Kicz w obszarze designu – perspektywa estetyczna
Kitsch in the area of design – an aesthetic perspective

Summary/Abstract: Talking about kitsch today seems to be quite arduous. Kitsch has been con-sciously annexed to the space of many fields: art, advertising, design, literature, film and computer games. However, we still notice it and are able to distinguish it as a phenomenon which is suspect, at least aesthetically. In fact, since the mid-nineteenth century, kitsch has made its way into popular culture more and more rapidly, and finally spread in it. Can talking about kitsch be justified today? What are the functions of kitsch? These questions have their own unique research poten-tial in areas of design such as applied graphics, typography and even architecture. In this area, kitsch was accepted as a tool only in the 1960s with the advent of postmodern aesthetics, but earlier it might have been only a particular designer’s in-eptitude or an expression of their unjustified expression. Design as such appeared only at the end of the nineteenth century, along with the development of industry, and was supposed to be a response to the lack of aesthetic education among society, which was so eager to create kitsch and introduce it into life. Design was therefore originally supposed to act as an antidote to kitsch and its derivatives. How is it to-day? Is it even possible to distinguish kitsch in the area of design and then dismiss it as a cultural ersatz? This article is an attempt to introduce this complex problem and it tries to show a broader spectrum of the function of kitsch in the area of design, which in itself is a heterogeneous and more and more expansive creation. Today, design is a variety of practices within culture, and as such it has been aestheticized and promotes an increasingly aesthetic culture.

• Details
• Contents