Blog Posts by Subject: Design

I'm truly pleased to announce the launch of NYPL's new home page! It has more and better feature items for us to share great NYPL activities and materials with you, and a new book recommender tool that we're really excited about.

Art can be found in many places: on the walls at home, in museums and galleries. We walk through New York City and cities around the world looking at buildings, parks and street life, rarely looking down. But there is also art underfoot! Take a look at manhole covers. Manhole covers have intricate designs and other uses. Manhole covers may be a lost forgotten art.

“Costumes have to tell you in a moment what that person is feeling, what they’re going through, what changes are happening.”
                                                                   

Artists are always asked about what inspires them, what they were looking at (reading, eating, drinking, feeling, etc.) when they made this or that piece of art. They often remain coy, not wanting to divulge too much of the creative process, for fear of its ruining the mystery, or muddying the individual's personal interpretation of a work. In spite of their best efforts, the creative process, that window into the unique mind of the artist, remains a fascination for most of us. So, when we received a new title a few months ago, Nomad by Sibella Court, I was delighted to find a designer's travel guide full of color and whimsy detailing the objects that touched the author/artist's 

We have a Crafternoon every Tuesday at the Mulberry Street Library. Sometimes we make bracelets, sometimes we make greeting cards. But last month we were able to play with 3D.

Hey there summer campers!

We are working on a great new blog post that includes making your own mini loom! Until then, check out a blog post from last year, Graphic Ts! Enjoy!

Welcome to our second round of projects in NYPL's Hand-Made Summer Camp. (If you missed our first round, Lindsy's woven card project, check it out; I'm thinking of making one with flat sheets of felt myself.) This week, inspired by vintage fashion and paper doll books, I've prepared some customizable paper people. 

Perhaps you’ve noticed a few more people joining the menu party lately. The . As are our friends from the National Life Insurance Company. We’ve even extended an invite to our canine crew (and their owners) from the Philadelphia Dog Show Association.

If you've transcribed even one menu, you've likely seen her stamp. A blue oval bearing her name, "Buttolph Collection", as graceful as a branding iron over asparagus, Russian caviar, or Boston baked beans.

Miss Frank E. Buttolph stamped nearly every menu she collected for the New York Public Library, twenty-three years worth, amounting to roughly 25,000 menus under her tenure alone.

But who was Miss Buttolph and why did she collect menus?

We've gotten a number of questions over the past week of What's on the Menu? about menus marked as "done." Do we really mean done? As in finished, vetted, archived for posterity? Fear not, we've cleared up this confusion with some new language. What we really meant to say was "under review."

Last week I read about artist Walter Kitundu's San Francisco International Airport installation, "Bay Area Bird Encounters." This work combines music, art, and natural history in an interactive mural with accompanying xylophone benches, and I do wish that I could visit it. Reading about it reminded me of Abby Glassenberg's Handmade Crafternoon appearance last month, and how inspiring birds in art can be. I'm happy that it's reminded me to share the list of inspiring books I selected for browsing at Abby's event.

Wow. We're sitting here with our mouths agape, simply overwhelmed --and thrilled! -- by the response to What's on the Menu? We knew you guys liked food, but holy (broiled) mackerel!

We launched WOTM very quietly, just three days ago, and, as of this typing, we have over 22K dishes transcribed! And it's evident, from the emails and tweets we've been receiving, that we have some very enthusiastic participants out there. Thank you!

Saratoga Chips.  Corned Beef Hash.  Large Pot of Oolong Tea. 

Okay, so they’re not included in the works of Shakespeare (as far as I know), but that doesn’t mean these dishes aren't of value to researchers and scholars and the generally curious who read menus in order to learn more about the food served and consumed in restaurants throughout history.

But until now this kind of information (the food!) was difficult - if not impossible - to search in our digitized menu collection.

The Grand Central Library is pleased to present From Sketchbooks and Black Books, an exhibit of over 100 images from a diverse group of artists.  

Ranging from pencil and ink sketches to vibrant graffiti pieces, the works on exhibit provide an intimate glimpse into the creative process. While a few of the images were created as preliminary sketches for larger works, most are personal visual explorations. And although most images reflect an internal dialog, some—particularly the graffiti-inspired pieces—were created to be shared by others.

Maura and I are thrilled that artist and seamstress Abby Glassenberg will be our special guest at March 5th's Handmade Crafternoon.  She has stopped by Hand-Made to answer a few questions about the books and people who inspire and inform her work.

Do you plan to come to the next Handmade Crafternoon on March 5th to make your own tiny avian sculpture with artist Abby Glassenberg, author of The Artful Bird? Want to brush up on bird characteristics in advance?  Then the Library's Digital Gallery is a great place to spend some time.  Here are a few of my favorite bird books and bird images. (Click on the heading or title link for each category to see all bird images from it.)

On Tuesday, February 8th, Mulberry Street Library hosted a TeenLive event featuring celebrity designer LaQuan Smith.

The Rare Book Division's collection of historic valentines has provided heaps of inspiration this month---in Martha Stewart Living's February issue, on the Martha Stewart Show, and at the latest Handmade Crafternoon event at which staff from Martha Stewart Living were our special guests and donated amazing supplies (you'll find a wrap-up of this event as well as a great gallery of images here).  With all the love being shown these valentines, I decided that it was time to introduce the collector who gave them to the Library half a century ago.

The New York Public Library has recently acquired the complete run of Visionaire, a contemporary art and fashion publication, which incorporates multi-media and three-dimensional materials including cosmetics, perfumes in glass vials, vinyl records, starch-based "flavor strips," textiles, and various plastics with text and images.