Gadgets, Gizmos and Gimmicks: Anti-Advertising Discourse & 1970s Design Activism

The 1970s is widely considered within design history as the ‘Golden Age’ of anti-capitalist and anti-corporate design activism. The publication of seminal texts, such as Victor Papanek’s Design for the Real World, which chided a design profession fuelled by a deceptive advertising industry selling useless commodities, marked a new era of critical thinking around the representation of everyday design and goods.

This lecture explores the 1970s search for authenticity within popular material culture, and the legacy of this burgeoning anti-advertising and anti-branding discourse.