Cooper Hewitt Multiple Choice
'Multipurpose, and often with an accidental beauty, sampling formats provide a detailed view into the manufacturing processes, technological innovations, design tastes, styles, and color sensibilities of other eras.' Cooper-Hewitt is currently housing an exhibition of sample books using its own collection supplemented by the Smithsonian Institution Library's to demonstrate the relevance of physical samples to the history of design, technology and marketing. The history of such physical sample making is weighted mostly by artifacts produced in the last three hundred years to record aesthetic and industry changes in the decorative arts, but the antecedents of those samples date back to medieval artists' sample books.more...
Cooper Hewitt :: Design for the Other 90 % [ZOO Daily]
'Of the world’s total population of 6.5 billion, 5.8 billion people, or 90%, have little or no access to most of the products and services many of us take for granted; in fact, nearly half do not have regular access to food, clean water, or shelter.'
When we're feeling helpless in regard to the state of the world it seems that art and artifice, design and product, are the last things we should have on our minds. But in an eye-opening exhibit supported by education initiatives, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum more...