Good Design Award (Museum of Modern Art)

The Good Design Awards was an industrial design program organized by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, in cooperation with the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. The awards were given in the context of the exhibition series Good Design held from 1950 to 1955.

Good Design mark, created by Morton and Millie Goldsholl for MoMA

History

The awards were part of the exhibition series Good Design, which were spearheaded by Edgar Kaufmann, Jr.,[1] who was then director of the Industrial Design Department of MOMA. Predecessors to this series were two other exhibition series on modernist design, one titled Useful Objects Under $5 (later the maximum price climbed to $10 and eventually $100), the other a series of international design competitions.[2] An agreement to launch the Good Design exhibition series was struck between Rene d'Harnoncourt, director of MoMA, and Wallace O. Ollman, general manager of the Merchandise Mart.[3] Good Design had five editions:

  • 1st Good Design exhibition, held from 21 November 1950 to 28 January 1951[4][5][6]
  • 2nd Good Design exhibition, held from 27 November 1951 to 27 January 1952[7][8]
  • 3rd Good Design exhibition, held from 23 September to 30 November 1952[9]
  • 4th Good Design exhibition, held from 22 September to 29 November 1953[10]
  • 5th Good Design exhibition, held from 8 February to 20 March 1955[11]

The Museum of Modern Art developed a circular Good Design tag, designed by Morton and Millie Goldsholl of Chicago, which manufacturers of products chosen for exhibition could use in advertising and sales. Critic Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times called this tag a "version of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval", and compared it to efforts of similar institutions like V&A in the UK or Bauhaus in Germany in promoting modernist design.[2]

MoMA has staged retrospective exhibitions called What Was Good Design[12] (2011) and The Value of Good Design[13] (2019).[2]

References
  1. Wendy Kaplan: California Design, 1930-1965 : Living In a Modern Way. MIT press, 2011, pg 295.
  2. Michael Kimmelman: Celebrating ‘Good Design’ at MoMA: The Nut Dish and Other Populist Gems. In: New York Times, 6 June 2019.
  3. Arthur J. Pulos: The American Design Adventure, 1940-1975. MIT Press, 1988, pg. 110.
  4. 1st Good Design on the Exhibition Archive of MoMA
  5. "Good Design". Eames Office. February 21, 2014.
  6. Kirkham, Pat (June 4, 1998). Charles and Ray Eames: Designers of the Twentieth Century. MIT Press. ISBN 9780262611398 – via Google Books.
  7. 2nd Good Design on the Exhibition Archive of MoMA
  8. Pulos, Arthur J. (June 4, 1988). The American Design Adventure, 1940-1975. MIT Press. ISBN 9780262161060 – via Google Books.
  9. 3rd Good Design on the Exhibition Archive of MoMA
  10. 4th Good Design on the Exhibition Archive of MoMA
  11. Good Design, fifth anniversary on the Exhibition Archive of MoMA
  12. What Was Good Design? MoMA’s Message, 1944–56. Exhibition held at MoMA from 6 May 2009 to 10 January 2011. (Archive)
  13. The Value of Good Design, Exhibition held at MoMA from 10 February to 15 June 2019. (Archive)
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