The Chicago Design Museum (June 2012) invited the Chicago Design Archive committee to submit a film to be played along side their exhibitions. The CDA featured the 27 Chicago Designers promotional books to show a sample of the changing design styles in Chicago. Some of the 27 Chicago Designers work is, in fact, included in the Archive collection, but not identified as such.
The 27 Chicago Designers, founded in 1936, and continuing to 1991, was dedicated to promoting the work of its members—illustrators, typographers, photographers and designers—to design buyers. Important founders were type designers Oswald Cooper and R. Hunter Middleton. The collaborative effort that included 4-page inserts by each member produced what might have been the first source book for design in the US. Selections for the exhibition include work by the 27 that appears in the CDA and additonal work scanned from some of the books that were produced over fifty-five years.
