New York, lessermiracle.com For Vince Patti and Mischa Langley of Lesser Miracle, designing is not simply about making furniture — it’s about world-building. This makes sense, considering their name derives from a spell cast in Dungeons & Dragons, and that their first collection developed after the gallerist David Lewis asked the duo to create a show of fantasy furniture. That debut included a throne-like stool and a daybed whose calligraphic pattern recalls the Alhambra in Spain; as Patti put it when we interviewed the pair last summer, “Creating your own world that doesn’t feel like a thing that you saw in a design magazine, that you were prescribed to like or be into or told was cool or was the thing of the moment, has always been very attractive to me. So for us, this collection was about really digging deep into a world of our own creation.” What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? We would say Mu: unask the question. We do not believe a unifying trait of American design exists for us to identify. At least we aren’t thinking about it if there is one. This practice is primarily about constructing a fantasy world, and the construction of a fantasy world as a withdrawal from reality. It is in many ways definitionally motivated by an intentional unawareness of its material setting. When I (Mischa) imagined I was fighting orcs on the parapets of Gondor at seven years old, I didn’t wonder if the stick I was using as a sword had the right ratio of pommel to hilt. When we design a daybed for a sorcerer prince, it’s not in dialogue with a world that has Loewe candles. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year?  The continuing project of Lesser Miracle is to expand beyond furniture, design, and art into a much more all encompassing program of world-building. Taking a set of values, expressed in aesthetic principles and applying them to music, performance, architecture, community, and infrastructure to create a world wholly new. This year we’re excited to bring this vision into new forms with the help of a wider group of collaborators. What inspires or informs your work in general?  Mayan architecture, Brutalism, revenge, classic fantasy, rave culture, American folk art, evangelical Christianity, grief, our beautiful and talented friends, applied math, “fiddling while Rome burns.” Those are the big ones right … Continue reading Lesser Miracle

Los Angeles, ladoor.com The experimental furniture lab of Katie Payne and Doug McCollough, L.A. Door started in 2019 as a studio making actual doors: laminate and plywood versions with custom wood or resin handles and a vaguely postmodern vibe. The duo’s next release, a hilariously hip take on a La-Z-Boy recliner, got people paying attention, but the project’s longevity, and its continued release of weirdly beautiful send-ups — like a trompe l’oeil pinewood mirror and a sanctioned redux of Garry Knox Bennett’s Great Granny Rietveld chair — have given it real impact in the L.A. design scene. What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? Every American designer has their own ‘America’ — often more than one — to draw from. We’ve come to appreciate how values regarding design often reflect class and geography in the US. La-Z-Boy recliners inspired our L.A. Lazy lounge chair and are a perfect example. Over the last 96 years, La-Z-Boy recliners have become ubiquitous in America because they’re comfortable and durable. Last year, La-Z-Boy, a Flint, Michigan-based company, achieved $2.4B in sales. Bob Villa recently rated La-Z-Boy as the #1 choice in his Top 11 American-Made Furniture Brands of 2023. So a very large number, perhaps even a majority of Americans, value La-Z-Boy furniture as an important home fixture — a tool of rest and recovery for everyday life. However, within more elite design circles, the La-Z-Boy is ignored or dismissed. The brand (and its competitors) have brought in individuals like Todd Oldham to attempt redesigns in order to appeal to so-called elevated tastes, but they always fail. The design and its values seem to be inherently inelegant and unsophisticated, at least superficially. Instead of resisting its corpulent form, our L.A. Lazy recliner celebrates it without irony. With it, we’re taking a Midwestern mass-produced product (not to mention a fraught icon) and making it bespoke in Los Angeles — not in order to elevate it, but to appreciate it and open a discussion about American life. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? Making money, paying our taxes, and driving our work van in Los Angeles traffic; continuing to design and make in the way that we do; and exploring more faux bois techniques with our collaborator and friend, the painter Daniel Payavis. We’re also working towards an upcoming 2024 show with Marta Gallery. We’re looking forward … Continue reading L.A. Door

