When we think about design we tend to think of things that stand apart from us, elegant objects or structures that we admire from a distance for their form and functionality. But for designer Ellen Lupton, form and functionality are essential elements of mundane objects, too -- things we use every day.
Ellen is the director of the Graphic Design Masters of Fine Arts program at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and she’s also the senior curator of contemporary design at the Cooper Hewitt–Smithsonian Design Museum in New York. Her latest book was a catalog for an exhibition held at the Cooper-Hewitt that examined how the design of many of the things we use every day has become more and more user-focused, and how that’s affecting our daily lives. Her book is called Beautiful Users: Designing for People.