Designing for Plastics

Abstract

It is fairly true to say that apart from public prejudice, which was more intense in Britain perhaps than elsewhere, no single factor has inhibited the progress and use of plastics as has design, or more accurately, the lack of good design. Apart from wartime uses, which were generally well specified and could afford to be in some degree speculative, the application of plastics was for many years limited to the production of articles well known in traditional metals and woods: in short, plastics were merely substitutes in every sense of the word. Quite apart from the fact that in those pioneer days little was known of the new synthetics, either as to their broad physical properties or consistency of quality, little if any attempt was made to adjust either the materials used, or the processes applied, to the properties and functionality of the end products. When the then often risky decision had been taken to use plastics in place of traditional materials, it was customary to follow the general shape and form of the metal prototype, with complete disregard of the fact that not only did plastics differ fundamentally from metals for example, but the methods evolved over long years for the manipulation of metals could not of necessity be applied to plastics.