The first street signs in New York City, known as “direction boards,” were posted in 1793 and were largely used on horsecars.[1] They were intended to “rationalize the city’s built environment,” and have undergone many changes over the years. The recognizable rectangular shape of today’s signs, like this one in Cooper Hewitt’s collection, date to...
In celebration of the museum’s inaugural Cooper Hewitt Lab: Design Access taking place in the Barbara and Morton Mandel Design Gallery through February 15, we are highlighting innovative accessible design from the permanent collection. The Clearview typeface is a beautiful example of the way design helps to improve people’s daily lives. A product of the...
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum has just acquired its first digital font, the Clearview family of typefaces. Featured in Cooper-Hewitt’s 2010 National Design Triennial: Why Design Now? exhibition, Clearview is a beautiful example of design as a form of social activism. As baby boomers reach their mid- to late sixties, highway sign legibility has become an...
Subway car interior I lived in New York for a few months in 1965, when people were afraid to stand on a station platform alone, or board a train without protection from friends, and there was a police officer in every car. What a contrast from this week, when I rode the Lexington Avenue Express...
Ellen Lupton has been Cooper-Hewitt's curator of contemporary design since 1992. Her new book, Design Your Life: The Pleasures and Perils of Everyday Things (St. Martins Press, May 2009), is co-authored with her twin sister Julia. Design Your Life takes an irreverent and realistic look at everything from toasters, bras, and pillows to housekeeping and...
