All of us at Make are proud to have been selected to be in the National Design Triennial at the Smithsonian’s National Design Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt in New York City. The exhibition opened last Friday to quite a crowd. Make’s original creative team, David Albertson and Kirk Von Rohr, were there, along with Phil, Sherry Huss (Director of Maker Faire), Arwen O’Reilly and me. Wish we could have included the whole team, especially Mark Frauenfelder, Make’s Editor-in-Chief.
The Make exhibit featured the cover of Volume One, which featured Kite Aerial Photography. We had several spreads featuring the work of Make’s illustrators. Most amazing was Chris Benton’s Kite Aerial Photography rig hanging from the ceiling.
I never quite know what to make of awards. Tom Reilly of TED said: “Congratulations. You’re now in the Smithsonian.” David Alberston said that the show is meant to reflect the current trends and ideas in design. (Tom was a high school classmate of David’s in the Chicago area.) David said that in the case of Make, it’s not just the design of the magazine that was recognized but the significance of the Do-It-Yourself trend that it represents.
Special congratulations to other award winners: HowToons, a regular feature of Make produced by Saul Griffith and Nick Dragotta as well as Natalie Jeremijenko whose robot dogs were walking the walls. Natalie was profiled in Volume 2 of Make.
Phil Torrone blogged about the event on Makezine.com and included photos taken surreptiously. We had a funny argument with a museum staffer who said that photography wasn’t allowed in the museum and when we told her we were taking pictures of our own exhibit, she replied: “Still. It’s a slippery slope.” Apparently it’s okay to recognize DIY but you can’t take pictures yourself. Such nonsense.
Thank goodness a Wired reporter was allowed on the slopes: Wired on the Cooper- Hewitt Exhibition