Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Arts & Culture / Design

A new font for Cooper Hewitt

To Redesign a Design Museum Start with the Typeface

The Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum is renovating and rebranding with a tailor-made typeface

These Smart Bricks Mean the Time Has Finally Arrived: Adults Have Legos of Their Own

A construction company aims to build more efficiently with modular connecting bricks

Marcel Breuer's proposed Roosevelt Memorial

Washington, D.C.

The Failed Attempt to Design a Memorial for Franklin Roosevelt

The debacle of the Eisenhower memorial is only the most recent entry in a grand D.C. tradition of fraught monuments

The LACMA exterior as seen from Wilshire Boulevard.

Why Museums Don’t Need Gleaming New Buildings, Especially Not in Los Angeles

An award-winning architect suggests that the city reconsider its plans to raze its iconic art museum

Anyone with a touchscreen can help shape the constantly evolving Universal Typeface.

The Universal Typeface Project Averages the World’s Handwriting to Produce an Incredibly Average Font

With your help, ballpoint pioneer BIC aims to create a font as common as their pens

The yellow card is an elegant design solution that has been adopted by several sports.

World Cup 2014

Who Invented the Yellow Card?

Penalty cards are a surprisingly recent creation that were, perhaps unsurprisingly, inspired by traffic lights

Founded in 1896, the Cooper Hewitt is located in the Andrew Carnegie mansion, a 64-room Georgian brick home that once served as home for the steel magnate and his family.

With a New Name and New Look, the Cooper Hewitt is Primed for a Grand Reopening

Journalists got a sneak preview of what’s coming up when the new museum opens its doors this coming December

Various examples of garderobe design

From Turrets to Toilets: A Partial History of the Throne Room

For centuries the humble bathroom has been shaping the space we live and work

A hourd in Carcassonne

The Medieval Origin Story of the Balcony

Architect/historian Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc suggested that the balcony was forged in the heat of battle.

The California-based Raydiance has released a machine called R-Cut, which uses a femtosecond laser to cut sleek glass surfaces that aren't possible with existing manufacturing.

Tech Watch

Lasers Faster Than The Blink Of An Eye Could Change Glass On Our Phones

A new screen-chiseling method will give high-end finishes to low-end phones—and could revolutionize screens in everything from cars to smart watches, too.

Eliot R. Brown's hand drawn map of Gotham.

The Cartographer Who Mapped Out Gotham City

Batman has been guarding Gotham for 75 years, but its city limits weren’t defined until 1998

Famed designer Massimo Vignelli

Remembering Massimo Vignelli, the Innovator Who Streamlined Design and Changed the Industry Forever

The famed designer passed away Tuesday at the age of 83

Etsy Product Design: Building the marketplace, global, ongoing.

Cooper-Hewitt Gets Crafty and Honors Etsy with a National Design Award

Other recipients of the National Design Museum’s prestigious award include fashionista Narciso Rodriguez and writer Witold Rybcznski

Hans Hollein at his office in Vienna, Austria, 20 March 2009.

Remembering the “Eclectic Gusto” of Architect Hans Hollein

A look into what still excites us about the Viennese designer, who died last week at 80

James Rouse talks about the future of the American city at one of his many speaking engagements

James W. Rouse’s Legacy of Better Living Through Design

There are still lessons to be learned from the visionary businessman who built a city

Laurel Consuelo Broughton, "The World is Flat"

Architects Give the Classic Chess Set a Radical Makeover

The designer behind the traditional kings and queens would resign if he saw these avant-garde game boards

Honorable Mention. Sand Babel: Solar-Powered 3D Printed Tower.

Free From the Rules of Physics and Practicality, 20 Architects Radically Reimagine the Skyscraper

These high-rise designs are sci-fi visions of the future

An Arizona State University student's toothpaste tube prototype forces every last bit to come out by folding down like an accordion.

A Toothpaste Tube That Gets Every Last Bit Out

Tired of wasting leftover toothpaste, a student invents a new origami-inspired design that leaves nothing behind

Michael Jackson: Singer, Songwriter, American Inventor

The King of Pop invented more than just amazing dance moves

The Los Angeles That Was Never Built

Had these 13 grand architectural plans been executed, the city would look entirely different today

Page 11 of 21