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07.12.18

Up and Coming

Seven Designers to Watch from RCA’s Ceramics & Glass Program

Is the Royal College of Art London's most important ceramics incubator? When we look back on years of covering the design school's graduation show, our favorites have invariably come from that school's department of Ceramics and Glass. So this year, we cut right to the chase, and are featuring our favorite projects from the program.
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07.02.18

Up and Coming

The RCA Grad Who Hacked a Piece of Gym Equipment to Create These Slumped, Ceramic Vases

For Philipp Schenk-Mischke’s recent Process Plug-Ins project, the designer looked at traditional modes of manufacturing, assembly, and use, and introduced physical "plug-ins" that might distort the final outcomes. For his BTM Ceramics — a collection of distorted, high-gloss vases — the still-wet, malleable pieces are placed on a body vibration plate and gently jiggled into more slumped, organic forms.
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06.27.18

Up and Coming

In Her Debut Collection, Sarah Ellison Channels the ’70s Through a Distinctly Australian Lens

Armed with years of research, Australian stylist and designer Sarah Ellison debuted her first collection of furniture late last year, inspired by the playful proportions of '70s. In her pieces, these references are reinterpreted through a distinctly Australian lens, with colors and textures from the coastline captured through material choices such as travertine, mirrored glass, ceramic, and linen.
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04.06.18

Up and Coming

The Swiss Artist Turning Photographs and Digital Renderings Into High-End Carpets

Growing up in the '90s in Switzerland, Nadja Stäubli always had an analog camera with her. "I ended up studying photography at the University of Arts in Switzerland, and, for my thesis project, I wanted to work with a different medium then simple photography," explains the founder of the cult-favorite rug company Schoenstaub. Stäubli dug around to find a high-density weaving machine that could translate the grain of her 35mm film into knots on a rug, and, through family connections, ended up finding the only one that could do it in the world. The idea was to produce a single carpet for a gallery; it was such a success, Stäubli decided to turn the enterprise into a full-fledged company.
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03.20.18

Up and Coming

At a New Show, Thomas Barger Upcycles Your IKEA Discards Into Collectible Design

At just 25 years old, Thomas Barger finds himself wrestling with the ordinary — the idea that he’ll soon be kicked off his parents’ health insurance when he turns 26 — and the extraordinary — raising a solo show of sculptural furniture, on view through March 31 at Salon 94 Design. A recent nod from Architectural Digest and a sale to prominent art dealer and collector Javier Peres also signal Barger’s ascendency into the artistic stratosphere. But while all of these realities point to his newfound adulthood, the works on display at the gallery look backwards to the underpinnings of a youth spent growing up gay on a farm in Mattoon, Illinois.
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03.08.18

Up and Coming

In Artisan-Heavy Guatemala, a Young Maker Forging a New Path in Industrial Design

The last time we featured the work of Sofia Véliz — a two-piece set of folded-steel gallery furniture made for a Diego Sagastume exhibition — we wondered what else the Guatemala City designer might have up her sleeve. Over a year and a half later, we’re finding out: From extracting rubber powder from tires to seeking inspiration from Finnish film sets, to exploring the balance between utilitarian design and the urge to experiment, there’s no question that the 25-year-old designer keeps herself busy.
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02.09.18

Up and Coming

This Parisian Designer is Giving Volcanic Rock a Feminine Touch

For her Lavastone collection, Charlotte Juillard collaborated with the centuries-old stone company Ranieri Pietra Lavica, whose workshops are located at the foot of Mount Vesuvio. The collection includes a daybed, a side table, and mirror with tinted glass; Juillard says she was interested in combining the rough, raw qualities of volcanic rock with a more feminine sensibility.
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02.01.18

Up and Coming

The Chilean Floral Artist Taking Over Your Instagram Feed

Getting ahold of Carolina Spencer isn’t easy. When she’s not designing ceramic vases, the Barcelona-based creative behind the floral Instagram sensation Matagalan is busy finessing ikebana-like installations for the foyers of the relaxed fashion label Masscob, or refreshing weekly foliage amongst the city’s flourishing cafés and coffee shops — Casa Bonay and Satan’s Coffee among them. In fact, you’re probably already familiar with her work even if you aren’t based in the Catalonian capital. In her feed, artfully balanced ceramic totems and ikebana-inspired botanicals make for an enviably satisfying scroll.
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Up and coming Swiss designer Dimitri Bähler
01.18.18

Up and Coming

This Swiss Designer Blends the Rational With the Emotional to Create Some of the Most Beautiful Objects We’ve Seen

"When I started at ECAL at age 18, I actually didn’t know much about design," admits Dimitri Bähler. "As a kid, I was more interested in music, fashion, and illustration, along with biology and chemistry. In fact, I've always combined those two poles of interests: the rational and the emotional." That seems as good a way as any to describe Bähler, a young Swiss designer whose work has always seemed the result of both meticulous planning and wild experimentation. In many of his pieces, a relatively strict basic form is married to a more complex and renegade surface treatment.
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01.05.18

Up and Coming

This Swedish Illustrator’s Soft-Edged Work Might Be the Calming Influence We All Need Right Now

If you're a relatively highly attuned design person — and chances are, if you're here, you are — you might recognize the work of Swedish-born, Barcelona-based designer and illustrator Klas Ernflo (and not just because it often reminds us of another perennial SU fave, Geoff McFetridge). Ernflo's done work for Apartamento, Domus, Frame, IKEA, Mother London, Oyyo, and more, in addition to keeping up his own studio with drawings, paintings, and sculpture. But it's his latest project that we find the most fascinating.
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12.08.17

Up and Coming

One of the Art World’s Biggest Rising Stars is Inspired by Design

Less than a month after we spotted a stunning unknown painting on the walls of Kai Avent-deLeon's Brooklyn brownstone in 2015, we popped into L.A.'s MAMA gallery for a random visit and instantly recognized that we were surrounded by the work of the very same artist, Mattea Perrotta. It was either kismet or an intense case of Baader-Meinhof, but what's certainly no coincidence — because we're constantly drawn to the work of artists who do — is that Perrotta finds some of her inspiration in design.
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