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I would say that a well-designed industrial product would be made to serve a particular and useful purpose. It would be designed so that it could be made economically, of good and suitable materials, by normal machine processes and sold through normal trade channels. And further, that whilst the consumer's real needs would be most carefully investigated, his preferences, which might conflict with them, would also be studied. It should give pleasure in use. (Gordon Russell in 'Design in the Festival', Council of Industrial Design)

I do remember that that there were many new products on show. These were particularly interesting, as we were just beginning to emerge from wartime austerity, and these products were the first new ones to appear since before the war and before I was born. (contributor Richard Morse, aged 10 in 1951) Why not contribute your memories?

By promoting the very best in industrial design, the Festival of Britain not only celebrated design in its own right but also by implication recognised its visitors as consumers. It aimed to display and applaud new, well designed, mass produced goods, manufactured using exciting new materials, that were or would be available on the high street at affordable prices. Some of these were new versions of old products, others were simply brand new. To visitors tired of austerity, the Festival seemed to suggest a future that would be convenient, comfortable and conspicuously materialistic.

new goods

In their smooth outlines, the condiment set and sugar dredger above are typical of good design for mass production using the carved forms characteristic of the plastic moulding process. They are Streetley mouldings in Beetle powder, designed by A.H.Woodfull, MSIA, sold inexpensively over the counters of a thousand chain-stores. ('Design in the Festival: Illustrated Review of British Goods')

In the years preceding the Festival, the Council of Industrial Design reviewed thousands of industrial products. Around 10,000 were selected for integration into the Festival exhibition, while the Design Review, displayed within the South Bank Exhibition, encompassed a pictorial index of 20,000 products which had been approved for their high standards of industrial design. The intention of the Design Review was to provide information about good quality products, although there was also an element of paternalistic advice about the nature of good taste. In celebrating British achievements in industrial design, the Design Review could also be regarded as an enormous advertisement, legitimated by objectivity and painstaking background research and no doubt attractive to visitors thirsty for new goods. In 1951 many people were ready to embrace a consumer society, even if it took them a few more years to acquire the affluence that would make it possible.

We invite you to visit our showrooms where a large selection of contemporary furniture, fabrics, pottery, glass, etc, by leading British designers can always be seen. (Advert for Heal & Son in 'Design in the Festival')

new leisure

It was at the exhibition that I first saw 'television'. Being short I had difficulty in seeing over the crowd but I remember that the TV was showing cricket. I don't think I have watched a match with so much interest every since. Television, gramophones and wireless are listed in the guide as 'passive hobbies'. (contributor Pete Pennington, aged 8 in 1951) Why not contribute your memories?

While only a minority of people had television sets in 1951, many of the Festival of Britain displays which featured living room settings included a television set. While the guide to the show flat at Lansbury admitted that 'television is not yet everybody's choice', the Festival predicted a future when virtually every household in Britain would have a television. However it could not anticipate that television would migrate out of the living room into almost every other room in the home. Some concern about its intrusiveness was evident in the Homes and Gardens Pavilion, which suggested ways in which its light and noise could be controlled so that people elsewhere in the house would not entertained by accident. The Homes and Gardens Pavilion also approved designs which housed televisions within small and discreet pieces of furniture which would be in keeping with the rest of the room.

In the first kind, which can be called passive entertainment, television, wireless, gramophone and the home circle all call for special methods of restricting the spread of light or sound, so that people in the home who would rather not be entertained just at the moment can get on with what they are doing without being distracted. ('South Bank Exhibition' guide book)