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Dutch Design Week 2019
10.29.19

Fair Report

30 Projects We Loved from Dutch Design Week 2019

A feeling of urgency pervaded this year's Dutch Design Week. It was clear from many of the works on show that the focus of the designer is shifting; no longer is good aesthetic judgment and a well-designed clever product the aspiration. Ego and vision are going out of style, to be replaced by attempts to understand the inter-connected systems in which design sits.
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02.05.19

Sighted

You Need These New, Color-Blocked Goblets by Helen Levi

There's a ceremonial feel to the latest collection from Brooklyn-based ceramicist Helen Levi. First, there are the goblets — a type of stemware more often associated with medieval banquets or religious rituals, to which Levi gives a resolutely modern look by color-blocking and employing a pristine matte finish. Second are the jugs, which might look as though they'd been excavated from a silty river bed were it not for the delicate palette, ranging from stony buff to rose pink.
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12.17.18

Up and Coming

This Dutch Design Duo Ignores What’s “Right” in Their Quest to Make Something Perfect

Over the last few years, the Dutch studio RENS has been busy building a diverse portfolio of experimental yet resolved and alluring designs. Each project they undertake breathes new life into familiar processes and is approached from a purposefully uninformed standpoint. In fact, by knowing less about a production method and the way things “should be done,” they find the beauty and potential in rejects and mistakes.
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12.03.18

Up and Coming

A Furniture Collection in London Made From 3D Printing’s Leftovers

Years ago, when London-based designers Seongil Choi and Fabio Hendry met as students at the Royal College of Art, they were asked to make a stool — which, at the time, they had very little interest in doing. Yet by channeling their common backgrounds in industrial design and their interest in finding uses for low-value, abundant resources, they inadvertently developed an innovative process — called Hot Wire Extensions — by which they have now made many, many a stool, and so much more.
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Dutch Design Week 2018 Raw Color
10.30.18

Fair Report

35 Designers We Loved at Dutch Design Week 2018

The theme for Dutch Design Week 2018 was “If not us, then who?" — which says a lot about the current state of affairs in the world but also about the progressive and responsible spirit that lies at the core of the Dutch design scene. Here are some of our favorite finds from across the city.
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10.05.18

Up and Coming

The Belgian Designers Making Candy-Colored Furniture in Their Backyard

Though now partners in work and life, Jef De Brabander and Kathleen Opdenacker of the Antwerp-based Nortstudio arrived at where they are via two very different paths: He’s an industrial engineer, she’s a graphic designer. No wonder, then, that the work they’ve produced since joining forces in 2016 has exhibited such a symbiotic relationship between color and form.
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06.29.17

Up and Coming

Six Talents to Watch from RCA’s 2017 Graduate Show

Despite continued uncertainty about the effect Brexit might have on applications from students abroad, this year’s Royal College of Art graduate show was a celebration of global design talent, showcasing some of the best emerging talents from the EU and beyond. Here are six of our favorites.
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Faye Toogood Friedman Benda
03.01.17

Excerpt: Exhibition

At Friedman Benda, Faye Toogood Channels Her Spiritual and Earthly Instincts

Since showing her first ​Assemblage​ furniture collection back in 2010, British designer Faye Toogood has evolved the series, adding pieces in new materials to each subsequent collection — from sycamore and stone, to resin and steel, to patinated brass and wire mesh, to fiberglass and plaster. Her latest range, ​Assemblage 5​, on show at Friedman Benda in New York in the designer's first solo U.S. exhibition, is inspired by spiritual objects but bound by her signature balance of elemental materials, invoking a strong sense of ritual and permanence.
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South Korean designers Craft Combine
03.23.16

Up and Coming

A South Korean Design Collective Making Treasure from Trash

At the heart of Craft Combine, a South Korean design collective run by four students currently studying at Hongik University, is a fascination with materials and processes from the perspective of different disciplines; between the four of them, there is expertise in photography, metalwork, product design and textiles. But what often holds those interests together is a commitment to environmental responsibility and a need to re-examine the things we throw away.
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Melbourne furniture designer Dale Hardiman
11.30.15

Up and Coming

Dale Hardiman, The Next Big Thing From Melbourne

At the heart of Melbourne furniture designer Dale Hardiman’s work is a fascination with manufacturing processes and material lifecycles. Combine that with the new millenial designer's eye for pitch-perfect styling, and you've got a serious talent on the rise.
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