Since 2006, Hella Jongerius has been working with Swiss furniture producer Vitra, conducting an intensive study of the colors and textures of the materials used in the company’s products, from textiles and leathers to plastics and woods. Her research was intended to help the company’s designers and clients make the best possible use of color...
To celebrate the opening of Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color (May 11, 2018-January 13, 2019), Object of the Day this month will feature colorful objects from the exhibition. Professor Johannes Itten created a color sphere, represented by this 12-pointed star, as a tool for students at the Bauhaus. Inspired by Philipp Otto Runge’s...
To celebrate the opening of Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color (May 11, 2018-January 13, 2019), Object of the Day this month will feature colorful objects from the exhibition. Following his groundbreaking 1839 treatise on simultaneous contrast, Michel Eugène Chevreul spent 25 years designing one of the first color systems to include brightness and...
To celebrate the opening of Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color (May 11, 2018-January 13, 2019), Object of the Day this month will feature colorful objects from the exhibition. Today’s post was originally published on February 23, 2015. A significant acquisition to the Cooper Hewitt Library’s special collections in 2014 was Édouard Guichard’s Die Harmonie der...
To celebrate the opening of Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color (May 11, 2018-January 13, 2019), Object of the Day this month will feature colorful objects from the exhibition. Farbmesstafel (1939) by German chemist and color theorist, Wilhelm Ostwald, is a color table, which displays a spectrum of brilliant hues based on his harmonious...
A significant acquisition to the Cooper Hewitt Library’s special collections in 2014 was Édouard Guichard’s Die Harmonie der Farben (The Harmony of Colors). A rare and important work heavily influenced by the 1839 De la loi du contraste simulanté des Couleurs by M.E. Chevreul, this edition was published in Frankfurt Germany in 1882. Profusely illustrated...
Everyone has a favorite color, but how often are our conscious thoughts trained on those inclinations for various tints and hues? Our careless observation of the essentials of design was of paramount importance to Josef Albers, a German artist and color theorist whose lessons at the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College, and Yale focused on overcoming...
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...
