How much is the Hope Diamond worth? Ask Smithsonian.

Our inquisitive readers are rising to the challenge we gave them last month. The questions are pouring in and we’re ready for more. Do you have any questions for our curators? Submit your questions here.

How much is the Hope Diamond worth? — Marjorie Mathews, Silver Spring, Maryland

That’s the most popular question we get, but we don’t really satisfy people by giving them a number. There are a number of answers, but the best one is that we honestly don’t know. It’s a little bit like Liz Taylor’s jewels being sold in December—all kinds of people guessed at what they would sell for, but everybody I know was way off. Only when those pieces were opened up to bidding at a public auction could you find out what their values were. When they were sold, then at least for that day and that night you could say, well, they were worth that much. The Hope Diamond is kind of the same way, but more so. There’s simply nothing else like it. So how do you put a value on the history, on the fact it’s been here on display for over 50 years and a few hundred million people have seen it, and on that fact it’s a rare blue diamond on top of everything else? You don’t. – Jeffrey E. Post, mineralogist, National Museum of Natural History

What’s the worst impact of ocean acidification so far?- Nancy Schaefer, Virginia Beach, Virginia

The impacts of ocean acidification are really just starting to be felt, but two big reports that came out in 2011 show that it could have very serious effects on coral reefs. These studies did not measure the warming effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but rather its effect of making the ocean more acidic when it dissolves in the ocean. Places where large amounts of carbon dioxide seep into the water from the sea floor provide a natural experiment and show us how ocean waters might look, say, 50 or 100 years from now. Both studies showed branching, lacy, delicate coral forms are likely to disappear, and with them that kind of three-dimensional complexity so many species depend on. Also, other species that build a stony skeleton or shell, such as oysters or mussels, are likely to be affected. This happens because acidification makes carbonate ions, which these species need for their skeletons, less abundant.

Nancy Knowlton, marine biologist
National Museum of Natural History

Art and artifacts from ancient South Pacific and Pacific Northwest tribes have similarities in form and function. Is it possible that early Hawaiians caught part of the Kuroshio Current of the North Pacific Gyre to end up along the northwest coast of America from northern California to Alaska? — April Croan, Maple Valley, Washington

Those similarities have given rise to various theories, including trans-Pacific navigation, independent drifts of floating artifacts, inadvertent crossings by ships that have lost their rudders or rigging, or whales harpooned in one area that died or were captured in a distant place. Some connections are well-known, like feather garment fragments found in an archaeological site in Southeast Alaska that appear to have been brought there by whaling ships that had stopped in the Hawaiian Islands, a regular route for 19th-century whalers. Before the period of European contact, the greatest similarities are with the southwest Pacific, not Hawaii. The Kushiro current would have facilitated Asian coastal contacts with northwestern North America, but would not have helped Hawaiians. The problem of identification is one of context, form and dating. Most of the reported similarities are either out of their original context (which can’t be reconstructed), or their form is not specific enough to relate to another area’s style, or the date of creation cannot be established. To date there is no acceptable proof for South Pacific-Northwest Coast historical connections that predates the European whaling era, except for links that follow the coastal region of the North Pacific into Alaska.

William Fitzhugh, archeologist
Natural History Museum

Now that you’ve probably burned through the lists of historians, innovators, and food-writers to follow this year, we’re bringing it back home to the Smithsonian. As always, the Mall is cooking up some fascinating, crazy, and sometimes grotesque stuff for 2012. Bookmark these people and projects to keep up with this year:

Nicholas Pyenson: Pyenson studies and curates fossils of marine mammals. Get a feel for what is going on inside his lab and follow his team into the field—fresh from an expedition in Chile—at his blog, Pyenson Lab.

Postal Museum: Time for a pop quiz: A “hamper dumper” is:

a) machine in postal processing

b) bin of misprint stamps

c) failed mail vehicle

d) philatelic tool.

If you know the answer, you should be following the Postal Museum (@postalmuseum) for their daily #PostalQuiz and other philatelic factoids.

Biodiversity Heritage Library: As part of the Biodiversity Heritage Library consortium, the Smithsonian Libraries collects and digitizes biodiversity research for open online access—essentially, a bio-wiki. Check out @biodivlibrary for the species of the day: plants that eat worms, albino penguins and other bizarre creatures you never knew existed.

Archives of American Art Pinterest: The American Art Pinterest lets you browse the archives and “pin” the images you like to your virtual board. Mix and match from collections like “facial hair of note” and “ain’t no party like an artist’s party.”

Book Dragon: The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program’s Book Dragon is the pet project of former APA Media Arts Consultant Terry Hong, featuring reviews of “books for the multi-cultural reader.” Hong highlights literature for kids and adults alike that speaks to the Asian American experience. Follow her at @SIBookDragon.

Smithsonian Vids: For a moving view of the Institution, follow @SmithsonianVids. Meet a scientist studying frog-eating bats, or get a video tour of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings from Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart.

Smithsonian Marine Station: This Natural History Museum field station, located in Fort Pierce, Florida, tweets news updates and photos from the field (er, coral reef) @SmithsonianSMS. Plus, there’s #followfriday trivia every week.

