Posts Tagged design
FROM TOUR TO TILES: A tour of the Heath Ceramics factory in Sausalito, California, led House Industries co-founder Andy Cruz to a collaboration with the owners of the storied ceramics maker that produced objects like decorative clocks and tiles. (Carlos Alejandro)
How House Industries and Heath Ceramics turned a happenstance online meet-and-greet into a creative collaboration
Heath Ceramic owners Robin Petravic and Catherine Bailey (Aya Brackett)
After Andy Cruz’s blog post about the Heath Ceramics men’s restroom caught the eye of Catherine Bailey, co-owner of the distinctive California ceramic manufacturer, she reached out to House Industries.
Soon after, Cruz and Bailey began corresponding regularly.
Realizing they shared a mutual appreciation for each other’s work, the two decided that House Industries and Heath Ceramics should collaborate. “Andy is a genius. Working with him is a guarantee that you’re going to learn something new, that you’re going to see something differently and that you’re going to find yourself paying attention to the next level of detail you didn’t even realize existed,” said Robin Petravic, who co-owns Heath Ceramics with Bailey.
Recognizing Heath Ceramics founder Edith Heath as a California design legend for her elegant designs accented by raw finishes, Heath and House decided to pair her legacy with those of two other greats — Charles and Ray Eames and Richard Neutra. After working through an arduous process of trial and error, House Industries fonts inspired by the Eameses and Neutra were applied to a series of tiles that later inspired a ceramic wall clock collection, both of which have been in production ever since.
“Along with Andy’s immense and unique talent comes a great collaborator,” said Petravic. “We’ve come to trust that, as the conversation goes one way, then the other and then off in yet another direction, we’re going to end up in a great place in the end.”
As to House Industries’ willingness to follow those other directions and learn from its own mistakes, it was the original drawings and hours of tweaking, proofing and redrawing of the stencil numbers for the Heath Ceramics clock project that ended up providing inspiration for another landmark House Industries work — Yorklyn Stencil, the house typeface of House Industries.
This story originally ran in The Henry Ford Magazine. House Industries: A Type of Learning is on exhibit at Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation.
House Industries, The Henry Ford Magazine, making, design, ceramics
Co-founder Andy Cruz shares how an enthusiast’s disposition and a willingness to experiment helped build his font factory, House Industries
Even if you’ve never heard of House Industries, it’s safe to say you’ve seen its fonts and graphic design work. They’re everywhere, from drive-thru menus to record sleeves to children’s toy blocks to the signage associated with the modern-day burger joint Shake Shack.
House’s output is a connective tissue that runs between such cultural touchstones as hot-rod hero Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, iconic French fashion house and saddlery Hermès, midcentury designers Alexander Girard and Charles and Ray Eames, and renowned pottery and tile manufacturer Heath Ceramics.
House Industries was founded in Delaware in 1993 by graphic designers Andy Cruz and Rich Roat, when, in response to the overwhelmingly corporate clientele in Wilmington, the pair decided to develop their custom lettering into fonts they could sell as products. This additional income acted as a buffer, affording Cruz and Roat a certain measure of freedom when selecting clients and collaborations. Taking visual cues from their various influences and interests — hot rods, skateboarding, punk rock, cycling and modern design, among others — House Industries developed a reputation for enthusiastic experimentation and an idiosyncratic approach to type that has only grown over the years.
Soon much of their work and the stories behind it will be published in the book The Process Is the Inspiration and presented to the public in an exhibition in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation. While preparing for the exhibition, Cruz took some time out of his busy schedule to speak with The Henry Ford Magazine about the underlying philosophy behind House Industries and its approach to collaboration.
DID YOU KNOW? House Industries delivers its space-age 3009 font set in a die-cut spaceship reminiscent of a ’50s sci-fi film.
THF Magazine:
Can you talk about the general philosophy behind House Industries?
Cruz: We built House on the simple idea of incorporating personal interests into our work.
