Smithsonian.com

Trek Lime Bike, winner of the People's Design Award. Courtesy of Trek Bicycle Corporation.

Every year, the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum asks the public, what constitutes good design? This October, a couple hundred products were nominated and thousands of votes were cast in the fourth annual People’s Design Award contest—and the winner was (drum roll, please)…the Trek Lime bicycle.

Marketed for the 65 percent of Americans who do not own or ride a bike, the sleek, three-speed automatic shift Lime with push-back brakes is the perfect urban commuting bike. Flip up the saddle, and it has a handy-dandy storage compartment for a wallet and keys.

Its designer, Hans Eckholm of Waterloo, Wisconsin-based Trek Bicycles, accepted the award at the National Design Awards gala on October 22 in New York City. I suspect it was a proud moment for Eckholm, whose sister wrote on the contest’s comment board, “He has been engineering bikes since he was little. He would take bikes apart, put them back together and customize them to his liking!…He is our rock star and I hope this design wins!”

It has been a big couple years for bikes at the Cooper-Hewitt. In 2008, the museum partnered with New York’s Department of Transportation on the CityRacks competition to design a new sidewalk bicycle rack.

How will you celebrate National Design Week in your community? Image courtesy of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum.

It’s a pleasure to see how good design—those objects we surround ourselves with that are both utilitarian and visually pleasing—are so widely accessible. You can walk into a Target and find home goods designed by a who’s who of aesthetic gurus–like Michael Graves, Isaac Mizrahi and Todd Oldham—and not break the bank making your home a little more stylish.

Well kids, excellent design is in the air once again as the Cooper Hewitt kicks off National Design Week. From October 18-24, enjoy free admission to the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York (a savings of up to $10 per person). If you can’t make it, check to see what design-oriented events are happening in your area. Here are events that will be happening in the DC area and Around the Mall this week:

Monday, October 19: Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight

Come enjoy a screening of the film “Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight”—a film about the graphic designer who gave us the famous “I <3 NY” logo—at the E Street Cinema. The screening will be followed by a talk with the director, Wendy Keys. See this site for additional information. E St Cinema,

Tuesday, October 20: Happy Hour at the Urbana Wine Bar & Restaurant

Come enjoy the sleek, modern decor of the Hotel Palomar as well as the company of your fellow design afficionados with this Design Week happy hour. See this site for additional information. Urbana Wine Bar and Restaurant, 6:30 PM

Thursday, October 22: Cady’s Alley: Coverings House, Boffi Studio, L2 Lounge

Come check out what our DC community has to offer for our Night Out Series event. The AIGA DC Night Out series is an informal meet-up group designed to seek out events that will re-energize and stimulate the right side of your brain. This event is free, but reservations are required. See this site for additional information. Cady’s Alley: Coverings House, Boffi Studio, L2 Lounge, 5:30 PM

Friday, October 23: AOL

Come learn about America Online’s design strategies. This event is free, but registration is required. See this site for additional information. AOL Way, 12:00-1:30 PM.

If you aren’t able to make any of these events, worry not—there are plenty more opportunities to celebrate National Design Week through special exhibitions at the National Building Museum. Please click the hyperlinks for each event for more information.

Storefront Churhes: Photographs by Camilo Jose Vergara, showing through November 29, 2009

Cityscapes Revealed: Highlights from the Collection showing through December 31, 2010

Washington: Symbol and City showing through December 31, 2010

House of Cars: Innovation and the Parking Garage showing through July 11, 2010

Building Tours of the National Building Museum will take place on October 24, 2009

Spotlight on Design: Léon Krier will be taking place at the National Building Museum on October 27, 2009

Also be sure to check out this Cooper Hewitt website to view a series of webcasts marking the 2009 Design Week celebration, including remarks from Michelle Obama.

What constitutes good design to you? Image courtesy of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

In 2006, it was a house (albeit clever and economical) that won people’s choice. Then it was a philanthropic shoe company in 2007 and a hearing aid in 2008. So it’s anyone’s guess what will take home the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum’s People’s Design Award this year.

The polls opened Monday and so far the 70-and-counting nominees include everything from the iPhone to the Saks Fifth Avenue logo, Zipcar (the best new idea in business according to Fortune magazine) to Whitehouse.gov, a Johnson and Johnson First Aid Kit to the Kindle. What constitutes good design to you? Submit nominations, talk smack on the discussion boards and vote before the October 20 deadline! (The museum has made it easier to get your friends voting this year with its Facebook app.)

National Design Week, which promises free admission to the Cooper-Hewitt, is October 18-24, and the 2009 People’s Design Award winner will be announced October 22 at the National Design Awards gala in New York City.

The south side of the White House, courtesy of Flickr user ricardo.martins

Last week, co-blogger Abby Callard reported on the public programs being held this coming Friday (10 AM-11 AM) at Smithsonian and other area museums in conjunction with the Cooper-Hewitt’s tenth annual National Design Awards. But the Cooper-Hewitt has now announced that some administration officials and White House staff will be added to the bill.