Field Book Project: Also, from the Natural History Museum and the Smithsonian Institution Archives check out this blog, where researchers post updates on their initiative to compile an online database of field books and journals documenting biodiversity research. Besides progress updates, you’ll also find excerpts of century-old field notes from explorers, birdwatchers and scientists (including lots of fun, old-timey sketches) and learn a lot more than you ever thought there was to know about indices.

Encyclopedia of Life: Take your best shot and enter the picture in the Smithsonian’s Encyclopedia of Life Flickr photo contest. The bi-weekly contest could be (and has been) any theme from “backyard life” to “sexual dimorphism.” Even if you don’t enter, be sure to browse the entries for gems like this.

And of course, if you’re not following them already, the museums are always Tweeting up a storm. Here’s the checklist:

American Indian Museum: @SmithsonianNMAI

National Portrait Gallery: @npg

American Art Museum: @americanart

Anacostia Community Museum: @anacostiamuseum

American History Museum: @amhistorymuseum

Air and Space Museum: @airandspace

Museum of Natural History: @NMNH

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden: @hirshhorn

Freer and Sackler Galleries: @FreerSackler

Museum of African Art: @NMAfA

National Zoo: @NationalZoo

Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum: @cooperhewitt

Smithsonian: @Smithsonian

What if we could make masks to look like these models in the Natural History Museum's Hall of Human Origins? Artist: John Gurche. Photo by Chip Clark, NMNH.

In past years, our ATM team of bloggers has collectively pored over the Smithsonian’s collections to bring you museum-inspired costume ideas. Last year was a banner year for us, as we ginned up ideas for dressing as Carol Burnett in her curtain rod dress, from when she spoofed Gone With the Wind on her comedy show, and Abel the Monkey, who paved the way for human space flight. For a group costume, we went conceptual, suggesting you and six friends each wear a white t-shirt inscribed with one of the seven words in artist Lawrence Weiner’s “A RUBBER BALL THROWN ON THE SEA,” on display at the Hirshhorn.

This year, however, I decided to turn to the Institution’s resident experts—curators at the museums—for their insider’s insight. Here is what they suggest:

1. Man Ray’s Nut Girls

Melissa Ho, assistant curator at the Hirshhorn Museum, has had collage on the brain, as she has been busily working on an upcoming show of collage and assemblage works called “Over, Under, Next.” She suggests cobbling together a costume inspired by Man Ray’s 1941 photograph and mixed media collage, Nut Girls. In it, the American artist puts a walnut, in place of a head, on a cutout of one woman, and on another figure, the walnut covers the woman’s head and torso. “Carve a big walnut out of Styrofoam and slip on a romper,” says Ho.

Another idea for a costume party, she says, is to dress as Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguely’s The Sorceress (1961). “This is one of his motorized kinetic sculptures,” says Ho. “When turned on, it shakes and vibrates until its bits and pieces start to fall off—so perfect outfit for dancing!”

2. Dracula

According to Thomas Lera, the Winton M. Blout Chair in Research at the National Postal Museum, Dracula is the Halloween character that postal administrations around the world have depicted the most on stamps. In 1997, the U.S. Postal Service issued a “Classic Movie Monsters” stamp set, featuring five villains from Universal Studio films. Dracula was one. “As a special security feature, a process called ‘scrambled indicia’ was used, which overlaps symbols and images that are not seen by the naked eye when printed,” says Lera. “The Dracula stamp has three vampire bats in the blue background, which can only be seen by a precision optical device using elongated lenses called lenticules.” Lera suggests modeling a Dracula costume after this or the many other portrayals—a Canadian stamp honoring the 100th anniversary of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula in 1997, a Samoan stamp from 2000 featuring the Sesame Street’s Count von Count and a British stamp from 2008 with actor Christopher Lee as Dracula commemorating the 50th anniversary of Hammer Horror Films.

3. Dr. John Jeffries

Seeking input from Smithsonian curators certainly brought some little-known characters to light. When I asked Tom Crouch, senior curator of aeronautics at the National Air and Space Museum, who or what he might be inspired to dress up as for Halloween, he was quick to answer Dr. John Jeffries. Who, you might ask? Jeffries is not exactly a household name, but his story may be an interesting one to tell at a party. On January 7, 1785, Jeffries flew the English Channel in a balloon with Pierre Blanchard, making him the first American to make a free flight. “He wore a great costume, which included a leopard skin hat to keep his head warm, a cork jacket to keep him afloat in case of a channel landing and a Jerry Seinfeld style ‘puffy shirt,’ complete with frilled cuffs, so that, I suppose, he would look good in the post-flight interviews,” says Crouch. NASM has the large barometer and thermometer that Jeffries carried with him in its collection. As it would have it, some pieces of the outfit are at Harvard’s Houghton Library, where his papers are kept. “Fortunately, some years ago my friend and Smithsonian curator of costume, Claudia Kidwell, studied the Jeffries garments and prepared patterns for them, so sewing up my costume would not be all that difficult,” says Crouch. Over three decades, Crouch has researched the life of Jeffries. “I could step right into the good doctor’s shoes and answer any questions that might arise,” he says.