The trick was figuring out how to make our hobbies work hard for us, instead of working hard to support our hobbies. We tried to create a world at House where our curiosities and interests help fuel our business and personal lives and created a sense of purpose. So that’s one idealistic pillar of House Industries. Reality eventually kicked in, and we had to get down to figuring out how to apply those interests — that acquired knowledge — to the things that we were making. It started out as fonts, and then our design attention deficit disorder kicked in. Soon we were making clothing and then that became ceramics and then that became bicycles. So it’s always moving. It’s slightly unpredictable. But the cornerstone of House is following our interests and self-led learning.
A DEEP DESIGN DIVE: House Industries spent four years researching the work of designer Alexander Girard, traveling to Germany, Michigan and New Mexico in the process. The result was the Girard collection of fonts and other items capturing the designer’s folk art sensibilities, plus a book documenting the project. House Industries also did its homework when iconic luxury brand Hermès commissioned the studio to “dress” its flagship Tokyo store with its signature alphabetical flair.
THF Magazine:
The spirit of collaboration is present and a constant throughout House Industries’ body of work. How do you approach collaboration?
Cruz: A lot of it is mutual appreciation, if you will. I think of the Heath stuff, where we just went out there for a factory tour with no credentials — just sort of rolled in as tourists. I put up a shot of the men’s bathroom [on our blog], where they had some really cool tiles, and [Catherine Bailey, co-owner of Heath Ceramics] reaches out and says, “I wish I’d known you were here. I’ve been following you guys for a long time. Let’s try and figure something out.”
Sure enough, we figured something out. Again, that wasn’t a calculated business maneuver. It was just one of those things where, “Hey, I’m digging what you guys are doing; you dig what we do; let’s put the chocolate in the peanut butter and hope other people like how it tastes.”
The best work always comes out when that relationship is there. When they trust us and we trust them, we end up with something that everyone is excited to be a part of.
THF Magazine:
It’s interesting the way you can thread the needle so successfully over and over again — creating something that’s identifiably a House Industries’ creation but also amplifies the message of a world-renowned brand like Hermès, for example.
Cruz: There’s definitely a level of respect there that we try to be sensitive to. I think the Hermès project might be a good example because we wanted to be reverent to the brand, but at the same time, we wanted to bring something to the party that was a little more House Industries. We basically drew their name in the shape of a horse, then cut each letter out of solid chunks of cedar. If you tell someone that, you could definitely get some eye rolls. But that was all part of trying to understand the company’s equestrian history, their design legacy, and bake some of those elements into the project, and usually we can come out the other side looking and sounding like we know what we’re doing. [laughs]
THF Magazine:
You’ve taken on other projects during which you’re actively collaborating with brands connected to a family name and, in some cases — such as Charles and Ray Eames or Alexander Girard — with the history of design itself. How do you approach that?
Cruz: That stuff does come from being fans first, and I always try to remind our collaborators — be it an Eames or the Girards, even a Jimmy Kimmel — that we are stoked that they thought enough about us to let us work with their names. So we’re always conscious of that relationship. And as fans, you hate to see when your favorite brand does something, and it’s like, “Oh, man. That’s lame. Why’d they do that?” So that fan mentality helps us keep things honest at times. When we’re dealing with people’s family names and histories you admire, you don’t want to botch things up.
Accidental by Design
Throughout the conversation with The Henry Ford Magazine, Cruz is self-effacing and nonchalant, almost as if the success of House Industries has been a happy accident or its collaborations with indelible brands and legacies just sort of happened. But House’s new book, The Process Is the Inspiration, belies some of that.
With the Eames project, for example, it took House Industries a decade to bring that project to fruition. At which point, even after a lifetime of appreciation and a painstaking scouring of the Eames archive at the Library of Congress, House’s sketches of “whimsical display fonts” left Charles Eames’ grandson Eames Demetrios unimpressed. He asked for something more forward-thinking that would contribute to the already established Eames legacy. So Cruz and company attacked the project from another angle, enlisted another collaborator in Erik van Blokland and created a purposeful typographical system of “workhorse” fonts rooted in the utilitarian spirit and playful joy of Charles and Ray’s work. They even applied it to toys.
