Great design is like the Bill of Rights. We get so used to having it around, we don’t even think about it anymore. And as much as we might complain about what we don’t like, much of New York is fantastically thought-out. Street signs, dinner china, perfume bottles, sofa fabrics; we forget that, at some point, someone put serious effort into making the mundane beautiful. Here, we pay tribute to nine New Yorkers who changed—and are still changing—the way we look at our world, from centenarian ceramist Eva Zeisel to graphic iconoclast Fabien Baron. It was a mighty struggle to narrow it down, of course, but our pages aren’t infinite (this is a visual issue after all). We squeezed in 25 more luminaries who’ve also adjusted our collective lens.

Related:

• Archive: “Features”
• Articles by David Colman
• Table of Contents: October 29, 2007 issue of New York | Subscribe!