No one can resist colored glass, especially when it’s employed as a finish. I loved this doorknob so much I dissected it. Its color still mesmerizes me!
The maker of this emerald green retro antique glass doorknob employs rhythm by repetition, progression and radiation in both the pull and base. In support of the knob’s circular design principles, the designer chose a round pull, base, and stem. As such, the form of this doorknob occupies a cylinder. Thus all parts share the same basic shape, which provides a sense of unity and repetition.
The decrease in size from handle to base represents the progression from a larger central part to the smaller supporting element.
The designer also added both visual and tactile texture to the pull with the surface and subsurface cuts. Both the pull and the base share the radial repetition found in the cut pattern of the glass. However, the designer added a focal point on top of the pull as seen in the star design and central circle incised with intersecting lines, from which leaf-like cuts radiate outward.
Further, the designer employed the design elements of color and light to strengthen the visual quality of the doorknob. The unifying color of both the base and pull are emerald green, while the stem appears to be a burnished copper or perhaps aged virgin iron. The color harmonies of the complementary “red and green” are displayed in subtle, yet energizing ways with the emerald colored handle and base, offset by the deep burnt umber of the stem, suggesting red elements that create a visual vibration between the two.
Finally, interest in added to this doorknob by the use of texture and light. Cuts in the glass refract light and display unifying textures, while more light is implied in the design by its transparency as opposed to using a solid or opaque green.
The doorknob clearly illustrates that good design may be achieved in obvious ways, such as unifying elements of individual parts seen in repetition of shape, texture, and focal point, as well as in more subtle ways found in progression, color and light.
Romer Interiors 