Having been won over, Demetrios said in retrospect: “Design is a willingness to surrender to a journey ... Every once in a while you encounter a company like House Industries who is willing to go on that journey and grow our brand as well as theirs.”
Despite Cruz’s charming self-deprecation, it’s clear that, far from being accidental, the success of House Industries and its collaborations comes down to the obsessive, enthusiastic hard work and due diligence of wonderfully obsessive enthusiasts.
By Bernie Brooks for The Henry Ford Magazine, with photos by Carlos Alejandro.
House Industries, The Henry Ford Magazine, design, communication, by Bernie Brooks
This alphabet quilt, likely made in Berks County, Pennsylvania, dates from about 1910. THF168579 (Purchased through the Eleanor B. Safford Memorial Textile Fund.)
“A, B, C, D, E, F, G— H, I, J, K, L-M-N-O-P—.… Now I know my ABCs”
The alphabet song gave us a fun way to learn our ABCs—and the order of the letters. (I don’t know about you, but I sometimes still find myself singing it as I alphabetize something.) Even before kids head off to school, we not only sing the alphabet song to them, but surround them with images of alphabet letters—on building blocks, children’s dishes, and even, wallpaper—to help them learn their ABCs.
Alphabet letters also appear on quilts. Quilt block patterns published in the 20th century made it easier to plan and create these quilts. In 1906, Ladies Art Company, a mail order business that published hundreds of quilt patterns, offered a series of alphabet block designs. The Henry Ford’s alphabet quilt was likely made using these patterns.
The letters on this alphabet quilt may look like they are curved—but they are actually made up of triangles, squares, rectangles and trapezoids. The letter blocks were designed to avoid curved seams, which are more difficult to execute than these other geometric shapes. Yet, even using these Ladies Art Company patterns offered challenges. Some letters, like the G and Q, required more intricate piecing. Some quiltmakers simply deviated a bit in piecing the blocks for these, and other letters. Our quiltmaker managed the Q, but made a few small changes in creating the G.
Though working from the same pattern, each individual quiltmaker created her own unique quilt through her choice of fabric, the exact arrangement of the letter blocks, the design of the sashing and borders, and the quilt patterns used in the decorative corner blocks that complete the quilt. Some quiltmakers arranged the letter blocks in rows of three and five. Others placed them in four rows of five letter blocks—and then figured out what to do with the leftover Z! Our quilt maker tucked the Z into one corner, creating a delightfully whimsical effect.
We don’t really know who made this quilt, or who they made it for. But it is easy to imagine a child cuddling with this charming alphabet quilt—and learning his or her letters at the same time.
Continue ReadingPennsylvania, 20th century, quilts, making, design, by Jeanine Head Miller
"Seedy Weeds," Fabric Sample Designed by Ruth Adler Schnee, 1953. THF169002
Walking through the House Industries "A Type of Learning" exhibit in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation you're sure to notice the attention given to printed textiles, from kitchen tea towels to handmade dolls. The textiles created by the House Industries team are just one of their popular offerings and make us think about other well-known textiles that reside within our collections.
Another set of bold textiles that have broad appeal are those created by pioneering modern designer Ruth Adler Schnee. Her furnishing and drapery fabrics were favorites of the everyday consumer and leading architects alike, including Minoru Yamasaki, Paul Rudolph, and Buckminster Fuller. Adler Schnee’s textiles, which feature vivid color and abstracted organic forms, added whimsy and depth to the sleek, minimal aesthetic popular in the mid-century period.
Take a look at a few of Adler Schnee's pieces in The Henry Ford collections in this expert set.
Europe, Michigan, immigrants, 20th century, 1960s, 1950s, 1940s, women's history, furnishings, design
"Art Deco" refers to the artistic movement prominent during the inter-war period. The 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris was the launching point for the movement, as well as the inspiration for its name. The aesthetic was widely adopted, both geographically and across disciplines.