4. Empress Dowager Cixi

Although he does not think he would make a convincing Empress Dowager, David Hogge, head of the archives at the Freer and Sackler galleries, offers it up as a suggestion to others. Empress Cixi reigned as sovereign of China for 45 years in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Nineteen portraits of her are currently on display in the exhibition “Power | Play: China’s Empress Dowager,” which Hogge curated, at the Arther M. Sackler Gallery, if you are in need of some inspiration. Empress Cixi wore her fingernails about an inch long, and on her third and pinky fingers, notes Hogge, she wore elaborate jeweled, gold filigreed fingernail protectors. “Those seem to give people the creeps,” says Hogge.

5. An Early Human

Rick Potts, curator of anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History, is a self-described Halloween fanatic. “What could be better than to skulk around the neighborhood or delight party-goers on Halloween night by dressing up as a realistic early human?” he says. “I wish I could turn some of the amazing visages in our Hall of Human Origins into masks.”

6. Annie Oakley

In 2007, the National Portrait Gallery purchased a photograph at an auction of sharpshooter Annie Oakley taken in 1885. “She was a cowgirl, known as “little sure shot” for her extraordinary ability to hit a moving target, most famously a small coin, even on horseback, all while maintaining ‘lady-like’ composure and elegance,” says Anne Collins Goodyear, associate curator of prints and drawings at the museum. “Wonderful inspiration for the imagination!” In the photograph, Oakley holds a rifle and is wearing a hat, blouse and fringed skirt with embroidered flowers.

7. Bob Dylan

Gail Davidson, head of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum’s department of drawings, prints and graphic design, considers Milton Glaser’s famous 1966 poster of singer Bob Dylan great costume fodder. Glaser, an artist and graphic designer, created the poster early in his career, to be included in the packaging of Dylan’s “Greatest Hits” LP. In terms of the poster’s composition, Glaser was influenced by a 1957 self-portrait by Marcel Duchamp. But, he gave it a psychedelic feel by adding bold colors to Dylan’s tousled hair. “I would dress up by dying my hair in wavelets of the different colors in the poster,” says Davidson.

8. A Zoo Animal…Take Your Pick

Cute baby animals born at the National Zoo are our bread and butter here at the ATM blog. But Craig Saffoe, the Zoo’s curator of Great Cats and Andean Bears, reminds us, “What’s cuter than an infant dressed as a full-maned lion?” Animals make fine costumes for adults too. Dressing as an endangered species gives one the opportunity to have an awesome costume and educate friends, notes Saffoe. There is also great potential for themed family costumes. “A mother and her infant could dress as a kangaroo and her joey, a banana and a monkey or a eucalyptus tree and a koala bear. A family could dress as a pride of lions, a gaggle of geese or a flock of flamingos. Whatever animal costume you choose, don’t forget you’ll need a zookeeper!” says the curator, whose son attended this year’s Boo at the Zoo event at the National Zoo in a zookeeper uniform.

Parque de los Niños, a redeveloped space in Medellín, Colombia. Photo by Diana Moreno

For decades, in Medellín, Columbia, the difference between rich and poor areas has been a virtual tale of two cities. “The formal city grew in the valley, and the informal settlement on the hills around. It was the most violent city in the world” says Cynthia E. Smith, a curator of socially responsible design at the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, in New York City.

Then, the city embarked on a large-scale project to tie the two areas together, building a cable mass transit system up the hillsides and surrounding the stations with parks. “The mayor said ‘I want to build the most beautiful buildings in the poorest parts of the city,’ and so he built worldclass libraries and business centers next to the parks,” Smith says. Over time, violence in the outlying areas of the cities dropped sharply and land values rose.

Medellín is one of dozens of success stories, large and small, that fill the newly opened “Design with the Other 90%: Cities” exhibition at the United Nations Building in New York. On Manhattan’s East Side, among skyscrapers and luxury hotels in one of the wealthiest cities on the planet, the exhibition showcases how the world’s most destitute countries have solved integral problems of housing, health care, infrastructure and the environment. Through multimedia, scale models, maps and prototypes, the show illustrates to visitors the worries of daily life in the squatter communities of countries like India, Uganda and Mexico—as well as the potential for design to provide solutions.

In recent years, urbanization and population growth in developing countries have caused countless problems in cities across Asia, Africa and South America to escalate. “Close to one billion people live in informal settlements, more commonly known as slums or squatter communities, and that’s projected to grow to two billion over the next 20 years,” Smith says. “Many municipalities and regional governments can’t keep up with this rapid growth, and so there’s an exchange that’s taking place between the informal communities and designers, architects, urban planners and engineers.”

“The show is specifically design ‘with,’” she says. “It’s really about working in partnership with people in the informal settlements, exchanging design information so that they can build their own, better housing.”

The show features 60 novel design approaches that have been applied to problems as varied as transferring money to relatives (using a mobile phone based system) and charging devices without an electrical grid (running a bicycle wheel to create an electrical current).

