Industrial design

The word was first used in America in the 1920s to describe the work of specialist designers who worked on product design. Earlier, Henry Ford’s introduction in 1913 of the production line to the motor car industry, and subsequently to the production of other merchandise, led to a move in the art world to attempt to weld art and technology together.

Constructivism in Russia and the bauhaus in Germany were inspired by the new machine age; putting emphasis on form following function they created design that had an abstract, geometric form.