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As part of its mission to document the history of design, to encourage and assist scholarly research in design, and to increase public knowledge of design, the Museum actively collects the papers, promotional materials, and drawings of noted American designers in many disciplines. More than just a historical record, the archives contain information that provides singular insight into the life and work of the designer. The materials contained in an archive tell stories--stories that can reveal a designer's creative thought processes, or a designer's approach to a specific problem encountered at various stages throughout the design process as well as stories about the physical, social, and economic environment in which a designer worked, all of which can greatly affect the finished product.
Prior to their deaths in 1972, Henry Dreyfuss and Doris Marks Dreyfuss gave materials they had retained after their 1969 retirement from the firm to the Cooper-Hewitt Museum (they also endowed the Doris and Henry Dreyfuss Memorial Study Center, which is the Museum's library). Materials previously donated to CalTech, the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena (largely Dreyfuss's early theatrical work), were transfered to the Museum in 1973. During this period, former clients were solicited for additional material, which also entered the collection. In 1991 Henry Dreyfuss Associates donated some 400 reels of microfilm records to the collection. These records are copies of materials that were discarded when the office befan microfilming records in 1948, and thus they included work that had been created as early as 1929.
The Model 500 Telephone
From the point of conception to the finished product, design is a process. Henry Dreyfuss was the first U.S. consultant designer whose ideas for the telephone actually saw production and reached consumers. In 1946, Bell Telephone Labs (AT&T) asked Dreyfuss to improve the phone used in millions of American homes and offices. The designer and his team used the following process to respond to this challenge.
[ Analysis |
Sketching |
Modeling |
Drawing |
Showing |
Critique]
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