Meet these high-ups who will be moderating the programs:

Aneesh Chopra – Formerly the Secretary of Technology for Governor Kaine of Virginia, Chopra was appointed the U.S. chief technology officer by President Obama. In a weekly address made back in April, the President explained that it was Chopra’s job to “promote technological innovation to help achieve our most urgent priorities—from creating jobs and reducing health care costs to keeping our nation secure”—basically, to used technology to make government more efficient. He will be discussing the future of interaction design with Jeff Han of Perceptive Pixel Inc. and Andrew Blauvelt of Walker Art Center, affiliates of two National Design Award winners, at the Hirshhorn Museum.

John Holdren – Holdren, a powerhouse when it comes to political environmentalism, is the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President. His office is charged with advising the president on scientific affairs, particularly on energy independence and global warming. Holdren’s impressive resume includes having been the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, director of the Woods Hole Research Center and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Holdren will be speaking on technology and sustainability with design award winners Amory Lovins and Bill Moggridge at the National Museum of the American Indian.

Anita Dunn – Dunn is the White House acting communications director. She was a top adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and a Democratic political consultant for the Washington-based media consulting firm Squier Knapp Dunn. She will be joining award winners Bovm Partners and the New York Times Graphics Department in a discussion about the relationship between current events and the design process at the Smithsonian Castle.

Ebs Burnough – Burnough is the White House deputy social secretary. Prior to this appointment, he worked for 1199SEIU, a union of healthcare workers in New York, Maryland, D.C. and Massachusetts, in several capacities. He will moderate a discussion on the role of material with fashion designer Calvin Tsao and interior designer Zack McKown at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

Neill Coleman – Coleman is the general deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Born in Scotland, he only arrived to the States in 1998, but he has managed to rise to his current appointment by working on a U.S. congressional campaign, doing some private PR work and working for the New York League of Conservation Voters and then the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. He will be leading a talk with Gregg Pasquarelli of SHoP Architects and landscape designer Walter Hood at the National Building Museum on how design can be used as a tool to create a sense of community.

The news team from CNN uses Perceptive Pixel's interactive mapping tool. Photo courtesy of Perceptive Pixel

A 10th anniversary is at hand. The Cooper-Hewitt’s much vaunted National Design Awards turns 10. To celebrate, the New York City-based museum is bringing to Washington, D.C., a number of free public programs, featuring guest appearances from some of this year’s award winners, design mavens such as Calvin Klein’s Francisco Costa and Bill Moggridge of the smart global design studio IDEO. Look for opportunities to meet with the designers between 10 AM to 11 AM on Friday, July 24 at various Smithsonian museums around the Mall and a number of others throughout the city.

• Francisco Costa, this year’s Fashion Design winner, and Calvin Tsao and Zack McKown, this year’s Interior Design winners, will talk about the function of materials in their work at the Corcoran College of Art & Design. Costa, currently the creative director of the Calvin Klein Collection for women, has worked with such design houses as Gucci and Oscar de la Renta. Tsao and Mckown are the partners of TsAO & McKOWN Architects, a firm known for blending architecture and interior design. Free, but registration is required at www.corcoran.org.
• Architecture and Landscape are much more than buildings and trees. Design has the power to influence communities. Walter Hood, Landscape Design winner, and Gregg Pasquarelli, of Architecture Design winner, SHoP Architects, will talk about how design can unite, create and transform communities at the National Building Museum. SHoP Architects has incorporated software design and branding into their projects worldwide. Hood designs based on the people and the location to ensure spaces are stable and functional. Free, but registration is required at www.nbm.org.
• Current events can influence a lot, and design is no exception. This year’s winners in Product Design, Boym Partners, and in Communication Design, The New York Times Graphic Department, use current events in two very different ways. The Boym Partners, whose work is featured in the Museum of Modern Art, humorously interpret current events while the Graphics Department has to quickly understand and distill the information. Hear the Boym Partners and Steve Duenes, The Time’s graphics director, discuss their influences at the Smithsonian Castle.
• This year’s award winners in Interaction Design, Perceptive Pixel Inc., and in Corporate and Institutional Achievement, Minnesota’s Walker Art Center, are design leaders. In the 2008 election, major networks used interactive mapping technology created by Perceptive Pixel Inc. The Walker Art Center features an in-house design studio that has won more than 100 awards. Jeff Han, founder of Perceptive Pixel, and Andrew Blauvelt, curator and design director of the Walker Art Center, will talk about the future of interaction design relating to technology creation and its place in museums at the Hirshhorn Museum.
• Amory Lovins, this year’s Design Mind winner, and Bill Moggridge, this year’s Lifetime Achievement recipient will discuss the future of technology and sustainability at the National Museum of the American Indian. Lovins co-founded the Rocky Mountain Institute and has been a prominent voice in sustainable thinking for decades. Moggridge co-founded IDEO, a global design consulting firm, and helped design what many consider the first laptop computer, the GRiD Compass.

