Period Design
The world is filled with the jargon of a thousand different industries and people. These words are often not understood by someone outside of that industry and leads to great confusion when the industry seeks to communicate with someone that stands outside that industry. While a term may be simple and everyday to a person working in that industry, to those outside it, you might as well be speaking a foreign language. Take, for example, in the design world, the seemingly simple term: period design. While the words seem simple enough, they convey a meaning that is much deeper and requires some knowledge to understand.
A period design refers to a design that is based on a specific period style. Going on from this, a period style can be said to be the characteristics and designs that help to define the decorative elements of a specific historical era. What exactly constitutes a period, however, is a debate that many scholars have come to blows with. The concept of a period is rather broad and complicated subject. Different people in the same field who study the same period will often have differing views about just what the period entails.
As an introduction there are ways to make sense of period design. The best way is to start by learning about and understanding what sorts of influences were present at the time. These include political, social, geographic or technological influences but to name a few. These influences all come together to create the period and influenced the designers of those periods to create what it was they created. Since today’s designs were influenced by yesterday’s designs and will influence tomorrow’s designs, it is hard to put clear-cut edges to periods. Periods overlap and influence each other as time goes on.
When thinking about period styles it is better to think in terms that can be either qualified or quantified. An easy way to do this is to ask certain questions surrounding the period. Design and styles of a period can be found in the following questions:
While any true student of period styles and designs would likely cringe at such a simplistic view, for the purposes of the layman this is all that is required. By answering these questions, more questions are likely to come to the fore that will lead to more answers. In the end, a general idea will be formed as to what they period design and style entailed.
Knowing what the person across from you is talking about can be very useful in negotiating with them. If you know at least a little bit about what the designer is going on about when they start talking about period design then you are in a stronger negotiating position. It is easy enough to discover more about what they are talking about with a little research. Period design and style are lovely words for something, as has been shown above, rather simple and easy to understand.
|
