The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) and its Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography have collaborated to contribute approximately 1350 images, mainly of graphic design from 1950-1980, to the Artstor Digital Library.

The Lubalin Center, named for the groundbreaking graphic designer Herb Lubalin (1918-1981), is a division of the Cooper Union School of Art which seeks to electronically preserve and disseminate material related to the history and theory of graphic design. The focus of the Lubalin Center’s activities, including the effort represented by the former National Graphic Design Image Database, has been to provide access to materials related to the history of visual communication in the 20th century and to encourage interdisciplinary studies of visual history and communication. The selection in Artstor has been drawn from this database.

“An online resource devoted to the history as well as the most advanced contemporary forms of graphic design is essential to students, faculty and practitioners hungry for this visual stimulation. Artstor’s effort to resurrect the former National Graphic Design Image Database would be a most needed and desired start!” — Sheila de Bretteville, Professor of Graphic Design at Yale University, designer and public artist.

The Cooper Union, established in 1859, is among the nation’s oldest institutions of higher learning. A legacy of the industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper (1791–1883), the Cooper Union is a private college, with a universal and generous scholarship program dedicated exclusively to preparing students for the professions of art, architecture, and engineering. Since opening in 1985, the Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography has served as a hands–on research facility for students, faculty, design professionals, and the public, as well as a multifaceted resource devoted to the documentation and preservation of the history of graphic design.