Designing the Department Store: Display and Retail at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781350054370)

The book builds an original argument for the department store as a significant site of design production, and therefore offers an alternative interpretation to the mainstream focus on consumption within retail history.

Emily M. Orr presents a fresh perspective on the rise of modern urban consumer culture, of which the department store was a key feature. By investigating the production processes of display as well as fascinating information about display-making's tools and technologies, the skills of the displayman and the meaning and context of design decisions which shaped the final visual effect are revealed.

In addition, the book identifies and isolates 'display' as a distinct moment in the life of the commodity, and understands it as an influential channel of mediation in the shopping experience. The assembly and interpretation of a diverse range of previously unexplored primary resources and archives yields fascinating new evidence, showing how display achieved an agency which transformed everyday objects into commodities and made consumers out of passersby.

Author: Emily M. Orr
ISBN-10: 1350054372
ISBN-13: 9781350054370
Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Language: English
Published: 11/28/2019
Pages: 208
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.19lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.30w x 0.70d