Lift off for Space Age show

An exhibition celebrating the space age launched at the V&A Museum of Childhood in London on Saturday (24 November).

Space Age: Exploration, Design and Popular Culture has been created by Designmap. Covering five themes – home, technology, fantasy, fashion and space exploration – the exhibition aims to explore the influence of the space age on popular culture.

The exhibition features more than 300 objects, including an original cosmonaut suit, an Indo-Persian celestial globe showing stars and constellations, a model of SpaceShipOne, which is predicted to be the first space craft designed to take tourists to space, packets of NASA space food and a gravity-defying Fisher Space Pen.

The 1967 Pastilli Chair and iconic toys such as the 1960s Marx’s clockwork Moon Creatures also feature in the collection.

Designmap says in a statement, ‘Our design treatment acknowledges iconic designers and designs from the space race era. The main theme structures are inspired by [Stanley] Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, while the graphic design references Verner Panton, Pierre Cardin and Eero Aarnio. Our typographic style also relates closely to the subject. Headline font Eurostile was designed in 1962, the year the first human orbited the earth. Text font Helvetica was designed in 1957, the year Sputnik 1 was launched.’

Space Age: Exploration, Design and Popular Culture runs until 6 April 2008 before going on a UK tour.