After watching the film Eames: The Architect and The Painter about Charles and Ray Eames, there were a few main thoughts that I had coming away from it, mostly about the differences in the design world today compared to the middle of the 20th century. Firstly, gender roles, this is quite an obvious one and is often discussed in relation to the couple but I think how we still view the pair today says a lot about how society still can fall short of equality. Other thoughts about the changes over the last 60 years include the attitudes towards designing for mass production and the difference in business dynamics.

The film makes a point to discuss the inequalities that Ray experienced living in the shadows of her husband despite her huge contribution to the couple’s projects throughout their careers, this really illustrates the society of the 20th century in terms of the attitude to gender roles.  While this is an important theme of the film, I do not think that the filmmakers have overcome this gender inequality themselves. In my opinion, Ray is brought into conversation mostly only when life events are discussed or her feelings about something are being focused on. This is in contrast to Charles who, I think the film disproportionately focuses on and is still the only member of the pair that is discussed when it comes to talking about the specific projects or decisions.  Overall, I would have liked to have known more specifically how Ray’s background in painting and aesthetics had shaped their designs rather than just how he helped Charles to make decisions when it came to bringing colour into their designs.

Something that caught my attention in the film was Charles and Ray’s attitudes towards wanting to design with mass production in mind.  They very much wanted to create furniture that was affordable to the middle class and replaced the old furniture as a way to separate them from their parents in a country where the post-war young people were striving for a modern world.  Personally, I think this is quite different to the mindset of many designers today.  Now, I think the market values design for exclusivity, unusual or limited designs seem to be given much more credit or value in comparison to products that are made for the mass market, neglecting the product’s actual design merit.  This change probably comes from the fact that in the early stages of their career, mass production was new and exciting whereas now, mass production means cheap, poor quality and a lack of individuality.  When compared to IKEA, for example, most of us buy the mass produced furniture but it is more of a cost and convenience choice whereas back then, having a piece of Eames furniture was a statement of the individual’s modern life and ideals.

As mentioned previously, I also found the way that business dynamics have changed really interesting, particularly when it comes to how this impacts the design process. In the film, it showed how most of the design decisions and agreements were made between Charles and the CEOs of big companies directly, most of the time only on a handshake. If you compare this to the way things work now, where the designer would most likely never even communicate directly with the head of large companies and all agreements are made via contracts and formal, written communication.  Although you could argue that making agreements formally reduces risks such as accountability and exploitation, you could also say that the current methods are a real barrier to creative design and are in fact a barrier to the overall process rather than a way of streamlining it.  Personally, I’m not sure of the balance necessary to get these two ways of working optimised but I think we can learn a lot from the amazing things that have been realised from a slightly more laid back approach to collaborating with companies.

I’m really happy to have learned more about the Eames’s and how their work shaped design in the 20th century.  I think that they were both pivotal individuals for the history of design and I hope to try to incorporate much for of their ‘design by doing’ attitude into my own process.