Recently opened in Glendale, California ‘MONA,’ features engaging displays of historic neon signs as well as works by contemporary neon artists.
Museum of Neon Art Celebrates Signage
Category: Museum
New York City’s Famous Subway Map at MOMA
Is wayfinding design art? It is when the Museum of Modern Art celebrates the iconic subway signage designed by the late Massimo Vignelli in a popular exhibit. Designed in 1970, New York’s subway signage set new standards for clarity, simplicity and thoroughness. The straightforward but colorful signs influenced nearly every… Read more »
‘Interactive’ Public Art and Urban Gateway
Artist Chris Burden’s 2008 installation of historic street lights at Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a great example of pleasing both critics and the public. The luminous display of restored light poles from the 1920s and 1930s not only forms an engaging public gateway into LACMA, the grid-like… Read more »
Wayfinding in the Round – the Guggenheim
A recent visit to this celebrated New York museum pointed out the near futility of wayfinding in round spaces. Adding to the challenge, the open circular floors are a continuous flowing ramp, so no finite distinction between levels exists. The six levels look identical from every angle so the only… Read more »
James Turrell – Place-making through Art
Visitors lie on their backs to enjoy the spectacular Turrell installation at New York’s Guggenheim Museum. Looming overhead, the ethereal and mysterious light-based work dominates the museum’s huge atrium space. Serious art fans, families, hipsters – everyone finds something to enjoy as the light and colors slowly change, creating and… Read more »
Don’t go near the art.
Public art has a big challenge: it is in public. This elegant sculpture is either dangerous to the public or the public is dangerous to the art. Either way, the dramatic effect of the granite obelisk base emerging from the plaza is ruined. And the distracting barriers and traffic cones… Read more »
Frame the Painting, not the Artist
Even spellcheck, had it existed back then, wouldn’t have caught this ironic typo.
Element of Design
The technological contributions of the French may not be fully appreciated. Certainly, the inventions of Louis Pasteur, Gustave Eiffel and Louis Braille are known worldwide, but it is the effort of one lesser-known French inventor, Georges Claude, which has made a lasting impact to the world of environmental graphic design…. Read more »
Metropolis Magazine
We get a lot of professional design magazines – graphics, architecture, product design, exhibit design, but one of our favorites is the consumer publication Metropolis. This architecture and design-centric publication is always interesting, topical, well edited and makes design accessible not only to the public, but to us professionals as… Read more »
Best Cigar Shop in New York?
At maybe 200 sq.ft., this elegant and richly appointed store in Tribeca is how all cigar stores should be: intimate, colorful and layered with the patina of use. Stopping in here is like going back to a time when men were men, and cigars and the requisite accoutrement combined to… Read more »