Sunday's New York Times featured an extra-large insert on design.? Most of the articles therein dealt with uber-modern furniture, clothes I would never dream of wearing, chic buildings on the Upper West Side, etc.? Not my speed.

As I leafed through it anyway (it was a lazy, rainy Monday in Boston where I was staying), I came across a short article on an upcoming exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York.? Design for the Other 90% will open on May 4 and run through the summer.? If you're in New York this summer (and I mean the city, not the Hamptons), be sure to check it out.? From the web site:

...this exhibition highlights the growing trend among designers to create affordable and socially responsible objects for the vast majority of the world's population (90 percent) not traditionally serviced by professional designers. Organized by exhibition curator Cynthia E. Smith, along with an eight-member advisory council, the exhibition is divided into sections focusing on food, water, shelter, health and sanitation, education, energy and transportation and highlights objects developed to empower global populations surviving under the poverty level or recovering from a natural disaster.