UNICEF's Digital Drum, which provides information and internet access in Uganda. Photo: © UNICEF Uganda/Jean-Marc Lefébure

They also range from the ingeniously obvious to the remarkably intricate. In Bangladesh, arsenic is the most common toxin in drinking water, and in severe cases can cause death. Abul Hussam, a chemist at George Mason University designed the SONO Water Filter to address this problem as simply and inexpensively as possible. “It’s a sand and composite iron matrix, and wood charcoal, and brick chips,” says Smith. “You just pour in the water, and it filters through, and you end up without toxins.”

In Uganda, meanwhile, researchers found an information gap: only 3 percent of Ugandan adults typically use the internet, compared to 15 percent in neighboring Kenya. A UNICEF team created the Digital Drum, a freestanding solar-powered computing hub. “They work locally with car mechanics to build them,” Smith says, using discarded oil drums to enclose rugged computers equipped with basic software. “They provide some very basic information about rights and safety, health, education, and there are games on here that the kids can play to teach them about math.”

In designing the exhibition, which updates the original 2007 Cooper-Hewitt “Design with the Other 90%” show, Smith traveled the world and consulted with an international panel to select the range of projects shown. Along with the exhibition and the website, Smith says, “We have a new ‘Design with the Other 90%’ network, which is a social network linked to the website, where designers can upload their own projects.”

Along with the show’s backers, which include the UN Academic Impact Initiative, Smith hopes to use this network—and the exhibition’s placement at the UN—to spark further innovation and collaboration among the international design community. “Because this growth is happening so quickly, you can look at it as one billion problems, or one billion solutions,” she says.

Wandering the rows of innovations on display, ones sees that the point of “Design with the Other 90%” is not that solutions are immediate or easy. It’s made clear, through graphics and data, that the developing world’s problems are growing exponentially. But the exhibition is uplifting; despite seemingly daunting circumstances, design can put relief within reach—and the movement to employ it in slums and squatter communities is growing.

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s “Design with the Other 90%: Cities” is on display at the UN Building in New York City through January 9, 2012.

This year's People's Design Award nominees. Courtesy of Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

Every fall, I look forward to the time when the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum hosts its People’s Design Award contest. For this aspect of its larger National Design Awards program, the museum invites the public to nominate an object by uploading an image of it or to vote for an existing nominee that, in their opinion, constitutes good design.

Polls opened this week, and as I write, there are already 66 nominees. Up for debate are the usual throwback designs. One this year is the Ford Model T. And, of course, there are some shoe-ins, like the iPad 2. But, otherwise, the ballot is a real smorgasbord. Cuboro Marble Run puts the Marbleworks of my childhood to shame, in the way it encourages kids to think more mechanically. I hadn’t yet seen Puma’s Clever Little Bag, a reusable bag that the shoe company is now using in place of a cardboard shoebox. Speaking of shoes (a shoe took the prize in 2007), the nominated Mojito Shoe is so artistically abstract it is almost unrecognizable as a shoe. Even WordPress, the publishing platform we use for this blog, is part of the mix.

As I see it, the ballot always becomes this neat, crowd-sourced catalog of the interests and priorities of today’s consumers. And, in its light, we consumers look quite good—fun, eco-friendly, socially-conscious and artistic!

Voting continues until 6 p.m. EST on October 17, and the winner will be announced October 20 at the National Design Awards gala at Pier Sixty in New York City. The Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum will offer free admission and public programs during National Design Week, which runs October 15-23.

A selection of the stamps featuring American inventions. Image courtesy of the museum.

Last week, the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum hosted a dedication ceremony for the U.S. Postal Service’s new set of stamps honoring 12 pioneers in American industrial design.

Each stamp features a sleek product, be it a camera, flatware or typewriter, on a white backdrop, and the name of the design and its designer. The designers chosen include Peter Müller-Munk, Frederick Hurten Rhead, Raymond Loewy, Donald Deskey, Walter Dorwin Teague, Henry Dreyfuss, Norman Bel Geddes, Dave Chapman, Greta von Nessen, Eliot Noyes, Russel Wright and Gilbert Rohde.

“They were very important in getting the profession of industrial design off of the ground,” says Gail Davidson, head curator of Drawings, Prints and Graphic Design at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. “A number of these people were immigrants to the United States. These were men who were in the right place at the right time. Many of them were artists. They could not make a career in the fine arts, and they turned to industrial design as a way of making a living. Many of them entered the profession through set design and costume design. People like Norman Bel Geddes and Henry Dreyfuss would be included in that group. Other people entered the profession through advertising or window display. Raymond Loewy is an example of that group and also Donald Deskey.”

The field of industrial design emerged in the United States in the 1920s and ’30s, when manufacturers turned to designers to create products with a modern look. What resulted were products that were simple, functional and more aesthetically clean than their ornate predecessors. After World War II, products were mass produced and designers experimented with new materials, such as plastic, vinyl, chrome, aluminum and plywood, which made the products more reasonably priced. “Industry turned to designers directly as a way of distinguishing their products from those of another company,” says Davidson.

