Along with his colleagues Charles and Ray Eames and George Nelson, Alexander Girard was one of the leading figures in American design during the postwar era. While textile design was the primary focus of Girard's oeuvre, he was also admired for his work in the graphic arts as well as furniture, exhibition and interior design. Girard brought a sensuous playfulness to twentieth-century design that had been absent from the austere aesthetic of classic modernism.

On his extensive travels, Girard avidly collected textiles and folk art from all over the world. He bequeathed a major portion of these objects to the Vitra Design Museum in 1993, together with the contents of his studio, which encompassed hundreds of drawings, prototypes and samples. One of the graphic designs in the museum holdings depicts a smiling sun. Created by Alexander Girard for various applications, it has been selected by Vitra in cooperation with the Girard family as a motif for a metal key ring.