Design Conversations

Video: In Their Own Words

Posted by Cynthia E. Smith, on Monday May 14, 2007

What is the best way to convey the spirit of the work being done around the world? Footage of the exhibition objects being used in the locations where they are normally used helps provide context.

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Full Circle

Posted by Cynthia E. Smith, on Thursday May 03, 2007

Though we knew that we may find it tough to ship several of the objects, our registrars and exhibitions department have had to make extraordinary efforts to make arrangements to bring objects from remote areas around the world.

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The Craft of Manufacturing

Posted by Ellen Lupton, on Monday April 30, 2007

On April 19, Robin Petravic and Catherine Bailey spoke here at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum about their work as owners of the legendary California pottery maker Heath, founded by Edith Heath in the mid-1940s. Their presentation had everyone thinking about the role of craft in manufacturing.

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Natalie Jeremijenko is GOOD

Posted by Ellen Lupton, on Friday April 27, 2007

Triennial honoree Natalie Jerimijenko is featured on the cover of the current issue of GOOD magazine, the hip new eco/business/culture journal. On GOOD’s web site, you can see a video of Jerimijenko at work in her new Environmental Health Clinic, a floating desk and research station built from recycled soda bottles. Jermijenko reports that you can best experience environmental ills when you are in the environment.

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But is it craft?

Posted by Ellen Lupton, on Friday April 20, 2007

The makers of Make, the techie-geek D.I.Y. magazine featured in the Triennial, have a new publication out, now in its third issue, called Craft:. This hip and beautiful little zine got me thinking about the craft revolution, which has reinvigorated the lives of design professionals as well as the lives of a vast and passionate general public.

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Is D.I.Y. Bad for Design?

Posted by Ellen Lupton, on Thursday April 12, 2007

Viriginia Postrel has a piece on D.I.Y. design in the March/April issue of Print magazine. Postrel is a professional writer, not a designer, whose crossover book The Substance of Style helped convince people in business and cultural institutions that design has something to offer the economy. Her book was directed not at designers, but at the rest of us.

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Are Designers the Enemies of Design?

Posted by Ellen Lupton, on Tuesday March 27, 2007

Design writer Bruce Nussbaum delivered a speech at Parsons a few weeks ago whose controversial refrain was “designers suck.” Read the speech on his Business Week blog. 

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Design on the Colbert Report

Posted by Ellen Lupton, on Thursday March 08, 2007

Wow! Stephen Colbert just hosted Mark Frauenfelder, editor-in-chief of Make magazine. 

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Process This!

Posted by Ellen Lupton, on Saturday February 24, 2007

On March 8, Ben Fry offered a hands-on workshop at Cooper-Hewitt devoted to Processing, the open-source visual design software that he co-authored. For more information, visit our calendar.

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What a Mess

Posted by Ellen Lupton, on Saturday February 03, 2007

When creating Design Life Now: National Design Triennial, the curators decided not to organize the exhibition by discipline (graphic design, product design, architecture, and so on), or by theme (green, social, formal, technological, etc). Instead, the show is more like life, where diverse objects and images sit beside each other in loose affiliations. Some rooms in our exhibition focus loosely around a topic, such as medical innovations, large-scale technology projecs, or social media, but by and large, the exhibition likes to mix things up.

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