TDN1002 Design and the avant-garde
Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture
TDN1002 Design and the avant-garde is a level 1, 6-credit-point, undergraduate unit from the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, offered in 2025 in Semester 2 and Summer B at Caulfield. It has no prerequisites and unlocks 1 unit, leading on to 2 units in all.
- Credit points
- 6
- Offered in 2025
- Semester 2, Summer B
- Caulfield
- Assessment
- No exam
- 3 tasks
This is the 2025 handbook entry. See the 2027 entry.
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Requisites
Before TDN1002
Prohibitions
You can't enrol if you have passed any of these.
Corequisites
Pass these before, or take them in the same semester.
After TDN1002
1 unit list TDN1002 as a prerequisite or corequisite.
Enrolment rules
Prohibitions: AHT1102, TAD1102, TAD2101, TAD2214
Overview
In this unit, you will explore the history of European Modernism and its influence on visual communication, industrial design, and spatial design, recognising key movements and their ideological, political, and cultural foundations. You will develop critical frameworks to analyse Modernist design works, examining the social, cultural, and historical factors shaping them, and will practise applying these insights to your discipline. By integrating perspectives from various design fields, you will form a holistic view of Modernism’s legacy and its impact on the social role of design. You will reflect on how design can shape societal values, recognising the designer's potential as a social actor and fostering an appreciation for understanding design within its historical and cultural contexts. This unit will encourage you to value the responsibility embedded in design work and to develop strategies for ongoing learning, historical analysis, and critical thinking, equipping you with skills for both your practice and lifelong learning in the field of design.
Offerings in 2025
| Teaching period | Campus | Mode |
|---|---|---|
| Second semester | Caulfield | On campus |
| Summer semester B | Caulfield | Online |
Assessment
- Artefact analysisExercise20%
- Oral presentationArtefact30%
- Artefact analysis and researchProject50%
Learning outcomes
When you finish this unit, you should be able to:
- 1
Identify the socio-political and cultural contexts of major modernist movements and how they influenced design practices;
- 2
Use design principles to address real-world challenges for diverse audiences and contexts;
- 3
Combine design knowledge with insights from fields like technology, culture, and sociology for a broader impact;
- 4
Reflect on designers' social and ethical roles in shaping human experiences and values;
- 5
Appreciate design as a force for social change and commit to ethical, inclusive practices;
- 6
Create a research approach to explore design questions, fostering skills in self-directed learning.
Workload and teaching
- Lectures12 hours
- Tutorials24 hours
- Teaching approachActive learning
12 hours per week including 3 contact hours plus 9 hours of independent study.
Learning resources
Required resources
Pat Kirkham, 'Reassessing the Saul Bass and Alfred Hitchcock Collaboration', West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture , Vol. 18, No. 1 (Spring-Summer 2011), pp. 50-85
Philip Meggs, ‘The Genesis of Twentieth-Century Design’ in Meggs’ History of Graphic Design , fifth edition, Philip B. Meggs and Alston W. Purvis (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2012), pp. 232–251.
Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ in Illuminations, Hannah Arendt (ed) (London: Fontana, 1973) pp. 211-35.
Richard Hollis, ‘Germany’ in Graphic Design: A Concise History (London: Thames & Hudson, 1994), pp. 52–67.
Jan Tschichold, ‘The Principles of the New Typography’ in The New Typography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 64–85.
David Crowley, Cold War modern : design 1945-1970, ( London : V&A Publishing, 2008)
Richard Hollis, Swiss graphic design : the origins and growth of an international style , 1920-1965, (New Haven : Yale University Press , 2006).
Sarah Alford, 'Ellen Gates Starr and Frank Lloyd Write at Hull House: The Machine as the Will of Life' Journal of Design History, 2017, epx012. doi: 10.1093/jdh/epx012.
Rebecca Houze, ' From Wiener Kunst im Hause to the Wiener Werkstätte: Marketing Domesticity with Fashionable Interior Design' Design Issues , Vol. 18, No. 1 (Winter, 2002), pp. 3-23.
De Stijl /Bauhaus/The New Typography
Marin Sullivan, 'Materialising Modernism in Postwar Italy' Art History, Vol. 39, 2016 p.720-743
Elaine Hochman, ‘A Fragile Moment: Weimar, Gropius, and the Avant-Garde’ in Bauhaus: Crucible of Modernism (New York: Fromm, 1997), pp. 45–57.
Philip Meggs, ‘The Influence of Modern Art’ in Meggs’ History of Graphic Design , fifth edition, Philip B. Meggs and Alston W. Purvis (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2012), pp. 256–275.
Pier Vittorio Aureli, ‘Autonomy and History’ in The Project of Autonomy: Politics and Architecture within and against Capitalism (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008), pp. 4–14.
Jeremy Aynsley, Art Deco Graphic Design and Typography, in Art Deco 1910-1939 , edited by Charlotte Benton, Tim Benton and Ghislain Wood, V&A Publications, London 2005, pp. 297-303.
Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985).
Filippo Marinetti, ‘The founding and manifesto of Futurism’ in Umbro Apollonio (ed.), Futurist manifestos (Boston: MFA Publications, 2001), pp. 19–24.
Richard Hollis, ‘Soviet Russia’ in Graphic Design: A Concise History (London: Thames & Hudson, 1994), pp. 44–51.
The Industrial Revolution & The Birth of Design
Richard Hollis, ‘The Netherlands’ in Graphic Design: A Concise History (London: Thames & Hudson, 1994), pp. 68–75.
Tilmann. Buddensieg Industriekultur : Peter Behrens and the AEG , 1907-1914, ( Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 1984).
