California: Designing Freedom

1960s California was the birthplace of a new, more liberal worldview: hippy counter-culture, gay rights, anti-war protests and hedonistic pursuits. But how have these ideas about freedom, which have since spread across the world, been shaped by Californian design over the past half a century?

Director of the Design Museum in London, Deyan Sudjic, tracks the influence of Californian design on global culture, from early hippies toting the Whole Earth Catalogue (a kind of printed Wikipedia), to the advent of freeways, open data and modern mobile technology. Sudjic charts how the allure of the Californian dream has been siphoned into desirable products, like the now ubiquitous iPhone, that define and expand our everyday world.