver is front and center on the box, there are several rockets flying in the background–as if the connection between shaving and space is perfectly obvious.
The tenuous relationship between the space imagery and the device’s function isn’t isolated to packaging. A vacuum called Saturnas, which dates to the mid to late 1960s, is literally shaped like Saturn. The device, which takes the form of a sphere, was modeled after the American Hoover’s Constellation vacuum cleaner from 1955. But the Soviet version included a ring around the middle, giving the vacuum a space-age twist. The aesthetic also extended to home decor, with a nightlight shaped like a launching rocket, and food packaging, with multiple types of sweets decorated with yet more rockets shooting off into space.
One of the most fascinating space-age designs in the book is a confectionary tin from the Krasny Oktyabr Chocolate Factory in the 1960s. Its backdrop features a starry night sky and the customary Sputnik-shaped rocket emblazoned with the hammer and sickle, but it has some unlikely stars: the dogs Belka and Strelka, who the Soviets launched into space in 1960 and did a full orbit of Earth. “A funny thing is that dogs–the first cosmonauts–they’d be everywhere,” Sankova says. “They were superstars in the Soviet Union. A whole institute was producing these dogs as toys for children.”
Rockets even made their way onto the uniforms for the 1980 Olympic games, solidifying the emblem as a symbol of the country. The book includes the uniform for the Torch Relay, an all-white outfit with a stylized image of a spaceship on the front with a star at its tip, underlined by the Olympic rings. The reserve lamp for the Olympic flame has the same logo, which was designed by the students of the Vera Mukhina Arts and Crafts School in Leningrad under the guidance of designer Boris Tuchin. The fact that Sankova even has this information is evidence that by the 1980s, design was more established as a field in the Soviet Union.
Sankova started the Moscow Design Museum in 2012, and the book codifies some of the treasures of the new museum’s collections–both space age and otherwise. “The Soviet Union collapsed and now no one remembers what was there and who was responsible for design,” she says. “We have to preserve and study whatever we have.”
Even today, space remains a powerful tool for branding. Three of today’s most powerful business moguls–Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson–have all invested in getting to space. Literally transcending our planet to explore the stars is a powerful aspiration–one that will inspire us, and empower brands, for generations to come.
....
Phaidon: Designed In The USSR
[http://www.phaidon.com/store/design/designed-in-the-ussr-1950-1989-9780714875576/]
https://www.fastcodesign.com/90167789/the-secret-history-of-russias-most-recognizable-brand
Thursday, January 25, 2018
Russia and its predecessor, the Soviet Union, have for decades been analyzed in a simplistically binary fashion.
Russia and its predecessor, the Soviet Union, have for decades been analyzed in a simplistically binary fashion. Soviet society was viewed as largely comprising Homo Sovieticus — individuals devoid of free will who blindly followed the party line — and a few heroic dissidents; Russian society, similarly, is divided into the 86 percent of “patriots” who support Vladimir Putin’s policies and embrace “traditional values,” and the “liberal” opposition, which supports Western values, doesn’t like the growing role of the church and occasionally protests. This binary leaves little room for unexpected phenomena such as a funny homoerotic dance clip that is not only created in a provincial state institution but also goes on to inspire over a dozen more clips, made by people across the country, in solidarity.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/opinion/homoerotic-videos-russia.html?referer=
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/opinion/homoerotic-videos-russia.html?referer=
Tuesday, November 7, 2017
Famous international brands reimagined as though from the USSR.
Originally shared by Daniel J. Stern
Famous international brands reimagined as though from the USSR.
https://b-picture.livejournal.com/7507592.html
Famous international brands reimagined as though from the USSR.
https://b-picture.livejournal.com/7507592.html
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
A few years ago, Tanja Maier tried to do for Russian parenting what U.S.
A few years ago, Tanja Maier tried to do for Russian parenting what U.S. expat Pamela Druckerman did in 2012 with her best-selling book on French child-rearing, “Bringing Up Bébé.” Ms. Maier pitched a book on Moscow mothers who zealously push their children to succeed at hobbies and keep them in hats year-round to avoid a draft.
In their rejection letters, one U.K. agent wrote, “the Russian approach doesn’t really resonate.”
Ms. Maier did get one bite—from the Russians. Earlier this year, a Russian publisher released a translated edition titled “Winter Hat, Grandmother, Kefir.” The book praises mothers who don’t let their beauty routines slip and raise children on porridge and kefir, a tangy milk beverage. “It turns out, the Russians wanted to hear somebody saying something good about them,” says Ms. Maier, a 41-year-old Arizona native who moved to Moscow in the 1990s.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiger-moms-european-style-dirt-sharp-knives-matches-romantic-sleepovers-1509548218
In their rejection letters, one U.K. agent wrote, “the Russian approach doesn’t really resonate.”
Ms. Maier did get one bite—from the Russians. Earlier this year, a Russian publisher released a translated edition titled “Winter Hat, Grandmother, Kefir.” The book praises mothers who don’t let their beauty routines slip and raise children on porridge and kefir, a tangy milk beverage. “It turns out, the Russians wanted to hear somebody saying something good about them,” says Ms. Maier, a 41-year-old Arizona native who moved to Moscow in the 1990s.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiger-moms-european-style-dirt-sharp-knives-matches-romantic-sleepovers-1509548218
Tuesday, June 20, 2017
Mr.
Mr. Kralkin, a truck driver, had returned from a long-haul drive from San Diego that night, to curt words with his son, with whom he and his wife live, Mr. Kralkin said.
“You know what the conditions on the road are, and this life,” said Mr. Kralkin, who emigrated from Belarus eight years ago. “You are waiting for home that they will meet you with pleasure, with love.”
Upset at the unfriendly welcome, Mr. Kralkin said, he downed a bottle of Hennessy cognac and went for a walk.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/nyregion/ambulance-jumper-lawsuit.html?module=WatchingPortal®ion=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=3&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/nyregion/ambulance-jumper-lawsuit.html&eventName=Watching-article-click
“You know what the conditions on the road are, and this life,” said Mr. Kralkin, who emigrated from Belarus eight years ago. “You are waiting for home that they will meet you with pleasure, with love.”
Upset at the unfriendly welcome, Mr. Kralkin said, he downed a bottle of Hennessy cognac and went for a walk.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/nyregion/ambulance-jumper-lawsuit.html?module=WatchingPortal®ion=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=3&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/nyregion/ambulance-jumper-lawsuit.html&eventName=Watching-article-click
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