Art industries, the new culture of design

Industrialization laid the foundations of design culture. In Catalunya, artistic industries thrived, dedicated to the production of consumer goods especially in the service of home decoration.

Artistic industries are synonymous with modernization: of technical modernization in  innovative workshops with import machinery and new professional practices; and of aesthetic modernization, as they overcome historicisms and make nature the main model without forgetting the past. Likewise, a new way of disseminating the products is also opened. Commercial advertising is created thanks to new graphic reproduction procedures and the marketing and promotional exhibitions that are organized. A new model of workshop is also born, one for manufacturing and marketing, for both serial production and singular pieces. At  the same time, the figure of the Project designer or industrial designer, as they were called,  appears as well as the new art director. In this context, a new commercial concept is born, the  art object as a selling point, because art ennobles the industry.