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Object Timeline

1999

  • Work on this object began.

2002

  • We acquired this object.

2014

2025

  • You found it!

Poster, Obsessive-Compulsive Design

This is a Poster. It was designed by Edward Fella. It is dated March 10, 1999 and we acquired it in 2002. Its medium is offset lithograph on cream wove paper. It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.

In the age of digital design, Edward Fella stepped away from the keyboard so to speak to create expressive typographic systems that resemble scribbled illustrations. Fella’s signature abstract fonts exhibited irregular spacing between letterforms that were often drawn-into, making his designs original and difficult to standardize. In Fella’s work, type is dynamic, moving around the page, breaking out of the grid through a non-conformist process similar to they style of this poster for an AIGA/NY event on “obsessive-compulsive design.”

This object was donated by Edward Fella. It is credited Gift of Edward Fella.

Our curators have highlighted 1 object that are related to this one.

Its dimensions are

H x W: 43.3 × 28.1 cm (17 1/16 × 11 1/16 in.)

It is inscribed

OCD Chair Scott Santoro Caress Text Monadnock Paper Mellow white eggshell Printed at PIP PRINTING Santa Clarita Valley CA AIGANY 164 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010

Cite this object as

Poster, Obsessive-Compulsive Design; Designed by Edward Fella (American, b. 1938); offset lithograph on cream wove paper; H x W: 43.3 × 28.1 cm (17 1/16 × 11 1/16 in.); Gift of Edward Fella; 2002-8-16

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If you would like to cite this object in a Wikipedia article please use the following template:

<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://www-4.collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18696147/ |title=Poster, Obsessive-Compulsive Design |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=10 March 2025 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>