See the designers’ works in this photo gallery.

Ellen Lupton, contemporary design curator at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York, co-edits Design-Your-Life.org with her identical twin sister Julia. (Courtesy of Ms. Lupton.)

Ellen Lupton is the kind of person who ponders the necessity of toasters.

“Is civilized life possible without this fundamental kitchen gadget?,” she muses in her book Design Your Life: The Pleasures and Perils of Everyday Things. “Could a 21st-century family get by with no toaster at all?”

Well, yes… Lupton concludes [pdf]. But compared to broiling, frying or microwaving your bread, you can’t beat the convenient predictability of a toaster.

Lupton, a design critic and curator at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York, teamed up with her identical twin sister Julia, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, to co-write the book and its ongoing companion blog, Design-Your-Life.org.

On the blog, created in 2005, the sisters question the way we use and interact with everyday objects: What are the secret lives of scarves? How can a personal Web site help you curate the self? And what creative possibilities exist with file folders? Each post is accompanied by photographs and original illustrations that add to the authors’ points.

According to Ellen Lupton, writers are attune to grammatical errors the way design critics are inspired by and sensitive to the way things are put together. The blog is not a diary, but a first-person account of these aesthetics. “Design is critical thinking and creative thinking,” she says. “If you don’t have a design point of view you tend to accept everything as it is and not wonder how it came to be that way.”

When Lupton does find room for improvement in everyday design, her words can draw fire. In the book, a chapter dedicated to the annoyances of luggage with wheels, known as roller bags, led to a passionate response. Roller bag supporters say the invention allows travelers to carry more and is better on the back and neck. “It’s certainly an area of debate,” Lupton says. “People don’t’ realize how much space they’re taking up. You have a product that has great benefits but also makes people behave badly.”

The blog is a hub for these kinds of conversations. And because Lupton is a combination writer/curator/speaker/mother/teacher/etc…, there is some commentary on life as well. For example, after being asked if she was a workaholic, Lupton didn’t hesitate to say yes. But, she explains, there’s a difference between a high-functioning workaholic versus a sloppy workaholic. See where you fit in.

Isaac Mizrahi and his Alaskan salmon skin dress, courtesy of Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum has teamed up with The Nature Conservancy in an exhibition called “Design for a Living World,” which opened yesterday. For the purposes of the show, leading fashion, industrial and furniture designers were given a natural material from a Nature Conservancy site to work with. Industrial designer Yves Béhar created packaging for a Costa Rican chocolate cooperative’s raw cocoa. Dutch designer Hella Jongerius crafted decorative plates and vessels from chicle, usually used in chewing gum production, harvested in the Yucatan Peninsula. Christien Meindertsma knit a large rug from wool provided by a sustainable sheep ranch in Idaho. And Paulina Reyes, of kate spade new york, worked with craftspeople in Bolivia to design a series of handbags made of sustainable wood, cotton and a fiber made from palm leaves.

Perhaps the most mainstream designer involved was Isaac Mizrahi, formerly of Target fame and now the co-host of Bravo’s “The Fashion Show.” He fashioned a dress out of Alaskan salmon skin, a typically wasted by-product of the salmon industry. Check out fellow blogger Joseph Caputo’s magazine interview with Mizrahi.

“Design for a Living World” runs through January 4, 2010.

Early compass computer for GRiD Systems, photo by Don Fogg

The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City recently announced the winners of its 10th Annual National Design Awards. Spanning across the Lifetime Achievement, Design Mind, Corporate Achievement, Architecture, Communication, Fashion, Interaction, Interior Design, Landscape Design and Product Design categories, they are all movers and shakers in their fields, pushing boundaries and creating truly novel designs and products.

Bill Moggridge, this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award winner, for example, designed the world’s first laptop computer. Kudos, right? The New York Times Graphics Department took the cake for communication design, with its reader-friendly maps, charts and diagrams of the 9/11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina flooding and rescue efforts and the 2008 election coverage. And Oakland, California-based Hood Design, which was responsible for the landscape for the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park among other projects, won for landscape design.

National Design Week at the museum is scheduled for October 18-24 this year, with the gala dinner for National Design Award winners on October 22. Nominating and voting on the People’s Design Award, which honors good design in any form (architecture, shoes, hearing aids, you name it), will happen starting September 22, with the winner announced at the gala. So stay tuned!

In the meantime, check out this roundup of coverage on past winners:

Tom Kundig, 2008 winner in architecture, thinks outside the box with his robotic-looking houses on wheels.

David Rockwell, founder of Rockwell Group, the 2008 winner in interior design, takes on the set design for the Oscars.

Charles Harrison, 2008 Lifetime Achievement winner, designed some 600 household products over his 32 years as an industrial designer at Sears. Read an extended interview with him.

Chip Kidd, 2007 winner in communications design, has designed about 1,000 book covers in his twenty years with Knopf.