Multiple Choice: From Sample to Product
Products & Packaging · Tags: color-history, exhibitions, materials
Authored by Kate Smith
I spend hours looking at color samples and making choices. Choices that may change the color of a single room or an entire product line.
There are many sample books and systems I use in making these choices but for me these are simply more than tools of the trade.
They are insight and inspiration. Potential and possibility. Creativity and comfort as I focus on the repetion of a shapes or objects in a range of colors.
I also collect color charts from the past as color reference but also because I like looking at the results of the many decisions that are reflected in the final color choices for a product.
Here’s a picture of one I found recently from the 50’s showing eyewear frame colors.
So how perfect that Lucy Commoner shares my passion and organized the exhibtion “Multiple Choice: From Sample to Product” which is currently on display at the Cooper Hewitt Museum.
The exhibition is described as follows on the Museum’s website:
This exhibition will examine sample books and other sampling formats as tools for marketing or recording designs and techniques in a wide variety of media. In use since the eighteenth century, sampling formats provide detailed views into the design tastes of their respective eras. Drawn from the Museum’s collection, exhibition objects will include sample books of wallcoverings; woven and printed textiles; ribbons, lace and embroidery; sample plates; and drawings and prints showing design alternatives.
The exhibition runs through April 6, 2008 but if you aren’t able to make it in person you can see many wonderful images and details by visiting the website.
