Design Museum - Kenneth Grange

 Today I went to the London Design Museum to see an exhibition on Kenneth Grange called Making Britain Modern. It is towards the end of the exhibitions display and after a couple of failed attempts to go (closed train lines) I went today with one of my flat mates.

 

The exhibition displays a catalogue of Kenneth Grange's work, from his first designs, a poster done in primary school to his most recent. Below are some photos from the exhibition showing some of his work,

 Initial rapid visualization sketches and models of an early Kodak camera and a set of clocks and thermometers.

Sketches for the UK's first specific Parker pen (before they were only American models with small adaptations) designed for students and some other designs including a clock.

 

A nice coincidence was that he worked with developing the style of Wilkinson Sword Razors over many years, the same brand of razor that I sketched as part of my Design Process Assignment, unfortunately he has now stopped designing for them so did not design the specific razor I sketched.

 

A large range of Kenwood appliances that he designed. The model on the left is very unusual as he was given only a few days to create the model and, knowing he did not have enough time, created exactly half the model and presented it with a mirror behind it to create the other half (the ingenuity for which was appreciated by the client).

 He also designed the iconic Intercity 125 train. He was initially only commissioned to design the colouring and look of the exterior, however he realised that the shaping of the exterior could be both more aerodynamically and aesthetically designed so, after testing various models at night in the Imperial College's wind tunnel, he was able to present both a better design and the testing that proved it.

 

 Finally perhaps his most widely seen yet not wildly know design was the design of the modern London Cab. Grange perceived that to radically change the cab to bring it on par with the other cars of the 21st century, would ruin the iconic imagery of the cab, therefore he presented this design where the classic styling is mostly intact, however it is more comfortable for both diver and passenger and has better disabled access.

From the exhibition I have learnt that it is important to fully understand the idealism, image, culture and feel of each project to create designs that fit the brief and fit the product, and to think outside of the brief and analyse all the aspects of a project, not just necessarily the portion applied to me.

Elsewhere in the museum there was a very interesting display featuring many iconic designs of the last century including the chairs below, by Eames and Gehry respectively, a full size motorway sign, it's bigger than you would think, a set of interesting icons, an Xbox Kinect (not sure why really), an original anglepoise lamp, a Austin Mini, cut in half and a Dyson Air Multiplier Fan  (exactly like the one I own).

Also as part of a more temporary exhibition was this clock. Which well, see for yourself.

 

The clock goes through these preprogramed sequences when idle, but when someones gets within a specific range, it quickly shows the time. Very clever and very fun.

So a really good day out and I even bought a little mug from the museum shop with the slogan: 

Good Design=Happy World

 Thanks