Uploaded February 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
Plastics. We love them. We hate them. To describe a person as "plastic" is to call them "fake," or "phony." Yet many of our society's most revered celebrities are as fake as it gets.
No, I'm not going to picture any of those people here. You know who I mean. We're not here to look at people at their worst--we're here today to look at plastics at their best. I'm talking about plastics that are transparent and have been.. underpainted. This technique, also known as "reverse painting," first caught my eye on some transistor radios, which I'd begun to collect in the 1980s, and which were made in the 1950s and '60s. Some of these examples are so, well, luscious to look at--so candy-like--that I didn't quite know at first what I was seeing. Looking closely I found that this plastic was painted on the underside. And not just that, it was "undercarved" too--where the underside isn't flat but molded or cut in a design, then painted--then when viewed from the front gives an interesting 3D play in light and shadow. As I learned more about the technique I found it had been in use on trim items in automobile interiors since the 1930s. Underpainting was seen on costume jewelry too, like the examples seen here, and on appliances--usually in trim areas and notably for nameplates.
By the late 1950s, most "serious" designers considered the technique of underpainting to be out-of-date. So how did these products, made.. at that time, and later, come to make such elaborate and beautiful use of a technique then out-of-date? The smart-aleck answer is that the so-called "serious designers" just mentioned weren't involved. Rather, these products were created by designers in Japan who either didn't know--or didn't care--to follow the rigid dictates of American style trends. They guessed that consumers still liked the look--and they had the talent and skill to conjure up a wide variety of designs employing the technique with style and verve.
With underpainting, we get a nameplate or an escutcheon where the words simply CAN'T be rubbed off, no matter how much wear it is subjected to. The translucent effect of underpainting delivers a depth of color, nearly impossible to achieve in any other way, and can easily mimic a finish such as what was known as a "candy apple finish"--popular on custom cars at the time--that involved multiple coats of clear lacquer over an underlying color. Underpainting could easily achieve the look that would take an absurd amount of lacquer to do the conventional way. Underpainting can also be said to mimic the sorts of thick coatings associated with decoupage. Why a technique that people go to a lot of trouble to achieve--and that people seem to universally like--should be put out to pasture by "serious" designers, well, it's beyond me. But then, I'm not serious.
But of course it wasn't just the technique that mattered in the making of these objects, it was the designs that were enhanced by it, and sometimes the designs the technique helped to inspire. As artists know, there is a chicken-and-egg relationship between design on the one hand and material and technique on the other. This relationship is fluid and any attempt to pin it down leads to stalemate. To adopt a school metaphor, the creative interplay between design, material, and technique cannot be fully explored in the textbook, but on the playground.
At the time THIS product came out in 1998, all computers were either beige or dark gray. I remember being very surprised at the time to see a modern company with the courage to use color. And more than that, here was the technique of underpainting--a technique with which, because of my collecting, I was familiar and which I knew had been out of style for decades. It's worth noting that Apple was near bankruptcy at the time they took this chance on color and underpainting on their products. No one can say how much these things helped save Apple from the demise that seemed imminent at the time, but there is no doubt that their success generally owes much to their respect for art and design. Whereas art and design seem to be of only peripheral concern to most people, Apple has been well-served by respecting and appreciating these things. And so have I.
Reverse painting wasn't always done as tastefully as Apple did it. But I've never seen it employed where it didn't improve the design on which it was used. Most product design these days takes itself... way too seriously. Only products made for children are allowed to be fun, or to use color freely. Plastics have once again become boring--today, in most uses they're little more than a utility material.
#design #productdesign #midcenturymodern #MCM #vintage #transistor #antiques #collectibles #transistoradio #collectornet #1950s #1960s
Plastics. We love them. We hate them. To describe a person as "plastic" is to call them "fake," or "phony." Yet many of our society's most revered celebrities are as fake as it gets.
No, I'm not going to picture any of those people here. You know who I mean. We're not here to look at people at their worst--we're here today to look at plastics at their best. I'm talking about plastics that are transparent and have been.. underpainted. This technique, also known as "reverse painting," first caught my eye on some transistor radios, which I'd begun to collect in the 1980s, and which were made in the 1950s and '60s. Some of these examples are so, well, luscious to look at--so candy-like--that I didn't quite know at first what I was seeing. Looking closely I found that this plastic was painted on the underside. And not just that, it was "undercarved" too--where the underside isn't flat but molded or cut in a design, then painted--then when viewed from the front gives an interesting 3D play in light and shadow. As I learned more about the technique I found it had been in use on trim items in automobile interiors since the 1930s. Underpainting was seen on costume jewelry too, like the examples seen here, and on appliances--usually in trim areas and notably for nameplates.
By the late 1950s, most "serious" designers considered the technique of underpainting to be out-of-date. So how did these products, made.. at that time, and later, come to make such elaborate and beautiful use of a technique then out-of-date? The smart-aleck answer is that the so-called "serious designers" just mentioned weren't involved. Rather, these products were created by designers in Japan who either didn't know--or didn't care--to follow the rigid dictates of American style trends. They guessed that consumers still liked the look--and they had the talent and skill to conjure up a wide variety of designs employing the technique with style and verve.
With underpainting, we get a nameplate or an escutcheon where the words simply CAN'T be rubbed off, no matter how much wear it is subjected to. The translucent effect of underpainting delivers a depth of color, nearly impossible to achieve in any other way, and can easily mimic a finish such as what was known as a "candy apple finish"--popular on custom cars at the time--that involved multiple coats of clear lacquer over an underlying color. Underpainting could easily achieve the look that would take an absurd amount of lacquer to do the conventional way. Underpainting can also be said to mimic the sorts of thick coatings associated with decoupage. Why a technique that people go to a lot of trouble to achieve--and that people seem to universally like--should be put out to pasture by "serious" designers, well, it's beyond me. But then, I'm not serious.
But of course it wasn't just the technique that mattered in the making of these objects, it was the designs that were enhanced by it, and sometimes the designs the technique helped to inspire. As artists know, there is a chicken-and-egg relationship between design on the one hand and material and technique on the other. This relationship is fluid and any attempt to pin it down leads to stalemate. To adopt a school metaphor, the creative interplay between design, material, and technique cannot be fully explored in the textbook, but on the playground.
At the time THIS product came out in 1998, all computers were either beige or dark gray. I remember being very surprised at the time to see a modern company with the courage to use color. And more than that, here was the technique of underpainting--a technique with which, because of my collecting, I was familiar and which I knew had been out of style for decades. It's worth noting that Apple was near bankruptcy at the time they took this chance on color and underpainting on their products. No one can say how much these things helped save Apple from the demise that seemed imminent at the time, but there is no doubt that their success generally owes much to their respect for art and design. Whereas art and design seem to be of only peripheral concern to most people, Apple has been well-served by respecting and appreciating these things. And so have I.
Reverse painting wasn't always done as tastefully as Apple did it. But I've never seen it employed where it didn't improve the design on which it was used. Most product design these days takes itself... way too seriously. Only products made for children are allowed to be fun, or to use color freely. Plastics have once again become boring--today, in most uses they're little more than a utility material.
#design #productdesign #midcenturymodern #MCM #vintage #transistor #antiques #collectibles #transistoradio #collectornet #1950s #1960s
