Author: Caitlin Condell

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Pendant design with animal imagery (winged deer, squirrels, rabbits) with hanging pear-shaped pearls. Central image features The Temptation: Adam and Eve with serpent hanging from tree. Surrounding the pendant are blackwork ornament designs for enamelists, mostly showing possibilities for the top and sides of rings. First plate of the complete set of 8. (Matted with 6161.1-2/4.2000)
A Jeweled Temptation
In the 1590s, life as a Huguenot in France was tenuous.  Daniel Mignot, a trained goldsmith, must have felt this acutely, for he left his native France and re-established himself in the city of Augsburg, in present day Germany.  While Augsburg offered him the religious freedom to live openly as a Protestant, the city’s laws...
Image features a poster depicting a series of mixers and sliders that categorize the albums of David Bowie between a set of extremes. Featuring seven columns for each album released between 1976-84, with "DAVID/ BOWIE" printed in silver ink in custom typography. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Less Ziggy, More Stardust
There are many ways to celebrate an anniversary.  To commemorate a decade of working together as the design duo Non-Format, Kjell Ekhorn and Jon Forss did not opt for the traditional gifting of tin, pewter, or aluminum.  Instead, they pooled their creative energies towards a personal project that drew upon their shared love of David...
rhinoceros woodcut print
Introducing the Rhinoceros
In the age of Instagram, it is easy to forget that there was a time—in fact, most of time—when information about what an animal looked like was passed between continents by sketches and word of mouth.  If this rhinoceros looks a little funny, with whiskers under his chin and scale-covered plates, it is because Albrecht...
Image features poster showing close up rendering of colorful layers of diced and sliced vegetables. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
A Nice Day for a Picnic
In 1970, Steven Frykholm was working as the in-house graphic designer for the furniture manufacturer Herman Miller, Inc., when a company vice-president stopped by his desk.  Every summer, the VP said, Herman Miller hosted a company picnic.  Perhaps Frykholm would make up a poster for the event? Frykholm already had a passion for screenprinting, a...
Screenprinted (artist's proof) poster with the text "OIL & WATER" and a rectangular block with a wavy line suggesting water printed in brown oil. White paper ground shows through the block to form the text "DO NOT MIX" "GULF OF MEXICO - 2010".
Basic Chemistry
Years ago, I was out sick the week that my fellow high school students studied the periodic table.  I’ve always blamed missing that foundational moment of scientific education for my very poor mastery of some basic chemistry.  But there are certain concepts that I have had the opportunity to learn through personal experience.  Every day...
An Adler typewriter with typed piece of paper. Across the top: Adler. Lower right, in black ink: Adlerwerke vorm / Heinrich Kleyer AG / Zimmerftr.92/93.
Seduced by an Object Poster

The turn of the twentieth century was an exciting time to be a graphic designer in Berlin.  The city, which had once been the sleepy capital of the Kingdom of Prussia, had rapidly transformed into a booming metropolis, bustling with the energy of industrial progress.  At a moment when everything seemed to be changing, the printed poster offered an exhilarating opportunity to explore the alliance of art and industry, particularly to one precocious young man.

Katagami Design Demonstration
On March 16th, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum hosted a fascinating demonstration of the process of a traditional form of Japanese stencil carving  (katagami) and its use in the technique of resist-dyeing textiles (katazome) at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Center in Harlem. The event had its origins in a visit that Yuki Ikuta, Assistant Curator of the...
A mixture of different type fonts arranged on a diagonal opposition with rectilinear text blocks. Printed in "split-fountain" which produces color transitions from red at top left, through orange, yellow to green, blue, lavender and violet at bottom right corner.
Tanzstudio
In 1931 when he designed this poster, the Swiss artist, designer, and architect Max Bill had already completed several years of study at the Bauhaus under the guidance of artistic luminaries Oskar Schlemmer, Paul Klee, and Wassily Kandinsky.  Bill had returned to Switzerland in 1929, and it was while living in Zürich that he received...
Closeup of a woman's face in orange and red/pink halftone print. In blue/grey text on woman's sunglasses, "The Chambers Bros" (left lens) and date/location of event (right lens). Thin solid border in same blue/grey as the text, inside a red outer-border.
Good Vibrations
Stare into the electric blue shades of this woman’s sunglasses and what do you see?  Even if you know what you are looking for, the blue letterforms come together to form coherent words only with sustained visual focus.  If you were to advertise a concert that you wanted people to come to, would you make...