In this expert set, Art Deco in the Museum, you'll see examples of art deco artifacts that are on display in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, like this 1937 LaSalle Coupe found in Driving America.
In this expert set, Art Deco - Behind the Scenes, we've put together a collection of art deco-related artifacts, like the 1940 Sentinel Wafer Electric Clock that aren't currently on display but are in our digital collections.
Tray of Wood Type, circa 1840. THF159398
The Henry Ford and House Industries, two institutions committed to celebrating the spirit of innovation, joined forces to create House Industries: A Type of Learning, an exhibit in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation from May 27 through September 4, 2017.
Artifacts provided by House Industries and others are complemented by pieces from our own collections, like this tray of wood type from around 1840. These items can be seen in the exhibit or in this expert set. Regardless of where you see them for yourself, these artifacts showcasing design might just spark your own creative moment.
Thanks to Walter Dorwin Teague’s design, Texaco service stations projected a clean, modern and – perhaps most importantly – instantly recognizable image. (From the Collections of The Henry Ford.)
Walter Dorwin Teague’s Texaco Stations
Gasoline is a fiercely competitive business. We’ve all seen intersections with two, three, even four rival gas stations clumped together. Standing out from the crowd is a must. Over the years, retailers developed any number of ways to set themselves apart, including everything from unusual architecture to ultra-clean restrooms. Brand identity – in whatever form it might be – was an essential part of the business.
The Texas Company, better known by the portmanteau Texaco, had its origins in the great Spindletop, Texas, oil strike of 1901, which suddenly had the United States awash in cheap petroleum. Unlike its competitors, which focused on regional markets, Texaco was determined from the start to build itself into a national brand. By 1942, the company had 40,000 outlets spread across the country.
One of Teague’s Texaco stations in use – appropriately enough, in Texas. (John Margolies Roadside America Transparencies. From the Collections of The Henry Ford.)
In 1934, Texaco hired industrial designer Walter Dorwin Teague to create a fresh, unified look for the company’s service stations. Teague came up with a boxlike building covered in white porcelain enamel. Evocative of the then-popular streamlined look, Teague’s design simultaneously suggested speed, modernity and cleanliness. (And, with that porcelain exterior, it was easy to clean.) The gleaming white surface contrasted sharply with its surroundings, wherever the station was located, and readily caught motorists’ eyes. It was easy to illuminate at night, too – a significant benefit for retailers operating around the clock. In time, some 10,000 Teague stations were built across the United States, giving Texaco outlets a consistent appearance and identity.
The basic box building became popular with many of Texaco’s competitors, too. Eminently practical, the design provided space for an office/service counter, automobile service bays, storage, and the all-important restrooms. Furthermore, it could be expanded (or reduced), as business conditions warranted, without harming the building’s overall appearance.
By the 1970s, porcelain enamel was out and darker concrete, brick and wood surfaces were in. (John Margolies Roadside America Transparencies. From the Collections of The Henry Ford.)
But what was fresh and modern in the 1930s was, inevitably, dull and outdated within a few decades. In the 1960s, oil companies began to move away from bright porcelain boxes in favor of more subdued brick facades and gabled roofs. By the 1980s, the box plan itself was superseded by the larger convenience stores we still see today. But Walter Teague’s design lives on in the Driving America exhibit. Our Texaco station was built and operated in Kingston, Massachusetts, before it came to Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in 1987. The station may not be selling gas anymore, but the its gleaming porcelain still attracts plenty of visitors!
Matt Anderson is Curator of Transportation at The Henry Ford.
Driving America, Henry Ford Museum, roads and road trips, design, by Matt Anderson
The Henry Ford is the now the permanent home for an object that sets a new standard in both communication technology and fashion - the IBM Cognitive Dress.
The dress originally debuted at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Gala in May 2016 as a stunning custom gown designed by high-end women’s fashion designers Marchesa with the assistance of IBM’s Watson cognitive system. The dress has many layers of collaboration and interactivity: the initial research between IBM and Marchesa, the ability for an audience to influence its color through social media, and the ability for the dress to then communicate and display the data result back to the audience.
