In 1970, aeronautical engineer Ernesto Gismondi and architect Sergio Mazza, co-founders of the lighting manufacturer Artemide, asked industrial designer Richard Sapper to design a desk lamp. A year later Sapper presented them with the Tizio lamp, a product that met his own needs. “I wanted a work lamp with a wide range of movement, but...

Lois Ehlert is a children’s book illustrator who also worked as a graphic designer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In the late 1970s, she created this remarkable series of posters for Manpower Temporary Services, a Milwaukee-based agency that connects temporary office workers with companies. Ehlert derived her bright, playfully simplified images from everyday office culture. Ellen Lupton...

a href="http://collection.cooperhewitt.org/view/objects/asitem/id/192804">Fibra. Designed by Eszter Haraszty for Knoll Textiles. United States, 1953. Screenprinted linen. Gift of Larry Weinberg, 2011-20-1. Photo: Matt Flynn For over seventy years, Knoll has been a leader in modern workplace furnishings and textiles. Cooper-Hewitt recently added forty pieces of Knoll textiles and furniture to the collection, most of which were recently...