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Image features the cover of the book Years Yet Yesterday. "Y YEARS YET YESTERDAY Y," in red letters is superimposed over the word "Contaminated"in a gray circle on a white background. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Years Yet Yesterday
In celebration of World Pride, June Object of the Day posts highlight LGBTQ+ designers and design in the collection. Mark Addison Smith is a notable artist’s book designer who specializes in typographic storytelling. He uses illustrative text to create a visual narrative through print, artists’ books, and site installations. For over 10 years, Mark Addison...
Image features the cover of book, The Gorey Alphabet. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
The Gorey Alphabet
In the spirit of Halloween, a fun and spooky object in our library collection is a copy of The Gorey Alphabet  by Edward Gorey.  Edward Gorey (1925-2000), American writer and artist, child prodigy and high achiever has nestled his way into the hearts of those fond of dark themes, Victorian and Edwardian settings, and pen-and-ink drawings. The...
House And Trees Within A Border
Betsy Adams’s sampler is part of a large group of related examples worked from about 1790 until at least 1805 in Boston or nearby towns in Middlesex County. Typical characteristics of these samplers are deeply arcaded borders surrounding a central panel comprising an alphabet, verse, and pictorial elements within a saw-tooth border. The pictorial elements...
The Name Game
Names was designed by Alexander Girard for Herman Miller in 1957. He used typography as pattern in many of his works – from textiles and wall coverings to signs, logos, and even menu layouts — by playfully mixing, transforming, and inventing fonts for whatever the project required. Sometimes he created entire alphabets while other times...
Nearly square sampler embroidered in soft shades of browns, blues, greens, and yellow on a natural linen ground. The field contains three alphabets, a set of numerals, a verse and inscription. At the bottom, a view delicately rendered in embroidery and watercolor of the Charlestown Neck House. On three sides, a deep border of rose garlands caught up with bows of blue ribbon at the upper corners.
Sampler by Lucy D. Stickney
Lucy Drury Stickney was the daughter of William Stickney (1783-1868) and Margaret Nowell (1792-1840). Born in 1818, she was named for her father’s first wife, Lucy Drury (1787-1812), with whom he had had two sons. Margaret bore him six daughters and two sons, one of whom died in infancy. William Stickney began his career as...
Artful Text
Tausend und ein Anfangsbuchstaben – One Thousand and One Initial Letters – is a rare book designed and illuminated by Owen Jones in 1864, eight years after Jones published his influential design sourcebook The Grammar of Ornament. While the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Library’s copy is in German, the book was also published in English...
The Braille Alphabet Bracelet Wins the 2010 People’s Design Award
  The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum presented its fifth People’s Design Award to the Braille Alphabet Bracelet Thursday, Oct. 14, at its 11th annual National Design Awards gala in New York. White House Deputy Social Secretary Ebs Burnough and fashion designer Cynthia Rowley announced the winning design and presented the award to Leslie Ligon,...
Illustrated Children’s Books from the Cooper-Hewitt Collection
  Over the past several weeks, I explored the Cooper-Hewitt Museum Design Museum Library’s collection of illustrated children’s books as part of the Arts Intern program through Studio in a School. During my time in the Library, I have discovered seemingly endless treasures in the children’s book collection, including a vast range of illustrative styles,...