MoMA Design Store to Launch Products Designed by Students from SVA’s Product of Design Program

January 31, 2018, New York, NY— MoMA Design Store is pleased to announce the launch of products designed by students from SVA’s Product of Design Program. The collection will be available through the MoMA Design Store and online at store.moma.org starting February 2018.

MoMA Design Store has an ongoing collaboration with MFA Products of Design program students at the School of Visual Arts to solve problems and create fresh new designs on topics as varied as gifting, entertainment, travel and the workspace. For 2018 MoMA Design Store has produced the most exciting of the resulting designs and is delighted to bring them to market. The partnership, now in its fourth year, invites Products of Design students to pitch and prototype their ideas with the guidance of MoMA mentors, who during their year-long exchange with the students, decide which products to manufacture. 

A number of the designs were the result of student’s being tasked with creating products that enhance the experience of dining. These inspired products, including the new Divine Proportion Bottle Opener by Oscar Pipson, Multi-ccino Coffee Cup by Josh Corn, Tic-Tac-Trivet by Alexa Forney, Ambi Chopstick Set by Oscar de la Hera Gomez, and the best-selling Geo Stacking Coasters by Panisa Khunprasert, as well as the gifting inspired Illusion Spinner by Oscar de la Hera Gomez will be featured in MoMA Design Store’s flagship and SoHo location windows in April 2018.

The mutually-beneficial partnership produces “some of the highest volumes of products we’ve moved forward with,” says Gabrielle Zola, Manager of Business Development at MoMA, who, along with Chay Costello, Associate Director of Merchandising at MoMA, meets with the students throughout the year to critique their ideas.

As MoMA's only design collaboration with an academic institution, one of the greatest benefits of the partnership for the museum is being involved in the earliest stages of the design process. “The dialogue we have with the students is invaluable,” Costello says. “We regularly challenge one another’s assumptions about design and its role in our daily lives.”

​In addition to receiving royalties from sales, the partnership offers students rare insight into the business side of product development.

Developing products for MoMA encourages student's imaginations to soar. “It was a chance to let the hair down, put the academics to one side . . . get your hands dirty and have fun,” says Oscar Pipson (MFA 2016 Products of Design) whose Divine Proportion Bottle Opener was manufactured by MoMA.

“We cherish this relationship,” says MFA Products of Design Chair Allan Chochinov, who initiated the arrangement in 2013 thanks to the suggestion by Paola Antonelli, a department faculty member and Senior Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA. “A product has to meet the highest standards of design and manufacturing quality to receive the MoMA logo. To be the only academic program with this type of institutional partnership with MoMA is an extraordinary honor and a tremendous opportunity for our students.”

For more information about MoMA x PoD products, visit store.moma.org. For more news about the partnership and other MFA Products of Design initiatives, visit productsofdesign.sva.edu.

The MFA in Products of Design is an immersive, two-year graduate program that creates exceptional practitioners for leadership in the shifting terrain of design. Located in the center of New York City, we educate heads, hearts and hands to reinvent systems and catalyze positive change. Graduates emerge with confidence, methods, experience and strong professional networks. They gain the skills necessary to excel in senior positions at top design firms and progressive organizations, to create ingenious enterprises of their own, and to become lifelong advocates for the power of design. 

School of Visual Arts has been a leader in the education of artists, designers and creative professionals for seven decades. With a faculty of distinguished working professionals, a dynamic curriculum and an emphasis on critical thinking, SVA is a catalyst for innovation and social responsibility. Comprising 6,000 students at its Manhattan campus and 35,000 alumni in 100 countries, SVA also represents one of the most influential artistic communities in the world. For information about the College’s 32 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, visit sva.edu.

MoMA Design Store offers curator-approved products that bring quality, creativity, and design innovation to everyday living. Every purchase supports groundbreaking exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), a wide range of education programs, and the preservation of the Museum's collection. In 1932, MoMA was the first art museum to establish a curatorial department dedicated to Architecture & Design, and by mid-century, it was playing a leading role in defining and promoting the values of “Good Design,” which MoMA Design Store continues to champion. Shop online at store.moma.org, or at our locations in SoHo, on 53rd Street, and within The Museum in New York City.