Welcome to Tendring Technology College Design and Technology VLE

Design icon #1 Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Architect & Furniture Designer (1868-1928) Combining a progressive modernity with the spirit of romanticism, the Scottish architect and designer created many of the best loved and most influential buildings, furniture and decorative schemes of the early 20th century. Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s work can be divided into three main areas: public buildings, private homes and tea rooms. Excelling in all these areas, Mackintosh left hundreds of designs and a rich volume of realised work. His distinctive style mixed together elements of the Scottish vernacular and the English Arts and Crafts tradition with the organic forms of Art Nouveau and a drive to be modern.

Design icon #2 Frank Pick

Design Patron (1878-1941) As head of the London Underground in the 1910s and 1920s and of the newly merged London Transport in the 1930s, FRANK PICK (1878-1941) was instrumental in establishing the world’s most progressive public transport system and an exemplar of design management. From the red, white and blue roundel that has symbolised the London Underground since the 1910s and the diagrammatic map which enabled 1930s Londoners to find their way around the fast-expanding underground train network, many of the best known – and best loved – images of London were commissioned by one man, Frank Pick.

Design icon #3 Wells Coates

Architect & Industrial Designer (1895-1958) One of the pioneers of the emergence of the modern movement in British architecture and design during the 1930s, Wells Coates (1895-1958) also developed innovative approaches to housing design, notably in Lawn Road flats, as well as electrical products, broadcasting studios and yachts As the architect of Lawn Road flats, Wells Coates built one of London’s earliest most influential modern apartment blocks. Passionate about all things technical and mechanical, he also designed radios, electrical heaters, televisions, broadcasting studios, cinemas and even yachts.

Design icon #4 Frank Lloyd Wright

Architect (1867- 1959) Believing that “the space within that building is the reality of that building” he was one of the most prolific and influential architects of the 20th century. From his early Prairie Style homes, to the sculptural curves of the Guggenheim Museum in New York he defined a North American style of architecture which was rich in emotion and sensitive to its surroundings. One of the founders of modern architecture in North America, FLW embraced the use of new technology, materials and engineering to create some of the 20th century’s most influential and iconic buildings. During a long and productive career spanning 70 years he designed over 1,000 buildings of which over 400 were built.

Design icon #5 James Irvine

Product Designer (1958- ) Working from his Milan studio, the London-born industrial designer develops products, furniture and automotive projects for companies including Canon, Danese, Magis and Whirlpool. He also designed the Mercedes Benz city bus fleet for the German city of Hannover. Born in London in 1958, Irvine studied furniture design first at Kingston University and then at the Royal College of Art. Irvine worked first at Olivetti’s design studio in Milan and then for Toshiba in Tokyo before returning to Milan in 1988. He continued to work for Olivetti under the guidance of Ettore Sottsass, and in 1992 became a partner in Sottsass’ studio.

Design icon #6 Christian Dior

Fashion Designer (1905-1957)The most influential fashion designer of the late 1940s and 1950s, he dominated fashion after World war II with the hourglass silhouette of his voluptuous New Look. He also defined a new business model in the post-war fashion industry by establishing Dior as a global brand across a wide range of products. “My mother says that when I was little my grandfather used to take me and my cousins on one side after dinner and ask us what we wanted to be when he grew up, and I’d say ‘Christian Dior’,” recalled the French fashion designer Christian Lacroix.” He was so famous in France at the time. It seemed as if he wasn’t a man, but an institution.”

Design icon #7 Terence Conran

Designer & Architect (1931-) He is one of the world’s best-known designers, restaurateurs and retailers. Born in 1931, he founded the Habitat chain of stores that brought good, modern design within reach of the general population. Terence created the retail group Storehouse, from which he retired in 1990. Habitat is now owned by the holding company that also owns Ikea. In the 1990s, Terence built another group of companies involved in design, retailing, restaurants and hotels. Conran Holdings, of which Terence is Chairman, started its life in 1990 managed out of an apartment at Butlers Wharf owning one restaurant, one shop and a design studio.

Design icon #8 Saul Bass

Graphic Designer 1920-1996 Saul Bass was not only one of the great graphic designers of the mid-20th century but the undisputed master of film title design thanks to his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger and Martin Scorsese. When the reels of film for Otto Preminger’s controversial new drugs movie, The Man with the Golden Arm, arrived at US movie theatres in 1955, a note was stuck on the cans - "Projectionists – pull curtain before titles". Until then, the lists of cast and crew members which passed for movie titles were so dull that projectionists only pulled back the curtains to reveal the screen once they’d finished.

Design icon #9 Irma Boom

Book Designer (1960-)Many of the most beautiful books to have been designed in recent years are the work of IRMA BOOM. Born in Lochem, the Netherlands in 1960, Boom has won international acclaim for the iconoclastic beauty of her books. By remaining herself, Irma Boom has designed some of the most beautiful books to have been published in the last decade. Reading one of her books is like embarking on a visual adventure yet, by beginning each design project with rigorous research into the book’s contents and detailed discussions with its subjects, editor and author, Boom ensures that the aesthetic impact of her work is entirely empathetic with the text.

Design icon #10 Phyllis Pearsall

Map Designer (1906-1996) Working eighteen hours a day to walk 3,000 miles of London’s streets, the artist PEARSALL not only conceived, designed and produced the A-Z street atlas of London, but founded her own company to publish it. The A-Z remains one of the most ingenious examples of early 20th century information design. Working from her bedsit on near Victoria Station, she set off early each morning to walk – and catalogue – the streets of the city. As London was so big, rather than produce a cumbersome map, which would be very hard to read as each street, bridge or building would be so small in scale, Pearsall decided to divide it into different sections, each of which would be coded in an index.