The 12 designers whose work is featured on the stamps heavily influenced the look of everyday life in the 20th century. Some of the more familiar designs on the stamps are boldly colored Fiesta dinnerware from 1936 by Frederick Hurten Rhead and the 1961 IBM “Selectric” typewriter by Eliot Noyes. Davidson hopes that the stamps will make people aware of design and how it impacts their lives.

If you like the stamps, there are related artifacts within the Cooper-Hewitt’s collection. For instance, the museum has a pitcher and other examples of Rhead’s Fiesta line; cameras designed by Walter Dorwin Teague, who collaborated with the Eastman Kodak Company; dinnerware designed by Raymond Loewy for the 1976 Concorde airliner; drawings and examples of flatware designed by Russel Wright; and drawings for John Deere tractors and models of Bell telephones by Henry Dreyfuss. The Cooper-Hewitt also holds the archives of both Henry Dreyfuss and Donald Deskey.

The Pioneers of American Industrial Design stamps are on sale now at local post offices and online at usps.com.

The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum recently announced the winners of a contest intended to challenge students to integrate innovation into their communities. Thirteen teachers from seven schools submitted plans for products that would solve a local problem identified and chosen by the students.

“We are always impressed with what kids come up with,” said Kim Robledo-Diga, professional development manager at the Cooper-Hewitt. “Kids have a unique perspective on their community, and usually pick up on challenges that adults don’t see.”

A carry-all design by Henry Ford Academy students won top honors in a design competition. Image courtesy of Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

That perspective resulted in three winning designs from schools across the country. The first-place prize of $5,000 went to the 9th-grade students of the Henry Ford Academy: Alameda School of Art + Design in San Antonio, Texas. The high school freshmen class toured a homeless shelter just around the block from their school for inspiration, and after talking with shelter volunteers and residents, came up with the idea for a carry-all bag.

The bag was designed specially for the homeless, most of whom must carry all of their possessions with them on a daily basis, said school principal Jeffrey Flores. Features of the bag included separate pockets for clean and dirty laundry, a detachable pillow and a hidden pockets for storage.

“Winning the competition gives our community, our families and our students a reassurance that there’s a bigger picture when it comes to design,” Flores said. “It’s not just drawing or designing a video game—everything around us is involved in design. And our kids are realizing this, that it’s more than just a backpack, and it’s more than just making a backpack pretty.”

Flores said the prize money will go toward manufacturing a prototype of the design, and he would love for his students to be able to return to the shelter and present the residents with a bag for their use.

A jury composed of experts ranging from retired industrial designers to professors of design, as well as representatives from competition sponsor Ford Motor Co. Fund, also selected second- and third-place winners.

The second-place prize of $3,000 was awarded to four 8th-grade students at the Shenandoah Middle School Museums Magnet School in Miami, Florida. They proposed a Pet Waste Station complete with disposal bins, signs and informational brochures intended to solve a dog waste problem on the sidewalks around their school.

A memorial design by Andrew Jackson Language Academy students honored one of the school's teachers. Image courtesy of Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

The third-place winner was the Andrew Jackson Language Academy in Chicago, Ill. The entire school submitted a plan for a memorial to honor a kindergarten teacher who passed away. The design featured a garden with mosaic tiles illustrating the life cycle of a butterfly, a concept taught in kindergarten classes at the school. The academy received a $1,000 prize.

Robledo-Diga said the goal of the competition was to get kids to see that they have the ability to impact their communities through design, and that allowing them to take the lead on projects such as this usually produces results that surpass expectations.

“Everything around you is designed,” Robledo-Diga said. “Signage, the flow of street traffic, architecture and so on, are all designed by somebody. Most communities look to their local government to address local issues. This design competition shows that kids of all ages can make real change in their neighborhood using the design process.”

The Set in Style app.

I started work as an intern at Smithsonian magazine last week. My first assignment was to write a blog post on ballooning. My second was to dress myself up in designer jewelry. I think, so far, that I like this job.

The only downside is that the jewelry was of the digital variety. A new Facebook application from Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City was created in honor of the museum’s exhibition, “Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels,” which explores 20th century jewelry design. It features about 350 breathtaking pieces of Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry, ranging from watches to tiaras. The app allows users to choose photos from their profiles and virtually add a little (or a lot) of sparkle.

The first order of business was to try the app out for myself. Now, I’m normally not a big jewelry person. I don’t like shiny. I prefer woven bracelets to diamonds and I would choose a wooden charm over one of those Tiffany & Co. hearts any day. But I’m not going to say no when someone offers to let me try on a tiara.

So I did. I (virtually) tried on the tiara (formerly of the Princess Grace of Monaco, now of Intern Julie of Smithsonian.com), a gold necklace, some diamond earrings, a ruby brooch. Let’s be honest—I tried on almost every one of the 28 pieces of jewelry offered in my digital jewelry box. (They paid me to do this!)  I didn’t take an official picture wearing any of it because I suspected the app would then post it to my wall and I would have died of embarrassment.

I did, however, consider subjecting some of my friends to such ridicule, since the app allowed me to adorn their photos with some pretty ostentatious bling. I resisted, but just barely.

