David Stark Sketchbook: “OMG. It looks just like the rendering!” : The Cooper-Hewitt's National Design Awards

In 1981, my parents took me to see an exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, “Puppets – Art and Entertainment.” What a mind blowing affect that show had on me! I was simply transfixed and have had puppets and the Cooper Hewitt on my brain ever since.

It is with great love and pride that almost 30 years later, my team and I collaborate with the Museum on their National Design Awards Gala. As a child, I would never have predicted a full circle relationship with the institution – never in a million years.

We had a mean task in front of us to top last year’s décor in which a year’s worth of our shredded office paper waste was turned into a stylized “Garden of Versailles” to great critical delight. With expectations for this year’s gala high, we embarked on a new take on “green” entertaining, making the décor entirely out of the typical items that that we rent from Party Rental – chairs, cushions, plates, coffee mugs, and the like all to be returned to the rental company after the party. Nothing gets thrown away. There’s no waste. Someone else rents these same elements for another event after (albeit used in a different way!).

Conceived as a topsy-turvy Alice In Wonderland tea party, this year we delved into glorious COLOR – all colors. In previous years, in contrast, palettes were cool and modern – black and white, as if the décor was stating, “This is SERIOUS design, you know!”

But serious design can be delivered with humor, can be colorful. And right about now, when the world is shouldering the deep burdens of imploding economies, we all could use a little rainbow, right?! I am happy to report that at least for the night, our rainbows made the most serious and important members of the design community smile and forget whatever woes were nagging them.

The entry to the grand dining tent was framed by a vivid archway created from hundreds of Party Rental seat cushions.

A couple of months prior to installing the décor, Melissa’s client rendering beautifully foreshadowed the look and feel of the fantasy setting.

A topsy-turvy world of seat cushion rainbows, grand table cloth lampshades, and floating teapots suspended in mid pour were all created from thousands of rental items from Party Rental, all returned the next day. Waste not, want not!