The bubble-like contours and dangling pieces of glass of this bowl are cartoonish and playful. The Efira Bowl was designed by Ettore Sottsass in 1986 for the important collective, Memphis, which he had founded five years earlier.[1] The bowl is a wonderful example of the objects produced by Memphis, which have been held up as...

Ettore Sottsass Jr.’s iconic Carlton cabinet—sometimes referred to as a “sideboard” or “room divider”—is one the designer’s most recognizable works. Its anthropomorphic form is thought provoking and yet childishly simple. The Carlton cabinet’s playfulness is asserted in its mix of garish colors, patterns, and mass-market materials—plastic laminate and wood. When Sottsass designed this piece for...

Buy something at Bloomingdale’s, and you’ll likely receive one of three different brown paper bags: little, medium or big, depending on the size of your purchase. Spelled out in iconic sans-serif, these size classifications are the classic bags’ only adornment. This striking, simple design, created by Massimo Vignelli in 1973, has seen huge success as...

This machine printed wallpaper features a repeating pattern of orange hands and pink feathers floating down a light blue background like snowflakes – or does it feature flower buds and tiny balloons? Or, wait, maybe it’s actually a portrait of microbes having a party. The only woman who knows the true inspiration behind this funky...