My second task (even though that first one was so exhausting) was to call up the Cooper-Hewitt and interview the people who came up with the idea for the app.

“There are a lot of people nationwide who have been blogging about this show. and reading the press about it, and wanting to know more, but have not been able to visit,” said Caroline Baumann, associate director of the museum. “So this is a wonderful opportunity for those people to experience the show and have a little bit of play as well.”

Jennifer Northrop, director of communications and marketing at Cooper-Hewitt, was actually the one who came up with the idea for the app. She said that as you walk through the exhibition, you immediately want to try on every piece, and she wanted to somehow find a way to allow people to do that.

“Of course there’s no way we’re going to let people try on a Van Cleef & Arpels tiara,” Northrop said. “So the next step was really, how can we do this virtually? How can we have this experience shared by tons of people?”

Me with my tiara.

By the way, Northrop said the tiara was her favorite piece too, match only by her affection for a gold and ruby necklace that resembles a very glamorous and very expensive zipper.

So although my vanity is denying you what I’m sure would be a very amusing official photo of me decked out in Van Cleef & Arpels, I will leave you with an awkward screenshot, with my poor younger brother in it because I couldn’t crop him out. Do you think the tiara’s too big? I’m not worried. I’m sure I’ll grow into it.

The “Set in Style: the Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels” exhibition is currently open and will be at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum through July 4.

Continuum, the 2011 National Design Award winner in the Product Design category, designed the air bladder fit control system for the Reebok Pump sneaker in the late 1980s, among other successful products. Photo by Mike Brzoza.

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Director Bill Moggridge announced the winners and finalists in the 12th annual National Design Awards competition yesterday. “As the nation’s design museum, Cooper-Hewitt raises awareness that design is everywhere,” says Moggridge (a former award winner himself), in a press release. With this in mind, awards are given in ten categories: Lifetime Achievement, Design Mind, Corporate and Institutional Achievement, Architecture, Communication, Fashion, Interaction, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture and Product Design.

“The work of this year’s National Design Awards winners represents extraordinary solutions to the design problems central to the landscape of daily life, from how we dress, shape our personal and private spaces, frame communication and interact with the world at large,” adds Moggridge. Lifetime Achievement winner Matthew Carter has spent 50 years designing typefaces, including the familiar Verdana and Georgia. The New York-based Architecture Research Office, selected as the Architecture Design winner, has taken on many innovative projects, such as a prototype for a low-income yet sustainable house. And Continuum, which takes the award for Product Design, is the studio behind Reebok’s Pump line of shoes and the now ubiquitous Swiffer.

This year, National Design Week will be held October 15-23, with the winners receiving their awards at a gala dinner at Pier Sixty in New York on October 20. Polls will be open for the People’s Design Award, which calls design enthusiasts to nominate and vote on products that constitute good design, from September 19 to October 18.

In the meantime, here is a roundup of our coverage of past winners:

Bill Moggridge, a 2009 winner in Lifetime Achievement, discusses the future of computing and design.

Tom Kundig, 2008 winner in architecture, designs little cabins on stilts.

David Rockwell, 2008 winner in interior design, talks about his design process.

Charles Harrison, 2008 Lifetime Achievement winner, designed some 600 household items in his 32-year career as an industrial designer at Sears.

Chip Kidd, 2007 winner in communications design, talks about book cover design.

(Also, former intern Jess Righthand gives us a first-hand account of last year’s awards gala.)

It seems that the weather is finally breaking and spring temperatures might be here to stay. So, the ATM blog team has come up with a list of the five best kept secret gardens and getaways around the Smithsonian Institution. Get the jump on summer and discover some great new places to take in the beautiful weather, warm your face with sun, enjoy a meal with a co-worker, or rest a bit between museum visits. The warm weather rush is upon us, so get out there and explore.

1. The View From Outside- It is said that the gardens around the Smithsonian Institution are more like “living museums,” whose beauty and design augment and complement the brick and mortar structures surrounding them. Nowhere is this more evident than at the Courtyard at the Freer Gallery of Art. Commissioned by Charles Lang Freer and designed by Charles A. Platt in the American Renaissance tradition, this garden is visible from the galleries inside and provides a quiet respite for visitors passing through its doors. Come for the art, stick around for the ambiance.

2. A Plant Lover’s Dream- When visiting the museums, take some time to just walk around and enjoy the scenery. Meander between Independence Avenue and the Mall, and you may find yourself  in the Mary Livingston Ripley Garden. Tucked between the Arts and Industries Building and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, this courtyard promises a quiet retreat from the crowds on the street. Named after Mary Livingston Ripley, wife of former Smithsonian Secretary S. Dillon Ripley, this garden was envisioned as a “sensory garden for the enjoyment of handicapped and other visitors to the Smithsonian.” The brick walkways encourage visitors to slow down, and with the variety of plants and bulbs—at last count numbering more than 1,000—there’s plenty more to smell than just the roses.

