07.29.21

Excerpt: Exhibition

This Exhibition Shows How Cranbrook Helped Pioneer the Cross-Disciplinary, Craft-Based, Experimental Design and Art of Today

Most people know the highlights of the Cranbrook Academy of Art’s storied 90-year history, from its campus by Eliel Saarinen to its role as a breeding ground for the stars of mid-century modernism. But in June, the school launched the results of a four-year deep-dive into its own history — in the form of a sprawling exhibition and a 600-page book, both called With Eyes Opened — that offer a much more nuanced view of Cranbrook’s game-changing influence. We spoke with curator Andrew Blauvelt about 6 artworks and objects by varied practitioners that were part of that narrative.

More

07.28.21

Up and Coming

Lewis Kemmenoe’s Debut Collection Features One Very Of-the-Moment Material

“For as long as I remember I loved just making things,” says London-based designer Lewis Kemmenoe. “My parents told me that when I was eight, I begged them to let me go to art school, right there and then.” He may not have matriculated quite as early as he had hoped, but Kemmenoe eventually enrolled in Central Saint Martins to study Fine Art. Eighteen months ago, he began working on his first collection of furniture, a series of chairs, tables, shelving, and lighting in burl veneer, plywood, and timber — either left in its natural state or stained with linseed to highlight the grain.

More

07.26.21

Sighted

With Prints Inspired By Art-Store Pen-Test Doodles, These Curtains Are ‘Free and Wild’

Sarah Illenberger has a talent for recontextualizing everyday items in ways that are deceptively simple, yet at the same time so clever that there's an irresistible kind of magic in it. The same is true for her new collaboration with Danish textile purveyor Kvadrat, a series of three vibrant curtain panels created by scanning the little pads of paper people test pens on in stationery stores — the unremarkable made remarkable, through little more than a flash of creative inspiration and a change in scale.

More

07.24.21

Saturday Selects

Week of July 19, 2021

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: a red Formica table — two things that are experiencing a resurgence — yet another club chair on ball feet, and a collection of textiles that reference everyone's favorite design couple, Josef and Anni Albers.

More

04.03.20

Current Obsession

Get Ready to See This Classic Pattern Everywhere

We first realized a checkerboard trend was happening last fall, and have since amassed a folder full of images that grows bigger by the week, as we see the pattern flying by on the Instagram accounts of fashion brands, interior designers, and shops. Today we've prepared a roundup of our favorite examples of the trend, but prepare yourself for a lot more — despite faint echoes of bad '80s interiors and ska bands, trust us, it's coming.

More

07.23.21

Eye Candy

This Vancouver-Based Lifestyle and Floral Shop is At Once Unruly and Refined

The floral arranging element of the new lifestyle shop Cadine presented a logistical challenge for Vancouver-based interiors studio Ste Marie, but it also provided the main source of inspiration for the space. The gentle curves found throughout are meant to evoke a frond swaying in the wind, while organic forms typically found in nature are replicated in the material choices.

More

07.21.21

Q+A

In His Debut Exhibition, Minjae Kim Explores Identity and Getting Lost in Cultural Translation

The objects Minjae Kim has created for his debut solo exhibition at Marta in Los Angeles are a take on his own preconceptions about Western or Euro-centric culture, which — now having lived in the US for most of his adult life after growing up in Korea — he describes as akin to “being in two places at one.”

More

07.19.21

Up and Coming

This Czech Glass Designer Revived a 200-Year-Old Tradition For His Latest Collection

Lukas Novák's glass works are the result of a 200-year-old process called Lithyaline the young craftsman has revived for the collection, in which he melts down rocks and minerals and incorporates them into the molten glass before blowing them into a beech wood mold.

More

07.17.21

Saturday Selects

Week of July 12, 2021

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: a rainbow-colored housewares store in Berlin, the latest extruded-plastic works by James Shaw, a group show of vases by 19 ceramicists, and a highlight from this year's Design Parade in France (above).

More

07.15.21

From the Archives

These Playful Postmodern Clocks and Their Late Designer, Vit Cimbura, Are Finally Getting Their Due

Earlier this year, a somewhat forgotten Postmodern designer named Vít Cimbura died. A member of the iconic Postmodern group Atika, Cimbura decided at the end of the 1980s to channel his criticism of Communism through a series of experimental Postmodern creations that balanced on the edge of kitsch. The Prague-based gallery, Okolo, pays tribute to Cimbura’s work this month in an exhibition of clocks, which formed an important part of his life's work.

More

07.14.21

Graphic Design

A Playful Pét-nat, and Other Graphic Design Picks for July

Each month The Brand Identity shares with our readers a selection of the most interesting studios, packaging designs, and branding and identity projects featured recently on their site. This month: Colorful packaging for a sustainable beauty line, a photographer with a font inspired by the early 1900s, and a playful identity for a Ukranian wine brand (above).

More

07.12.21

Up and Coming

A Rollicking New Collection Inspired by Lollipops, Wine, and Pancakes for Dinner

Usually, says Jack Fearon of Brothers Fearon Fabrication, he comes up with designs that he would like for his own home, like their first collection: a series of thick-legged side tables and stools whose silhouettes resembled the hip crease of a human body. But the brothers' latest collection came from Jack imagining what his four-month-old daughter would think is cool.

More