The collection consists of examples of product packaging designed by Mahler and others. The packaging is for products such as snack foods, motor oil, tobacco products, and sport equipment.
Content Description:
The collection consists of examples of product packaging designed by Mahler and others. The packaging is for products such as snack foods, motor oil, tobacco products, and sport equipment. Also included are marketing guidelines and design parameters regarding particular product packaging, with photographs.
Provenance:
Collection donated to the Archives Center in 2019 by Steven Mahler.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Reproduction permission from Archives Center: fees for commercial use.
The project files include booklets: "Elements of Design" (1953-54); "Appearance Design" (1954); packaging and label designs and prototypes, photographs of drawing machinery, clippings, and misc. designs and printed advertisements for shoes, antennas, and candies.,This collection documents Hombordy's work as a graphics designer in the late 1940s and 1950s while employed at A.W. Lewin, General Electric, and Houbigant, Inc.
Arrangement:
Unprocessed; The archive material consists of labels, booklets, drawings, photographs and printed materials related to Hanna Lore Hombordy's work while employed at A.W. Lewin advertising agency, General Electric and Houbigant, Inc. in the 1940s-1950s.
Biographical / Historical:
Hanna Lore Hombordy (née Galle) holds a BFA, with honors, from the School of Art and Design, Pratt Institute, New York. Before moving to Ventura, Calif. in 1973 her main occupation was in the field of creative design and graphic arts. She was employed as a designer by General Electric Co. in the Appearance and Design department; Houbigant, Inc. doing packaging design; and advertising agencies in New York doing catalog design, newspaper ads, and illustrations. Since 1973 most of her art has been three-dimensional.
Recent work has been included in twenty national juried shows and in 1987 she received the Monarch Best Tile Award. In California, she won an Award of Merit at the State Fair. Locally, she has received numerous awards, among them 1st place in the Thousand Oaks City Competition, the Oxnard Art Association Competition, the Ventura Assembly of the Arts and the Ventura County Fair. She has had fourteen solo exhibits in the southern California area. Hombordy works at her studio home in Ventura, Calif. She creates clay and sculpture and vessels as well as decorative custom tiles and house numbers. She does research and experimental work in clay and uncommon fine art materials such as expanded polystyrene foam. Discoveries in airbrushing on clay are documented in the December 1991 issue of Ceramics Monthly. An article on her work has been published in Ceramic Review, the British ceramics magazine. Recent publications include: Pottery Making Illustrated (Spring 1999) and Clay Times (November 2000 and 2001).
Related Archival Materials:
Works by Hombordy are in the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art collection in Logan, Utah; Moorpark College, UCSD, Santa Paula Savings and Loan, and Monarch Tile Co., in Texas.
Provenance:
Collection donated by Hanna Lore Hombordy in 1993.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but is stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Project files containmagazine and newspaper clippings, reviews, correspondence, renderings, floor plans, perspective drawings, site plans, sketches, preliminary drawings, patents, stationery, labels, and technical reports. There is an extensive collection of photographs and slides of many of Deskey's packaging designs, interiors, furnishings, and exhibition installations. The files of Donald Deskey Associates include organizational charts, client files, proposals, and financial records. Some of Deskey's personal correspondence, speeches, articles, and family photographs are included. Materials cover the period from 1927-1975.
Arrangement note:
Arranged into six records groups: 1) architecture/interiors projects; 2)Donald Deskey Associates; 3) industrial design projects; 4) reference; 5) Donald Deskey's personal papers; and 6) photographs. A special collection of more than one thousand slides of Deskey's work are boxed separately.
Biographical/Historical note:
Industrial, interior, and packaging designer. Born Blue Earth, Minnesota, November 23, 1894. By 1943, he had established Donald Deskey Associates in New York. Along with Dreyfuss, Bel Geddes, and Loewy, Deskey was one of the great industrial design pioneers in the 1930s.
He is best known for his designs for the furnishings and interiors of Radio City Music Hall in 1932, and for his work for companies such as: Widdicomb Furniture Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan; W & J Sloane, New York; and Estey Manufacturing Company, Owosso, Michigan. Deskey is also known for his familiar packaging designs for Procter & Gamble products, such as Crest toothpaste, Prell shampoo, and Tide detergent.
Donald Deskey Associates also was responsible for lamppost #10, the streetlight still in use today in New York City. Materials from this archival collection were featured in Cooper-Hewitt's 1994 exhibition and accompanying book, "Packaging the New: Design and the American Consumer, 1925- 1975."
Location of Other Archival Materials Note:
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Drawings and Prints Department. Approximately 3,000 drawings for furniture and textile designs.
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Applied Arts Department. Two tables, handles, and a glass bottle and box designed by Deskey.
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Textiles Department. One textile designed by Deskey.
Other sources of archival information on Deskey include, the Procter & Gamble Archive, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Deskey Associates, New York City.
Provenance:
The Deskey collection was donated to the museum in three installments.
In 1975, Deskey deposited at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum,, hundreds of drawings, 3 four-drawer file cabinets of material, and several oversized packages comprising the bulk of his papers covering the period from 1927-1965. These items were officially donated to the museum in 1988.
In 1992, Deskey Associates of New York made an additional gift consisting of, approximately 1,000 35mm slides that documented projects from the 1960s through 1980s, and focused primarily on designs for packaging.
In 1994, Donald Deskey's nephew, Robert Deskey presented the Museum with, 120 postcards, letters, and family photographs.
Restrictions:
Unrestricted research use onsite by appointment. Permission of staff required to photograph materials.