3. Plants and Animals- The next time you’re at the National Zoo, visiting some of your favorite animals, don’t forget to check out the diverse plant life that coexists with them. Attached to the Invertebrate Exhibit is the Pollinarium, a greenhouse with twoflower passionflower, blue porterweed and other flowering plants pollinated by bees and hummingbirds. (If you don’t know what any of those flowers are, that’s all the more reason to go). Step right outside and into the Butterfly Garden, where you never know what butterfly species you might see.

4. In Case of April Showers- If you do find yourself trying to dodge those sporadic April showers, duck into the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard at the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture. Enjoy a cup of coffee or a snack while admiring the amazing architecture in a place that Walt Whitman once called, “the noblest of Washington’s buildings.” The glass and steel canopy holds 864 panels of blown glass from Poland—no two of which are a like. The courtyard itself is surrounded by marble planters filled with trees, shrubs and flowers. Warm and dry all year around, it’s an ideal great way to wait out the rain.

5. Escape from New York- New York City is known for never sleeping or slowing down. But even native New Yorkers would be hard-pressed to walk by the Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and not take a peek inside. Located on Fifth Avenue at Ninety-first Street, visitors and passersby can enjoy the lush gardens once lovingly tended to by Louise Carnegie. So, take a load off, the bustling city will be there when you get back.

The Mall is teeming with amazing gardens and out of the way courtyards. Take some time to explore exhibits outside the museums, tour the gardens, and see what other secrets the Smithsonian is hiding in plain sight. What fun would it be if we gave them all away?

Elizabeth Taylor (1955) by Sid Avery. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Ron and Donna Avery © 1978 Sid Avery

Dame Elizabeth Taylor, actress and legend of the silver screen, passed away this morning at age 79. She suffered from chronic health problems and died at Cedars Sinai Hospital from congestive heart failure, a condition she was initially diagnosed with in 2004.

Born in London, Taylor began acting at the age of 12, scoring her breakthrough role of Velvet Brown in the 1944 film National Velvet, where she played an aspiring equestrian who illicitly competes in the Grand National Steeplechase. She became a major child star at MGM and was one of a few young actors who were able to make that difficult transition to adult roles. Maturing into a dazzling beauty with raven hair and violet eyes, Taylor was at her zenith during the 1950s and 60s, appearing in films such as Father of the Bride, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Suddenly Last Summer and Cleopatra, where she met her future husband Richard Burton. She took home Oscar gold for her performance as a call girl in BUtterfield 8 and for playing the disillusioned and acidic Martha in a cinematic treatment of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

In 1956, she appeared opposite James Dean in a screen adaptation of the Edna Ferber novel Giant. During filming, photographer Sid Avery captured a behind-the-scenes shot of the actress, currently on view at the National Portrait Gallery. “It is in the unscripted, candid moment captured in this image that Taylor’s extraordinary beauty is most striking,” says Ann Shumard, the Portrait Gallery’s curator of photographs. “Blissfully unaware of the camera, the 23-year-old actress raises her face to the Texas sun as she enjoys a break in the filming of Giant. Even in an unguarded moment, she is every bit the star whose beauty made her such a mesmerizing presence on the screen.”

Lamartine bracelet (1970) by Van Cleef and Arpels. Photo by John Bigelow Taylor, courtesy of the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum.

Taylor also had a longstanding love affair with jewelry and wrote a book about her collection and the stories behind her pieces. Currently on display at the Cooper Hewitt Museum’s exhibition Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef and Arpels is her lamartine bracelet that dates from 1970.

“Elizabeth Taylor had extraordinary taste in jewelry and a very fine collection,” says Sarah Coffee Coffin, a curator at Cooper-Hewitt. “The bracelet and earrings that go with them were both a present from Richard Burton that he bought her in Geneva in 1971.  He liked them because the cabochon amethysts went with her violet eyes.”

Her film career waned in the 1970s and in the 1980s she was a recurring figure on the daytime soap operas “General Hospital” and “All My Children.” It was also during this period that she poured her time and resources into AIDS charities in an era when it was still a taboo subject. She created the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1991 to assist people living with the disease. And though she was absent from acting and made few public appearances in her later years, she kept in touch with her legions of devoted fans via Twitter, sending out messages until just days before she was admitted to Cedars Sinai Hospital on February 11.

A carving of Saint Patrick Missionary of Ireland ( ca. 1960s) by artist Frank Brito. Courtesy of the American Art Museum

Here at the ATM blog, our St. Patrick’s Day celebration this year is all about snakes and serpents. For it was these slithery reptiles that St Patrick was supposed to have driven into the sea, banishing all of that nation’s snakes from the land. Turns out, though, there are lots of snakes at the Smithsonian Institution.

1. Get up close and personal with St. Patrick, or at least with a wooden figure of Ireland’s best-known patron saint, in the collections of the American Art Museum. The statue of St. Patrick holding a snake was carved by artist Frank Brito sometime in the 1960s.

2. As difficult as it would be to chase snakes out, what kind of person would it take to charm them into behaving? Dennis Burlingame’s 1935 painting entitled “Snake Charmer,” also from the American Art Museum, appears to have the answer.