Thomas Hine, ‘Populuxe’ in Grace Lees-Maffei & Rebecca Houze (eds), The Design History Reader (Oxford & New York: Berg),152-157.
Suprematism and Constructivism
Futurism/ WWI Political Posters/Dada
Art Deco & American Modernism
Frank Colebrook, William Morris: Master Printer (Council Bluffs, Iowa: Yellow Barn Press, 1989).
Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 36–44.
Richard Huelsenbeck, ‘En Avant Dada: a history of Dadaism’ in Will Bradley and Charles Esche (eds), Art and Social Change: A Critical Reader (London: Tate Publishing, 2008), pp. 60–67.
Richard Hollis, ‘The Beginnings of Design in Europe’ in Graphic Design: A Concise History (London: Thames & Hudson, 1994), pp. 25–31.
Christina Lodder, 'Liubov Popova: From Painting to Textile Design', Tate Papers , no.14, Autumn 2010, http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/14/liubov-popova-from-painting-to-textile-design, accessed 19 May 2017.
Jan Thompson, ‘The Role of Women in the Iconography of Art Nouveau,’ Art Journal, Vol. 1:2, 1972, pp.158-167.
Nicolas Maffei, ‘The Search for an American Design Aesthetic: From Art Deco to Streamlining in Grace Lees-Maffei & Rebecca Houze (eds), The Design History Reader (Oxford & New York: Berg), pp120-126
Tim Benton, ‘Dreams of Machines: Futurism and l’Espirit Nouveau’, Journal of Design History , Vol.3:1, 1990, pp.19-34.
John Heskett, ‘The American System and Mass Production – from Industrial Design', Grace Lees-Maffei & Rebecca Houze (eds), The Design History Reader (Oxford & New York: Berg), 70-74.
The Arts & Crafts Movement
Adolf Loos ‘Ornament & Crime’ (1908), in Adolf Loos, Adolf Opel (eds), Michael Mitchell (trans.), Ornament and Crime: selected essays (Riverside: Ariadne Press, 1998).
David Hanks , American streamlined design : the world of tomorrow , (New York : Thames and Hudson, 2005).
Hal Foster, 'Some Uses and Abuses of Russian Constructivism' in Art Into Life: Russian Constructivism 1914-1932, (New York: Rizzoli, 1990).
William Morris, ‘The Ideal Book’ in Grace Lees-Maffei & Rebecca Houze (eds), The Design History Reader (Oxford & New York: Berg), pp. 65–69.
Debora Silverman, ‘Introduction: Transformation of Art Nouveau 1890-1900, in Art Nouveau in Fin-de-Siecle Frances: Politics, Psychology and Style, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 1-13.
Nigel Whitely, 'Pop Consumerism and the Design Shift', Design Issues, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 31-45
Lucius Burckhardt, The Werkbund : studies in the history and ideology of the Deutscher Werkbund 1907-1933, ( London : Design Council, 1980).
Alan Crawford, 'Ideas and Objects: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain', Design Issues, Vol. 13, No1, 1997, 15-26.
Varvara Stepanova, ‘Constructivism: The General Theory of Constructivism’ in Aleksandr Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova and Peter Noever (eds), The future is our only goal (New York: Neues Pub. Co, 1991).
Ghislaine Wood, Art Deco 1910-1939, ( Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 2008).
Erika Doss, 'Revolutionary art is a tool for liberation: Emory Douglass and Protest Aesthetics at the Black Panther' New Political Science , Vol. 21, No.2 , 245- 259.
Philip Meggs, ‘The Arts and Crafts Movement and Its Heritage’ in Meggs’ History of Graphic Design , fifth edition, Philip B. Meggs and Alston W. Purvis (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2012), pp. 176–195
Dennis P. Doordan, 'The Advertising Architecture of Fortunato Depero' The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Vol. 12 1989, 46-55.
Charlotte Ashby, Modernism in Scandanavia : art, architecture and design, (London: Bloomsbury 2017).
Christopher Breward, British design from 1948 : innovation in the modern age, ( London : V&A Publishing, 2008).
Mary Guyatt, 'The Wedgewood Slave Medallion: Values in Eighteenth Century Design,' Journal of Design History, Vol. 13, no.2, 2000, p.93-105.
Gillian Naylor ‘From Workshop to Laboratory, From the Bauhaus Reassessed’ in Grace Lees-Maffei & Rebecca Houze (eds), The Design History Reader (Oxford & New York: Berg), 115-119.
Vance Packard, ‘How to outmode a $4000 Vehicle in Two Years- From the Wastemakers’ in Grace Lees-Maffei & Rebecca Houze (eds), The Design History Reader (Oxford & New York: Berg) pp. 226-230.
Frederic Schwarz, ‘Commodity Signs: Peter Behrens, the AEG and the Trademark, Journal of Design History , Vol.9:3, 1996, 153-184.
Isabelle Anscombe, ‘The Rational Woman’ in A Woman’s Touch: Women in Design from 1860 to the Present Day , (London: Virago, 1984), 131-144.
Contacts
- Chief Examiners
- Dr Jess Berry
- Ms Sara Daly
- Unit Coordinators
- Ms Sara Daly
- Dr Jess Berry
Common questions
What are the prerequisites for TDN1002?
None, but you must take OHS1000 before or alongside it.
What can I take after TDN1002?
TDN1002 is a prerequisite or corequisite for 1 unit, including TDN2001. Those lead on to 2 units in all.
When is TDN1002 offered?
In 2025, TDN1002 runs in Semester 2 and Summer B at Caulfield, with an online option.
Does TDN1002 have an exam?
No. TDN1002 has 3 assessment tasks and no exam.