COLOR/FORMS, Parsons & Cooper Hewitt Grad Symposium (April 2015; New York, NY)

CALL FOR PAPERS:
Color/Forms

The Twenty-Fourth Annual Parsons/Cooper Hewitt Graduate Student Symposium on the History of Design

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.
April 23 and 24, 2015.

Deadline for proposals: January 26, 2015

This symposium is seeking papers on the forms color takes and the roles color plays in the meanings of design and the decorative arts since the Renaissance. We are especially interested in research that touches on moments of change: for example, on transitions from monochrome to full-color production, or when particular colors became available, fashionable or unfashionable.

Coloration is intrinsic to the social meanings of objects. Colors shape our interaction with things and other people in fundamental ways; they can appeal to our most visceral senses of pleasure or desire. Colors affect behaviors, and we use colors metaphorically to describe attitudes, feelings and moods. In the world of consumer goods, the need to produce certain colors has driven innovations in mechanical processes, and markets can rise and fall based on color trends.

Areas of investigation might involve:

• Graphic design and broadcast media–e.g. color printing in lithographs, newspapers and magazines; day-glo color inks and psychedelic design; Technicolor and other cinematic color systems; the advent of color television; etc.
• Fashion and costume studies–e.g. color, or lack thereof, in menswear; aniline dyes and other technologies of coloration; color forecasting; etc.
• Industrial design–e.g. colored plastics; anodized aluminum; the color of high technology (silver, black, white, beige) or domestic appliances; color theory and consumer choice; color-customizable products; colors in toys; etc.
• Decorative arts–e.g. hand-painted and printed colors ceramics; tapestry, color-changing fabrics and other textiles; polychromy in sculpture; etc.
• Architecture and interior design–e.g. colored exterior lighting; psychologies of colored interiors; wallpapers; “white cities” and exhibition architecture; etc.
• …or any number of related fields of production and consumption.

Proposals are welcome from graduate students at any level in fields such as History of the Decorative Arts, History of Design, Curatorial Studies, Design Studies, Art History, History of Architecture, Design and Technology, Media Studies, Consumer Studies, Cultural Anthropology, Sociology, and other fields.

The symposium’s Catherine Hoover Voorsanger Keynote speaker will be Jeffrey L. Meikle, Stiles Professor in American Studies and Professor of Art History at the University of Texas at Austin, speaking on “Postcard Modernism: Landscapes, Cityscapes, and American Visual Culture, 1931-1950.” Dr. Meikle is one of the leading voices in design history and cultural history. His renown scholarship extends to industrial design and technology, popular print media, and alternative cultures from 1950 to the present. His books include Twentieth Century Limited: Industrial Design in America, 1925-1939 (1982); American Plastic: A Cultural History (1995); and Design in the USA (2005).

The Keynote will be on Thursday evening, April 23, 2015 and the symposium sessions will be in the morning and afternoon on Friday, April 24.

To submit a proposal, send a two-page abstract, one-page bibliography and a c.v. to:

Ethan Robey
Associate Director, MA Program in the History of Design and Curatorial Studies
robeye@newschool.edu

Deadline for proposals: January 26, 2015

The symposium is sponsored by the MA Program in the History of Design and Curatorial Studies offered jointly by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and Parsons The New School for Design

Special Issue of Architecture Theory Review: theories of colour (Dec 2013)

Website: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ratr
Deadline for submissions: 31 December 2013

In 1927, Bruno Taut built himself a house in the south of Berlin. The house was a richly coloured affair, with a range of colours for walls and furniture. Those areas of the house that received indirect light were decked out with the brightest tones. The ceiling of the living room was a radiant red, designed to act as an inverse to the green of nearby meadows. Even the radiator and its pipes were set out from the wall and distinguished from their surroundings with contrasting colours. This polychromatic exuberance was typical of Taut, and of early modernism.

Special Issue: J of Design History: “Colour” (Dec 2011)

Deadline for submissions: 1 December 2011
Direct enquiries to jdh@genesys-consultants.com
Website: http://www.jdh.oxfordjournals.org

Colour is a major aspect of design practice that has a long, tumultuous history.  It has been the subject of countless publications and exhibitions about visual culture, symbolism, science, fashion, and aesthetic meaning.  By contrast, this special issue of the Journal of Design History focuses on the work of colour practitioners, rather than on the colours themselves.

New book: Color and Design

We are seeking papers for a peer-reviewed book on color and design to be published by Berg. Working title: Color and Design.
Edited by Marilyn DeLong and Barbara Martinson

Cognition, context and culture are all vital to the way we experience color. From the products we use, the clothes that we wear, and the spaces we inhabit, color provides both visual appeal and information. Our proposed book, Color and Design, addresses how we experience color through specific examples of how color is used in the design disciplines.  While other books devoted to color contain basic information regarding color theory and color use, this book intends to foster a greater understanding of color through the in-depth analysis of specific cases. These examples will explore color as a cultural phenomenon, a pragmatic device for communication, and as a valuable marketing tool.  Based in the disciplines of clothing design, graphic design, interior design, and product design, this book will be a valuable resource for both design practitioners and scholars.