3. Over at the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Japanese artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi illustrates another way to rid oneself of a menacing reptile in the woodblock print, “Eight Hundred Heroes of a Japanese Water Margin, All Told: Ogata Shuma Hiroyuki.”

4. While not everyone is fond of snakes, most people can at least appreciate the use of their likeness in design, especially when it comes to adornments. The Cooper-Hewitt Museum showcases a bronze door knocker, while the American Indian Museum has a gold labret in the shape of a snake head.

5. We’ve all heard of snakes on a plane, so perhaps it makes sense that the snake bite serum, donated by pilot Charles Lindbergh, can be found at the Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center.

6. Who knew snakes played a role in the history of snail mail? See the Postal Museum’s snake single stamp (back when they were 37 cents) and a Patriotic envelope cover from WWII.

7. There may not be any snakes in Ireland (outside of zoo animals and family pets) but we’ve got plenty here. If snakes are what you want to see, slide on over to the National Zoo’s Reptile Discovery Center and see if they really are as menacing in person.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Additional reporting by Jesse Rhodes.

Have you ever wanted to hold a 95-carat yellow diamond in your hand? There’s an app for that.

As a bonus to the new exhibition, “Set In Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels,“ the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum yesterday released an iPad app. Can’t get to New York City to see the show? Download the free app and take an armchair tour and get an intimate view of 65 of the exhibition’s 350 exquisite pieces.  The app, which includes interviews with curators, a timeline of the firm’s history and design innovations, a comments section and a zoom tool, is available for free from the iTunes Store.

“Set In Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels” is on view in the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum until June 5, 2011.

The zooming feature allows you to see the smallest details of VCA's jewelry.

In a bouquet brooch of rubies and diamonds, the gems are held in place by concealed prongs, a specialty design of Van Cleef & Arpels.Photo by Patrick Gries / Van Cleef & Arpels

Some significant bling went on view today at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City. It’s not just glitter either, there’s some fabulous celebrity glam to behold, as well. There’s a diamond encrusted platinum tiara worn by Grace Kelly, an amethyst, coral and diamond bracelet of Elizabeth Taylor’s, Eva Peron’s bracelet and necklace, and another bracelet once owned by Marlene Dietrich.

The exhibit, “Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels,” represents the first time that the jewels, timepieces, object d’art and other fashion accessories will be examined from the perspective of design. The show features some 300 stunning pieces accompanied by design drawings, commission books, fabrication cards and other imagery collected from the Van Cleef & Arpels’ archive.

Sarah Coffin, the museum’s curator of art and  head of the product design and decorative arts department, says that Van Cleef & Arpels has long been known for innovations and imaginative designs in the art of jewelry making. The pieces in this exhibit, Coffin says, “give us an opportunity to look at how they relate as part of a broad history and through the whole process of jewelry making.”

The much vaunted firm has been the face of handcrafted jewelry design and innovation since its opening on the Place Vendôme in Paris in 1906. During World War II, the design house moved to New York and embraced a new era of American style and taste, attracting the wealthy and elite trendsetters of the 20th century. Known for its pieces that transform from one design to another and a patented unique “Mystery Setting,” in which concealed prongs hold the gemstones, the company has long set a premium on highly skilled craftsmen and specialty settings.

Some of the more unique pieces in the exhibition are pieces of jewelry that transform from one piece to another. A necklace zips up to become a bracelet. A brooch of a bird that holds a  95-carat yellow diamond in its beak can be disassembled so that its wings turn out to be earrings. The exhibition is on view until June 5.

Visit our photo gallery of some of the pieces from the exhibition.

Patriot or Traitor? — In a recently opened play, “Time Trial of Benedict Arnold,” the National Museum of American History explores the veracity of a widely accepted historical “fact” — that Benedict Arnold was a traitor. During the performance, which tells the story from Arnold’s point of view, the audience becomes the jury and decides for themselves whether Benedict Arnold was guilty as charged, simply misunderstood, or if the truth lies somewhere in between. Check out O, Say Can You See for show times and more details.

What is NMAI, Alex —  Last December, the National Museum of the American Indian was featured as a category on Jeopardy. Visit the NMAI blog to get a full recap of what happened and then check out the video, with bonus questions from the museum, to test your knowledge of American Indian history. The winners of the museum’s question challenge have already been chosen, so you won’t win a prize for knowing the correct answers, but you’ll possibly be smarter when you’re done.

Designing Men —Over on the Cooper-Hewitt Design Blog, museum director Bill Moggridge shares his inerview with Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, as the second part of his behind-the-scenes look at his new book, Designing Media. (You can find part one here). What’s Newmark like at home? What principles guide his site’s simple design? What does he think about creating a site that revolutionized classified ads?

We Have a Winner — The National Postal Museum has announced the winner of its month-long “Stamps Around the Globe” contest. And…(drum roll, please) the stamp chosen to represent the USA in the “Stamps Around the Globe” exhibit is the Moon Landing Stamp, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing. The exhibit will be featured next year in the upcoming  William H. Gross Stamp Gallery, an innovative, new exhibition space currently in the making.