In Common With ceramic lights

In Common With and Danny Kaplan Expand Their Earthy Ceramic Lighting Range

When In Common With debuted in 2018, the Brooklyn studio made their mark (no pun intended) by pairing sleek, machined lamp bases with ceramic shades that had been obviously, laboriously made by hand — pinch marks, bumps, and all. The studio soon found ways to make the shades faster and more efficient — and expanded their offerings to include glass and metal — but in a continued collaboration with ceramicist and fellow Brooklynite, Danny Kaplan, they have been able to recapture that earlier, earthier quality. The new collection, launching this week as part of NYCxDesign, combines the tactile qualities of hand- or wheel-thrown clay with the clean lines and minimal shapes that In Common With has made its signature into a kind of prehistoric minimalism.

“Although our work is different, there’s tremendous overlap in our references and design aesthetic,” said Kaplan, who has worked closely with the brand’s founders Nick Ozemba and Felicia Hung to expand their Terra collection, which originally debuted with six monochrome lights in 2020. The update adds eight additional designs, all with more geometric shapes than their sculptural predecessors, and a wider range of earth-toned glazes to choose from. There’s also a mirror — the brand’s first since its founding in 2017.

Evolved designs include the circular Augustus pendant, which is now available as a surface mount, and the Seneca table lamp, inspired by Roman torches, which returns with updated glaze options that include neutral Stone and dark Anthracite, as well as the rich, earthy, sometimes delightfully irregular shades of Lapis, Chestnut and Ivy. A handful of the new designs are topped with tiny brass balls. In the three-foot-tall tapering Paloma and chunky, slab-built, disc-shaped Cassia pendants, these balls connect to brass suspension rods; for the totemic Helena floor and table lamps, they double as dimmer switches. A minimal square wall sconce called Luca and a thin, bowl-shaped fixture named Cadmus round out the collection.

LIFESTYLE PHOTOS BY WILLIAM JESS LAIRD