Laura Houseley on Ready Made Go at the London Design Festival

Last week's London Design Festival included plenty of beautiful objects thoughtfully displayed on pedestals or on gallery walls. But possibly even more compelling was the setup at the Ace Hotel's Ready Made Go exhibition, curated by Laura Houseley of Modern Design Review magazine, where visitors could experience a handful of new designs by local up-and-comers actually put to work in their intended habitat.
More

Norwegian Product Designers Gunzler Polmar

Gunzler Polmar, led by ceramicist Victoria Gunzler and furniture designer Sara Wright Polmar, haven't churned out a ton of work just yet, but the projects they have designed — including their new textile series launched this week at 100% Norway in London — display an eye for form, proportion, and material that certainly merits further attention.
More

Norwegian Product Designers Stokke Austad

It's a bit strange to call Stokke Austad Up and Coming, especially since their current project list includes the interior design for a major new wing of Oslo's airport. But this week we're spotlighting three of our favorite studios presenting new work at this year's edition of 100% Norway at the London Design Festival, and we'd be remiss if we didn't include them in that list.
More

Tetra, A Designer Smoking Accessories Shop

Launched yesterday, Tetra is the first shop devoted entirely to beautiful smoking accessories like lighters, ashtrays, and incense burners — objects that have either have never before been aggregated in one place, or, more often, have been neglected by design entirely. Marianne Brandt, Enzo Mari, and Dieter Rams created incredibly sleek smoking accoutrements for the home in the '50s and '60s, and Tetra's intent is to revive that tradition in a contemporary way.
More

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.
More

Week of September 14, 2015

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: A series of things we never dreamed we'd be able to buy (a huggable Greek column, an original Sottsass pen), a special guest report from Maison et Objet, and the most beautiful sculpture we've seen in ages, pictured above, spotted at Art Berlin Contemporary.
More

James Hyde’s Varieties of Useful Experience at Volume Gallery

He just opened a sprawling solo show at the Chicago design gallery Volume, but if you're not familiar with the work of James Hyde — or at least not to the degree of other Volume alums like Jonathan Nesci, Tanya Aguiñiga, or Stephen Burks — you're not alone. And in fact, that's kind of the point: Hyde, who began his career in New York in the '70s, is a painter, and even when his works take the form of sofas or lamps, they remain squarely in the realm of art.
More
Antiquing in Hudson

Patrick Parrish and Alex Gilbert, Antiquing in Hudson

On a recent blazing-hot Saturday afternoon, we joined Artsy's Alex Gilbert and gallerist Patrick Parrish on an antiquing trip along Warren Street in Hudson, New York, documenting all the objects and furnishings that managed to stop the couple in their tracks, which — considering their level of expertise — is no easy feat. See their favorite finds after the jump.
More

From Ode To Things

Ode to Things stocks a tightly edited selection of water glasses, trivets, utility hooks, and notepads that share a common, stripped-down design language and are, above all, eminently useful. We picked our eight favorites.
More

Atlanta Artist Christopher Derek Bruno

The art of Atlanta's Christopher Derek Bruno — which hews mostly toward rainbow lenticular wall sculptures that change color and form depending on the vantage point of the viewer, like the piece above he recently installed in Dolby's San Francisco headquarters — has almost as much movement and dimension and physicality as his furniture.
More

Atlanta Artist Kevin Byrd

Dazzle camouflage was a frenetic patterning applied to ships during World War I to scramble the depth perception of enemies — not exactly a motif you'd expect to see applied to the walls of a major corporate office. Yet inside the new San Francisco headquarters for Dolby, Atlanta painter and dazzle enthusiast Kevin Byrd was given carte blanche to do just that.
More

Week of August 31, 2015

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week, we're keeping it short so we can enjoy the last gasp of summer this holiday weekend, sharing just a few discoveries like the colorful anthropomorphic ceramics of Branden Huntley and a new marble-faced watch by AARK and Daniel Emma. See you at the beach!
More