Colorful geometric design objects by Schneid

Colorful, Geometric Designs by a German Studio On the Rise

Though Julia Mülling and Niklas Jessen of the German studio Schneid consider themselves makers of all things — from textiles to furniture to the amazing, stackable dishware set above — it’s lighting that fills the majority of their portfolio. Creating a lamp, they say, “feels very free, almost like making a piece of art — where you don’t have to follow the rules like when you design a chair.” So it’s no wonder that when we ask who their influences might be, they don’t first cite Ettore Sottsass or some other member of the Memphis Group who could have inspired their colorful, totemic Junit series, but rather light artists like James Turrell and Olafur Eliasson. “When you see their art, you realize how affected you can be by the use of light and color,” Mülling says. “That’s very inspirational to us.
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Ladies & Gentlemen's Brooklyn studio

Playing Around With the Cool Kids of American Design

Inside the experimental playground that is Ladies & Gentlemen's new Brooklyn studio: “All of our work is an evolution of itself,” says Dylan Davis, one-half of the up-and-coming design couple. Shapes on a piece of jewelry might lead to a geometric take on lighting; that, in turn, might inspire the assorted forms suspended on a mobile. However distinct, each piece is unmistakably linked to the next, joined by an understated elegance and what the two refer to as "playful austerity." “We try to embrace that feeling you had as a kid when you got to really explore,” Davis says. “Our goal is to take that spirit of play and figure out how to use it professionally.”
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lava rock design lamps

Lava Rock — So Hot Right Now

The Guadalajara-based studio Peca made coasters out of it. Formafantasma paired it with more refined materials like brass and glass. Aleks Pollner and Adrien Rovero are obsessed with it. Now, the latest designer to be inspired by plucking basalt from the earth and fashioning it into something, well, fashionable is Laura Bilde, a furniture and interior design student from Denmark who sent us this seriously on-trend lighting series this week.
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Our Top 10 Finds From Maison & Objet

In the spring edition of the fair, we found refreshing colorways (so long neon and pastels!) and sophisticated sensibilities. If you didn’t get chance to visit the French capital, never fear: Behold our guide to the best furniture finds and more from the week.
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Week of January 25, 2016

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: Everything old is new again: midcentury-inspired lamps (like the gorgeous one by Toronto's Lightmaker Studio, above), Memphis-inspired tea trolleys, and an ancient Japanese tray garden re-imagined as a post-industrial panorama.
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Design Miami neon lamps

Design Miami Sneak Peek: Sabine Marcelis’s New Resin and Neon Lamps

If there's one thing we've always hated about Miami, aesthetically speaking, it's all the neon signs. Yet they're a big part of the city's visual identity, making it all the more fitting that at this year's Design Miami show, Belgium's Victor Hunt gallery will be exhibiting a brand new edition of Eindhoven grad Sabine Marcelis's neon and cast-resin lamps — the Dawn series — that offers a moment of redemption for those gaudy illuminated tubes.
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Norwegian Furniture Designer Silje Nesdal

This week we're showcasing three Norwegian studios showing new work as part of this year's 100% Norway at the London Design Festival. First up is Silje Nesdal, who began her career with a short stint in fashion and textiles, then incorporated those skills into a furniture practice, creating objects that are functional and honest in their construction.
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Week of August 24, 2015

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: fall previews from NYABF and Maison et Objet, a new place to score succulents in Scandinavia, and a serious showing of Aussie design power, including a new collection from Melbourne furniture-maker Fred Ganim, above.
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Node Lights by Amsterdam’s Odd Matter

The young Amsterdam-based duo Odd Matter, who we mentioned today in a separate post dedicated to their new work at Aram Gallery, have been busy bees lately. In addition to that project, the Dutch and Bulgarian designers recently launched a series called Node, which includes four highly expressive, sculptural lamps in copper and Jesmonite with forms designed to underscore their functions.
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Italian Product Designer Giorgia Zanellato

About six or seven years ago, when Jill and I were still editors at the late, great I.D. magazine, we had a gut feeling that something was happening in Italian design. For years its reputation had been seemingly stuck in the '80s — no one ever, ever talked about its contemporary scene — and yet suddenly we were seeing a few young talents pop up here and there. We commissioned a story on the subject, but despite our prescience (as evidenced in part by the subsequent head-spinning rise of Luca Nichetto), we missed something seriously major: Fabrica. Neither of us realized the impact its residency program and Sam Baron–led design studio would have in nurturing Italy's brightest new voices, from Matteo Cibic to Matteo Zorzenoni to today's subject, Giorgia Zanellato.
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A Tour of the 2015 Show: Part II

...In which we show you the rest of the incredible work we presented this year at Sight Unseen OFFSITE, which took place at Hudson Mercantile and featured the work of more than 100 designers, who hailed from places as varied as Los Angeles, Vancouver, Indianapolis, St. Augustine, FL, Detroit, Seattle, Montreal, and, of course, Brooklyn. If you happened to miss it — or if you just want to relive the glory — check out our slideshow after the jump, which features all of the studios that exhibited on the 6th floor of our show.
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A Tour of the 2015 Show: Part I

As anyone who's ever made an album knows, sophomore efforts are by far the toughest to pull off. And so, even though we here at Sight Unseen have been putting together a major Design Week showcase in some way or another since 2010, this year marked only our second outing as Sight Unseen OFFSITE, which debuted last year to enormous fanfare and praise.
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