Abstract design of an orange triangle with a white zigzag shape on a blue background. 

This illustration is part of a series of buttons that were distributed at the Park Place Gallery in New York, the first art gallery in SoHo. According to an Art in America article, they were given out during the opening show in 1966 at a party for the Rolling Stones at the Scene discotheque. The designs were created by different artists including Dean Fleming, Tony Magar, Tamara Melcher, Patsy Krebs, and Steve Vasey. According to Fleming, the colorful geometric designs encourage the viewer to interpret the art in their own way.

Color portrait of a woman in profile wearing a green hat with yellow tassels and a green and yellow blouse with flowers in her hair on a dark green background. 

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Black and white illustration of an orca whale on a white background. 

The Orca, known colloquially as the Killer Whale, is the largest member of the dolphin family. Orcas are considered to be one of the world’s most ferocious predators, subsisting on a diet of other marine mammals—seals, sea lions, and other species of whales—as well as fish, squid, and sometimes sea birds. Orcas are easily recognizable due to their distinctive black and white coloring, and are highly intelligent and cunning. They travel in pods of up to 40, and use echolocation to communicate and strategize when hunting. Orca pods are led by a dominant female, and scientists believe that each pod develops its own unique way of communicating, similar to a dialect. Orcas have not been hunted extensively, however populations in North America, Iceland, and Japan have dwindled significantly due to live capture for placement in marine parks and aquariums. 

Black and white illustration of a blue whale on a white background. 

The Blue Whale, at approximately 100 feet in length and 200 tons, is the largest known animal ever to have lived on Earth. A blue whale’s tongue alone is larger than an elephant; its heart is larger than an average-sized car. Despite their large size, blue whales are not aggressive predators. Rather, they subsist on a diet of almost solely krill—tiny shrimp-like animals. Blue whales usually swim alone or in pairs, and can be found in all the oceans around the world. In addition to owning the title of largest animal, blue whales are also considered the loudest animals on earth. Like other whales and dolphins, blue whales use groans and pulses to both navigate and communicate.

Blue whales have few natural predators, however they were driven to near extinction by the mid-20th century due to aggressive hunting. They became a protected species in 1966, and though populations have grown to some extent since then, as of 2015, the blue whale is still officially classified as an endangered species. It is thought that there are between 10,000 to 25,000 of these gentle giants currently living in the wild.

Painting of a train on a bridge with smoke coming out of the train. Button has different shades of blue.

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Red illustration of a man sitting in a bathtub with yellow text on the bathtub on a yellow background. 

Promotional item for the Broadway play You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running, a series of four one-act comedy plays by Robert Anderson. 

Abstract design of a red circle inside of a yellow multi-pointed star shape on a black background. 

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Illustration of a man's head with his mouth wide open and tongue sticking out with yellow text on a blue background. 

This button is from the 1965 series of LEAF "Fink Buttons" illustrated by popular Mid-Century artist Basil Wolverton. Perhaps best known for his work at MAD Magazine, Basil Wolverton (July 9, 1909 – December 31, 1978) was an American cartoonist and illustrator famous for his humorously grotesque drawings. Wolverton worked in the "Golden Age" of comic books doing features like "Powerhouse Pepper" and "Spacehawk" in the 1940s. A 2009 New York Times article states that Wolverton’s drawings embodied the “sick-and-proud humor” of MAD magazine and were considered a “virtuoso exercise in bad taste, made all the weirder for being so meticulously executed.” 

Abstract design of overlapping black spirals on a white background. 

The visual distortion in the spiral optical illusion design is caused by combining a regular line pattern (the circles) with misaligned parts (the black and white dashes),  so the spiral appears to be in motion. Some artists who have worked with optical illusions include M. C. Escher, Bridget Riley, Salvador Dalí, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Marcel Duchamp, Oscar Reutersvärd, Victor Vasarely and Charles Allan Gilbert. 

This design was produced by the Underground Uplift Unlimited, a slogan button and poster head shop ran by Randolfe Wicker on St. Marks Place in East Village between 1967 and 1971. Wicker closed the shop after becoming disillusioned with pot and psychedelic culture.

Illustration of a smiling man's face with a wrinkly forehead; when the button is turned upside down the man is frowning. Black and red text on a white background.

Advertisement for Champion, an American brand of spark plugs. Champion was a Fortune 500 company founded in Boston in 1908. Their National Spark Plugs Change Week became the accepted time for car dealers and mechanics across the country to perform spark plug checks.