Thanks to support from the Smithsonian Latino Initiative, we are thrilled to offer the entire film for free. For audio descriptions, please visit https://youtu.be/YZldXBwtuCk Set in the remote San Luis Valley of Colorado, Mud Frontier: Architecture at the Borderlands is a feature-length documentary film that follows design studio Rael San Fratello’s experimentation with 3D-printing technology and...
screenings: World Premiere: Architecture and Design Film Festival, vancouver, BC Mud Frontier had its World Premiere on November 12, 2021 at the Architecture and Design Film Festival, with in-person screenings in Vancouver, Canada. In March 2022, the festival traveled to Washington, D.C., where the film was screened at the National Building Museum. U.S. Premiere: Santa Fe...
Art Sims (American, born 1954) has designed graphics across entertainment media, but his most famous and prolific work is that for film posters. His collaboration with Academy Award–winning filmmaker Spike Lee (American, born 1957), in particular, has produced some of his most iconic designs. Sims was first drawn to Lee’s work after seeing Lee’s first...
In the early years of the Soviet Union, there was a strong urge to understand all elements of life in terms relating either to the bourgeoisie or the proletariat. Many longstanding assumptions pertaining to the role of arts and leisure in society were subject to ideological debate. Constructivist artists, eager to secure a role for...
This 1947 print by graphic designer Alvin Lustig presents an early logo design for the Hollywood animation production studio United Productions of America (UPA), founded in 1943 and primarily active through 1960. The graphic identity’s bold black circle with its vertical brown band embraces a simple and modern approach to portraying a classic film reel,...
Caitlin Condell discusses this Russian movie poster that utilizes themes of modernity, Constructivism, urban imagery, and the avant-garde found in The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s.
Don’t miss the world premiere of Gael Towey’s latest short film, Maira Kalman: My Favorite Things. The film profiles renowned visual storyteller Maira Kalman as she curates Maira Kalman Selects, one of our ten inaugural exhibitions. On the occasion of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, the film will delight you with the story of his pocket watch—one...
One focus of Cooper-Hewitt’s current exhibition, Graphic Design—Now in Production, is the field of motion graphics. The exhibition features the opening credits of television series, like Six Feet Under and Dexter. Cooper-Hewitt asked Twitter followers which TV shows and movies they thought feature great title sequence design. A big thank you to followers @Epavisha, @Kmhaag, @Kelseykrz, @Cmoa,...
Over the next months while the Design with the Other 90%: CITIES exhibition is on display at the United Nations Headquarters in New York several individuals whose own research explores the exhibition’s subject matter have been invited to write blog entries sharing their insights, related research and projects. – Cynthia E. Smith, Curator of Socially...
It’s been just over a year since the stunning Rodarte exhibition here at Cooper-Hewitt. Known for finding inspiration in unexpected things, the prolific Rodarte duo have just released a fashion film to accompany their Spring 2011 collection. It’s inspired by 1970s northern California, redwood forests, the gold rush and various asian traditions. Titled after a...
A picnic in the park as a starting point. This is the first of the grand challenges posed by Secretary Wayne Clough for the new strategic plan of the Smithsonian. Here’s the explanatory sentence: “We will continue to lead the quest to understand the fundamental nature of the cosmos, using next-generation technologies to explore our...
The poster on the fence outside the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum showed a photograph of the Tata Nano with the caption “actual size.” That didn’t mean that it was easy to install for display in the museum, as you can see from this little movie (filmed by our media makers Shamus Adams and Alex Tibbets)....