So, how does it work?
Watson is a cognitive technology--a form of computing that learns in a similar way to how humans learn. To make the dress interact with Watson, social media-responsive LEDs were sewn into its bodice and skirt. Utilizing Twitter and other social media feeds, Watson analyzes tweets and assigns an emotion based on the hashtags submitted, resulting in shifting color patterns across the garment’s materials.
The IBM Cognitive Dress is truly a smart design and a smart dress. The democratic appeal of social media has allowed the dress to become a significant part of today’s fashion industry. Fashion can now debut globally at an instantaneous rate--some companies go so far as to launch new collections using platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat.
by Kristen Gallerneaux, lighting, fashion, computers, communication, technology, design
Examining the social and economic context of The Henry Ford's rare Paul Revere teapot. Other examples can be seen in some of the country's premier art museums. THF 166148
Today, coffee and tea are enjoyed by millions of people, including blog readers. While connoisseurs of these beverages take their enjoyment very seriously, the relative affordability of these caffeinated drinks means that almost anyone can “benefit” from a caffeine boost and also enjoy their flavors. The resulting billion-dollar industries help power the world economy – and its workforce.
America has an especially close relationship with these drinks, one that dates back to before the country was formed. In modern times, coffee has dominated American tastes, but until the 20th century, Americans favored tea. Although still popular, tea drinking in America can be traced back to trade with China by Dutch merchants in the early 1600s.
Today, fast-paced Americans prefer their caffeinated beverages on the go, often consuming them from disposable drinkware. This is in marked contrast to colonial America, where these beverages would have been served from vessels made to impress and consumed as part of elaborate entertainments expressing the host’s good taste. THF 102595
Dutch traders not only introduced Chinese tea to their colony in present-day New York, but also introduced it to Europe. The hot drink quickly rose in popularity and by the end of the 1600s, tea became the most favored hot beverage in Britain. To support the mass consumption by its citizens at home and in its colonies, England became heavily involved in the China trade and the importation of tea.
As social customs evolved around the drinking of tea, so did the equipment used to consume the beverage. Wealthy citizens could afford to have their teapots fashioned in silver and silversmiths in the colonies, like Paul Revere, learned how to create silver designs from imported English examples. Son of Apollos Rivoire, a French immigrant and Boston silversmith, Paul Revere got his start as his father's apprentice. 
Pictured here, an English teakettle-on-stand. Paul Revere imitated designs from English silver objects and pattern books in order to create silver in the most fashionable styles. THF 155178
After his father died in 1754, Revere started his career producing a wide variety of silver objects, including elaborate teapots for his wealthier clients. By the 1760s, the colonies faced increased taxation as England attempted to pay off their war debt from the French and Indian War. High taxes on imports like tea angered colonists, resulting in boycotts that affected what Revere could produce as a silversmith.
These taxes led Revere to join a resistance group known as the "Sons of Liberty" whose members included some of his customers angered by the increased taxation. The organization helped fuel anti-British sentiment in the colonies and Revere aided the groups’ cause by printing propaganda that provoked colonist anger towards the Crown. 
As a member of the Sons of Liberty, Paul Revere helped energize the movement toward American independence by printing illustrations like this one of the Boston Massacre. An active citizen, he was part of numerous other civic organizations. THF 8141
In 1773, with tensions mounting, Paul Revere and the Sons of Liberty protested England's control over the tea trade by boarding recently docked British tea ships in the Boston harbor and dumping some of their tea chests overboard. The British responded to the event, known as the Boston Tea Party, by shutting the port of Boston and stripping the Massachusetts colony of its right to self-government.
War erupted in 1775 when Britain moved to seize the colonists' gunpowder and firearms outside of Boston. Revere made his famous midnight ride during this time to warn some of his fellow patriots that the British were on their way to arrest them. While patriot duties limited Paul Revere's silversmithing during the Revolutionary War, he returned to his craft as the war came to an end in the 1780s.
