I Love the 80s

i guess postmodernism was less about the 'whole' - not even about the 'sum' - it was merely about the parts. - a mosaic with every stone reciting its own towering narrative, adding up to a cacophony often, irony at best (memphis), and inviting a bunch of really ruthless architects to indulge themselves in a never ending legacy.

in those wonderful 80s the most innovative company in the world - the one even the most prestigious of car manufacturers looked at for inspiration - produced plastic throwaway wristwatches.
as often and as hard as i try, i cannot look at a swatch the way i looked at it back then. equally contemporary, omnipresent, playful, innocent, and fresh, apple has taken this place for now.

at least the pet shop boys are still playing.

"If Apple Made iOS In 1986 This Is What It Would Look Like" http://osxdaily.com/2012/02/13/if-apple-made-ios-in-1986-this-is-what-it-would-look-like/

For me, Miami Vice is also a memory trigger for the other side of design in the 1980s: changes in technology.

In the very first issue of HOW magazine (November/December 1985), a spread is dedicated to a photo of Crockett & Tubbs, and how a crazy new gizmo called the Scitex Response System can electronically remove a holster and strap from Don Johnson’s shoulder. The text goes on the say, “The image was sized, cropped, screened, and output as film separations. The printed magazine cover for Rolling Stones shows no trace of the strap.” The final sentence closes by noting that “The type was stripped in by hand.”

Thank you for this revealing piece and, specifically, for that clip of Crockett & Tubbs: not the least contributor to the noirish atmosphere of the two men and their Ferrari journeying into the unknown is Crockett's brief interlude on the land line.

Compared to our time, they were utterly disconnected, and seeing this for the first time in thirty years I'm struck by the generational gap, that kids coming up today might recognize that old telephone, but they will never understand what it meant to live in the pre-digital world, or why a call from a phone booth could be such a big deal - that you'd have to go out of your way, stop the car, a plunk in a coin to communicate with someone.

And it wasn't that long ago.

I also like the 80 most

It was a great time.
It was a time when design, whether it be graphics, fabric, furniture, laminates or whatever, clearly outshone architecture.
Crap architecture was crappier still.
But the images, patterns, colours suddenly unleashed on the unsuspecting world by design, not t have been missed.

When I first started working for the Vignelli's, I remember one day looking franticly for some thinner. I needed it for a mechanical I was preparing and was not able to find it immediately because someone had painted the valve spout thinner from it's standard bright orange color to matte black. Michael was that you? I always blamed David Law for making these adjustments.

I can't believe I just said orange spout thinner-I haven't used one of those in over 20 years.

I'm constantly wishing that I came up in the 80s or 70s instead of today. While the design may have seemed superficial, it was about the essentials: color, shape, texture. Jonathan's typical graphic designer architecture hate aside, PoMo was about the same exploration of fun, shape and color as graphic design.
You can spare me from today's overly self-righteous designers who have solidified themselves into camps. Vignelli himself existed in a time when design was fluid--he was an architecture, industrial designer and graphic designer. And the exploration of the essentials of design do help society--if eco-friendly cars were pimped out like Miami Vice then maybe they would sell better.
Too bad this same dialogue and fun doesn't exist today. OR DOES IT????

In what may be his best performance, as the Charles Willeford character Fred Frenger, Alec Baldwin romps thru Miami, killing Hari Krishnas at the airport, stealing Fred Ward's teeth- but the real signifier is the names of his pet fish- Crockett and Tubbs. Even imaginary psychopaths loved Miami Vice.

Miami Vice showed Memphis-Milano design on some episodes. Arquitectonica designed a table for Memphis called "Madonna" in 1984.