Author: Carey Gibbons

SORT BY:
Image features a poster showing three zones of color set against a white background. Text is featured in contrasting white or black within the areas of color. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Transcending Advertising
Herbert Bayer first became involved with Container Corporation of America (CCA) when Walter Paepcke, at the suggestion of his wife Elizabeth, began commissioning advertisements from avant-garde artists and designers, advocating for a collaborative relationship between art and industry. After completing several innovative advertisements, Bayer designed an exhibition for CCA in 1945 titled “Modern Art in...
Image features a magazine cover consisting of a black and white photograph of Howard Stern with three large superimposed red blocks containing slanted white text in Futura Bold forming the phrase, “I hate myself,” with a smaller block below adding, “and you love me for it.” “Esquire” is printed in red along the top of the design. Printed in red blocks, also with Futura Bold slanted white text, upper left: Shocking but True! / HOWARD STERN / BLITZES AMERICA / By Barbara Kruger. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Conceptualizing a Cultural Icon
Known for her bold engagement with popular culture and mass communication, American conceptual artist Barbara Kruger provokes and entices the viewer with her cover design for the May 1992 issue of Esquire. Featuring a close-up, black and white photograph of the controversial shock-jock Howard Stern, the superimposed text obscures significant portions of his face, excluding...
Image features a cat standing on two feet on top of a sleeping dog below a grainy image of Saturn against a black background. Haunting feline eyes appear in the background. The central image is surrounded by white curving, bird-like forms on either side. White and black text appears against a blue background, surrounding the central image. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Reflections on a Cosmic Cat
As the San Francisco rock scene grew in the 1960s, posters were commissioned by the concert promoter Bill Graham for shows at popular venues such as the Fillmore Auditorium. David Singer produced more posters for Graham than any other artist, designing 75 posters from 1969 to 1990.[1] Although he had an unusual background for a...
Image features a rectangular sheet with a variety of geometric patterns—rectangles, squares, triangles, and chevrons—in a muted palette of sandy pink, dusty beige, taupe, grey, and brown with isolated dots and small squares in white gouache and red wash. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Reorientation and Replication
In celebration of Women’s History Month, March Object of the Day posts highlight women designers in the collection. Adelgunde “Gunta” Stölzl was one of the most successful women designers connected with the Bauhaus, the school founded in 1919 by the German architect Walter Gropius. The mission of the Bauhaus was to integrate art, design, and craft...
Image features the opening spread of William Morris's book, The Wood Beyond the World. The pages include an illustration of a willowy maiden stepping forward in a lush meadow and elaborate ornamentation. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Reclaiming & Enlivening the Book
William Morris’s The Wood Beyond the World (1894) relates the adventures of Golden Walter, a man who seeks to escape his mundane life and sets out on a sea voyage, eventually gaining control of the kingdom of Stark-Wall and the love of a beautiful maiden. The book was published by the Kelmscott Press, a private...
Image features front and back covers that have black printed text against a pale yellow background. Front cover incorporates various black and white photoillustrations of hard candies in cellophane wrappers. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
A Cellophane-covered Catalyst
Although Elaine Lustig Cohen left behind a significant body of work, she did not really begin her own graphic design career until the death of her husband, Alvin Lustig, in 1955. Lustig, one of the most influential graphic designers, relied on his wife to serve as his secretary, draftsperson, and production assistant, becoming increasingly dependent...
Image features an unpublished title page design for the book, Occupations of Women and Their Compensation. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
A Priestess of Book Design
The career of Alice Cordelia Morse reflects the changing role of women in art and society in the late 19th century. Morse was able to achieve success in many artistic fields, designing book covers, illustrations, and stained glass, while also experimenting with other decorative media such as china painting and needlework. Although this title-page design was...
Image features a rock concert poster showing a face in profile, surrounded by pink, black, and grey streams of flowing, wavy hair. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Deliberately Disorienting
A pioneering example of psychedelic design, this work was one of the 56 posters that Wes Wilson produced between 1966 and 1968 for the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. The posters were commissioned by the rock concert promoter Bill Graham, who gave Wilson free rein over his designs until disputes about money severed their connection....
Image features a design for endpapers by Arthur Rackham. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
A Horrific Design
Arthur Rackham created this captivating endpapers design for Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination, published in London by George G. Harrap & Co. in 1935. The book brings Poe’s tales of horror and suspense—including such favorites as “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum”—together with the expressive...