Christmas Closure

MoDiP will now be closed for the Christmas break and will open again 3rd January 2017.

We wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

AIBDC : 004453

The MoDiP team - Susan, Pam, Louise & Katherine

BXL photographic archive #0117

In 2010, MoDiP was donated a large archive of images relating to a single company. Bakelite Xylonite Ltd, also known as British Xylonite Ltd or BXL, was possibly one of the first British firms to successfully manufacture a plastics material in commercial quantities. The company was established in 1875 and after a long history went into liquidation in the late 2000s. The images we have in the collection are concentrated around the 1960s through to the 1980s and show us glimpses of the manufacturing process, products and the company’s employees during this time. We plan to share an image each week to give a flavour of the archive. If you want to see more you can view the whole collection on our website.

This week’s image shows a range of Scintillex pouches.

To get a better view of the image and find out more have a look at it on our website http://www.modip.ac.uk/artefact/bxl--1392

We are still working on the documentation of the archive, some of the images we know more about than others. It would be fantastic if we could fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge, if you know anything about the company or specific images it would be good to hear from you.
Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

Did you know? #53

Did you know that all of our past exhibitions are available online?

Is that plastic? Skeuomorphs and metaphors in design

Plastics are a group of materials with no intrinsic shape or colour, this gives designers free reign to exploit their unashamed ability to imitate other materials. This exhibition explores how designers and manufacturers use plastics to create illusions by mimicking the patterns, processes, and physicality of other materials such as ceramics, glass, and fine metals. Plastics provide a less expensive, lighter, whimsical, or more robust alternative.

Louise Dennis, (Assistant Curator)

A different view #46

There are many ways to look at the objects in the MoDiP collection.  With this series of posts I want to highlight the interesting views of objects that we may ordinarily miss.  These include the underside of an object, the surface pattern, or traces of manufacturing processes.

Title: Photon cyber shades
Designer: William Drabble
Manufacturer: Addiction

Object number: AIBDC : 007363

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

Guess the object

MoDiP has the kind of collection that you may think you are very familiar with. We have objects which we all use every day, and some pieces which are more unusual.

By looking at this distorted image are you able to guess what the object is? What do you think it could be used for?

Post your answer in the comments below or to find the answer click here and you will be taken to the MoDiP catalogue.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

BXL photographic archive #0116

In 2010, MoDiP was donated a large archive of images relating to a single company. Bakelite Xylonite Ltd, also known as British Xylonite Ltd or BXL, was possibly one of the first British firms to successfully manufacture a plastics material in commercial quantities. The company was established in 1875 and after a long history went into liquidation in the late 2000s. The images we have in the collection are concentrated around the 1960s through to the 1980s and show us glimpses of the manufacturing process, products and the company’s employees during this time. We plan to share an image each week to give a flavour of the archive. If you want to see more you can view the whole collection on our website.

This week’s image shows a promotional image for Bakelite Flexible Packaging Division.

To get a better view of the image and find out more have a look at it on our website http://www.modip.ac.uk/artefact/bxl--16042

We are still working on the documentation of the archive, some of the images we know more about than others. It would be fantastic if we could fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge, if you know anything about the company or specific images it would be good to hear from you.
Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

Did you know? #52

Did you know that all of our past exhibitions are available online?


Polymorphia

The ubiquitous nature of plastics means that they are often taken for granted. Very different plastics are lumped together in the one generic term with their special properties and capabilities often being overlooked by the consumer.
 
Plastics are synthetic or semi-synthetic polymers.  A polymer is a large molecule made up of a number of smaller units (monomers) and joined together to create a long chain.  They can be broadly divided into two groups, thermoplastics and thermosets. Thermoplastics are those which, once formed, can be heated and reformed.  This means that they are easily processed and recycled.  Thermosets cannot be reformed or remoulded so the recycling process poses different challenges.

Plastics truly are polymorphic.  They are an extensive family of materials which take many forms, and for many decades have been the group of materials that are most widely used globally.  They have a broad range of properties and many typical characteristics which set them apart from each other and make them particularly suitable for an inexhaustible list of applications.  They range from semi-synthetic plastics, first developed over 150 years ago, to the fully synthesised techno-polymers designed and engineered for very specific uses today.  With the growing realisation that fossil fuel resources are not sustainable, there is a renewed interest in the development of bio plastics derived from an increasing variety of sustainable biomass resources.

This exhibition looks at some of the plastics we commonly encounter in our everyday lives.  It examines their history and development, explains what sets them apart from each other and shows the more typical applications, some of which have become icons of design, made possible only because of the type of plastic used. 

Louise Dennis, (Assistant Curator)