This Dutch glazed earthenware clock, manufactured in 1910 by the Arnhem Faience Factory exemplifies the Art Nouveau style, or Nieuwe Kunst as it was called in the Netherlands, prevalent in that country from about 1892 to 1910. Art Nouveau had origins in England and quickly gained popularity in France and the rest of Europe as...

It is not very often that a clock’s origins provide as much mystery as that of the Zephyr clock. Designed during the mid-30s, it was originally attributed to Kem Weber, a German émigré designer who created several iconic designs of the Streamline Moderne style until evidence arose via a 1938 Lawson Time brochure that Weber...

Now on view in The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s, Paul T. Frankl's "Modernique" clock design provided the perfect form for ingenuity in timekeeping.

Recognizable for its resemblance to an atomic model with wooden spheres attached to the metal rods jutting out from its face, the Ball Clock (model 4755) is, unsurprisingly, sometimes called the “Atomic” clock. Designed by George Nelson Associates for the Howard Miller Clock Company in 1949, the Ball Clock was made by the company through...

A coffee pot, a water pump, a cast iron stove, and fish are just some of the things scattered along the length of this border. They are done in a strong graphic style, and they float haphazardly against a collection of irregular polygons in yellow, green, brown, and red, the same colors used to highlight...

George Nelson and his team at George Nelson Associates were the creative force behind many iconic mid-century furniture designs—such as the “Marshmallow” sofa and various storage systems—but it is in the company’s playful clock designs of the 1950s and 1960s that the whimsy of mid-century modern design excels. The Asterisk wall clock’s simple design relates...

The Model 4083A clock made its debut at the 1933 A Century of Progress Chicago World’s Fair. Designed by Gilbert Rohde and manufactured by the Herman Miller Clock Company, a division of the Herman Miller Furniture Company, this sleek circular clock was one of seven modernist clocks designed by Rohde that were on display in...

Pioneering industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss believed that products should be fit to people, not the other way around. His 1955 book Designing for People explains his design philosophy to a general audience. Handles, controls, and other points of contact between people and machines should be obvious to use, not artfully hidden away. Below, hear Dreyfuss...

Over the last couple of months on the Cooper-Hewitt Design Blog, students from an interdisciplinary graduate-level course on the Triennial taught by the Triennial curatorial team have been blogging their impressions and inspirations of the current exhibition,‘Why Design Now?’ This post by MFA Student William Myers marks the last in this series of articles. A...