Post-war American silver customers preferred the neoclassical design that became popular in Europe during the war. In the years before the War, silver customers had preferred the Rococo style, an aesthetic known for its ornate decorations and curvilinear body designs. In contrast, neoclassical silver celebrated the classical style of Greece and Rome, making use of symmetry, hard lines, and an emphasis on simple forms. As a master craftsman, Revere developed an elegant and personal interpretation of the neoclassical style.
This 1782 teapot shows Revere’s experimentation with the neoclassical style.
The neoclassical teapot shown above was created in 1782 by Revere. Only six teapots featuring this cylindrical body are known to exist and were some of the last that Revere hand-forged, hammering or "raising" them up from a block of silver. In 1785 Revere acquired silver rolling machinery that he used to produce silver sheets. These sheets were cut to form standardized pieces and allowed Revere's shop to produce silver products more quickly. An example of a Revere teapot made from this later method can be seen in our collections here.
On the bottom of the 1782 teapot, the clear markings of Revere are stamped next to a monogram that can be attributed to Joseph and Sarah Henshaw of Boston. THF 166147
With the assistance of the Massachusetts Historical Society, home of the Revere Family Papers, Revere's own record books identified Joseph Henshaw as the patron for this teapot. The records show that on February 22, 1782 Paul Revere made a note that he needed to make a teapot and spoons for Joseph Henshaw. By April 27, 1782 it appears that Revere had completed the order and marked the weight of the teapot as "16-17". This weight of "16-17" can be seen scratched on the bottom of the teapot in the upper right of the picture above.
Joseph Henshaw was a prominent Boston merchant. With his wife Sarah, the two used their home to help plan further American resistance by occasionally hosting "Sons of Liberty" meetings. It was his membership in this radical group that led Joseph Henshaw to form a friendship with Paul Revere. While this teapot is a good representation of the tea culture that existed in the colonies, it is also a symbol of Revere and Henshaw's relationship, a relationship that helped establish the United States of America.
See more on Paul Revere's life from our Digital Collections in this expert set.
Ryan Jelso is Associate Curator, Digital Content, at The Henry Ford.
18th century, Massachusetts, making, design, decorative arts, by Ryan Jelso, beverages, #THFCuratorChat
Life is often a juggling act of work, play and family. While current-day clothiers experience the trials and tribulations of being small-town entrepreneurs in the big business of fashion, more than 100 years ago many women were facing similar circumstances, leaning on their sense of style to furnish a living.
In the late 1800s, Elizabeth Cohen had run a millinery store next to her husband’s dry goods store in Detroit. When he died and left her alone with a young family, she consolidated the shops under one roof. Living above the store, she was able to run a business and earn a living while staying near her children.
Cohen leveraged middle-class consumers’ growing fascination with fashion, using mass-produced components to create hats in the latest styles and to the individual tastes of customers. To attract business, resourceful store owners like Mrs. Cohen displayed goods in storefront windows and might have advertised through trade cards or by placing advertisements in newspapers, magazines or city directories.
“While Mrs. Cohen was more likely following fashion than creating it, it did take creativity and design skill,” Jeanine Head Miller, curator of domestic life at The Henry Ford, said of Cohen’s millinery prowess. “She was a small maker connecting with local customers in her community — a 19th-century version of Etsy, perhaps, but without the online reach.”
And she certainly gained independence and the satisfaction of supporting her family while selling the hats she created from the factory-produced components she acquired. “People can appreciate the widowed Elizabeth Cohen’s balancing act,” added Miller, “successfully caring for her children while earning a living during an era when fewer opportunities were available to women.”
Jennifer LaForce is a writer for The Henry Ford Magazine. This story originally appeared in the June-December 2016 issue.
19th century, women's history, The Henry Ford Magazine, shopping, Michigan, making, hats, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village, fashion, entrepreneurship, Detroit, design, Cohen Millinery, by Jennifer LaForce
