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...

Graphic design serves a powerful role in establishing the visual identity of theatrical performance. Cooper Hewitt’s collection offers highlights of graphic design for the work of Black playwrights and composers. Narratives addressing riots and rage; exploring triumph, history, and oppression; or featuring funk, soul, and divas interact with typography, image, and space to tell a...

In celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride Month, June Object of the Week posts highlight LGBTQ+ designers and design in the collection.  Bright-faced youths peer back at you from a vibrant web of floral foliage. But this wallpaper, titled Bullies, strikes a scornful tone. Multi-disciplinary artist Virgil Marti sourced the portraits seen in the wallpaper from his...

In celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride Month, June Object of the Week posts highlight LGBTQ+ designers and design in the collection.  Nature has a way of informing us—however we engage, we learn from its resilient processes. Nature also has a way of amusing, perplexing and delighting us with its complex and idiosyncratic forms. This edifying and...

Design scholar Penny Sparke traces the history of plastic since the nineteenth century and through modern design of the twentieth century—and notes how the material became one of the largest challenges facing the world's environment today.

In celebration of World Pride, June Object of the Day posts highlight LGBTQ+ designers and design in the collection. Bricks were thrown. Not yellow bricks, of the variety that Dorothy and her friends eased on down. But bricks. And garbage cans. And coins. And bottles. And rocks. All of this debris was airborne because it...

In celebration of World Pride, June Object of the Day posts highlight LGBTQ+ designers and design in the collection. Clark Robertson moved to New York City, from Texas, in the late 1970s to establish a design and printing business, at which he started producing printed textiles for fashion and interior design use. A design titled...

In celebration of World Pride, June Object of the Day posts highlight LGBTQ+ designers and designs in the collection. In a 1916 profile published in Vanity Fair, Paul Thévenaz was described as a painter and a dancer. The article also identified the Swiss-born double threat as the cult leader of a movement called Rhythmician, an...

In celebration of World Pride, June Object of the Day posts highlight LGBTQ+ designers and design in the collection. A woman of nearly seventy-five, dressed in a voluminous white gown with contrasting shawl, gazes over a well-appointed interior in a photograph by a thirty-five-year-old aesthete. The woman is Elsie de Wolfe, the interior is of...