Los Angeles, jialunxiong.com Before catching our eye with her sheet-steel furniture in the This is America show at Alcova in Milan last June, Xiong studied design and architecture at ArtCenter in L.A., then joined a large firm and worked on high-rise residential buildings not unlike the ones she grew up around in her native Chongqing, China. You can see some of those influences in the solo furniture and interiors studio she launched in 2021, where everything is hyper minimalist, monochrome, and metal — and yet with subtle elements of softness that make you want to live in and amongst them. We weren’t able to share her newest interior projects here just yet, but trust us, they’re impressive. What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? There’s never just one image that goes through my mind when I hear “American design.” It could be the Modernist movement of 1920-1950, the Pop Art and design cultures, individual expression, and freeform. It could also be contradictory or inclusive, since I’ve always felt the tug between the different cultures even when I came to the States for my education and professional practice. For these reasons, there’s a lot of room for creators to share their own visions and understandings through design. It’s unnecessary to actually have a word to describe the work itself. At the end of day, my pieces and projects are just the decisions and insights from part of me. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? We almost completed two restaurant interiors (19 Town and Sichuan Impression) in the past year, and those will finally be ready to launch in the coming month. And we’re full speed ahead working on new pieces for the upcoming ICFF + Wanted Design event, where we’ll officially meet professionals as a studio for the first time. I only showed at the fair once, with my first collection, Black Kaleidoscope, when I was a grad student back in 2018. What inspires or informs your work in general? Having studied interior architecture and furniture design, I intended to artfully balance positive and negative space, always considering the relationship between objects and spatial volumes. Inspired by the mountainous landscape and high-rise architecture of my hometown in Chongqing, as well as the functional minimalism of the International Style of architecture, I want to create spatial environments and furnishings with an abstract geometric bent … Continue reading Jialun Xiong

New York, incommonwith.com Since In Common With made our Hot List back in 2018, some things have not changed, like the fact that founders Felicia Hung and Nick Ozemba still make modular, customizable light fixtures in partnership with glassblowers, ceramicists, and metalsmiths that often emphasize the textures of handicraft. What has changed is their roster, which since grew to encompass two incredible ceramic lighting collaborations with Danny Kaplan, in 2020 and 2022, and a floral-inspired glass fixture collection developed with Sophie Lou Jacobsen that, when it launched last year, blew minds everywhere. What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? American design is ever-evolving. It doesn’t have a defined aesthetic; it has an attitude, energy, and heart. It’s autonomous and ambitious. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? We’re finishing the final construction phase for our Gowanus studio, adding another 1,000 square feet of space and growing our team. On the design side of things, we’ll be releasing new product lines in the spring and fall, ranging from outdoor lighting, workplace, and our first line of furniture. What inspires or informs your work in general? Materials and production techniques. The history of interior, furniture, and lighting design. Collaboration. Kindness. Problem solving. PHOTOS BY WILLIAM JESS LAIRD, CLEMENT PASCAL, AND MAX BURKHALTER

Ojai, California, iancollings.com As one-half of the Brooklyn-based duo Fort Standard, Collings appeared on our list once before, way back in 2013. But five years ago, Collings left the practice he had helped found in order to take a three-year hiatus, spending time with his family and finding inspiration in the wilds of Central America. When he emerged in late 2020, it was with a full-fledged sculpture practice, a flurry of solo shows with The Future Perfect, and a new visual vocabulary that puts a primacy on natural materials and the ways in which they want to be in the world. He can’t rid himself entirely of utility, though, and one of our favorite pieces in his collection is a basalt coffee table that looks like as though it’s been slicked with a sheen of tar.  What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? What is exciting to me about American Design feels revealed in this question. There is a largely accepted attitude to maintain a state of flux and exploration. To move in a direction of discovery and rediscovery. Leaving definition (or non definition) up to whoever’s doing the activity. At this point in my life, American design, art, and pretty much everything else are, for me, about interacting with vast spaces — those both physical and metaphysical. I’m interested in experiences that offer higher levels of aliveness. And as much as I allow myself, I want to make objects that feel like rolling around in the mud in a dark cave then running out naked, excited, into the river. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? Considering I’m still trying to answer that question for the last three years, and that my plans hardly go as planned anyway, the one constant is the work. I’m engaged in doing the work and in that sense, I’m making new work for a couple of new shows and collections and some secret, exciting commissions for large-scale sculptures. But mostly I’m working to move deeper in the direction I’ve been building into for the last few years. To see if I can break out the other side. In that way, I’m feeling into new materials, spaces, and places. But for the moment I’m very excited about our Californian-winter vegetable garden, rain, and our hopes to return to the Costa Rican jungle sometime soon. What inspires or informs your … Continue reading Ian Collings

New York, gregorybeson.com Beson first caught our eye at a Fernando Mastrangelo–curated exhibition in 2019, where he debuted a Scarpa-inspired chair made entirely from bricks of rock salt. What could have been a gimmick in someone else’s hands took on an air of utter inevitability and elegance in Beson’s. Since then, the New England–born former musician and apprentice woodworker has continued to impress us, most recently at a solo exhibition at Love House in New York, where he debuted, among other things, a yin-yang–esque tri-toned coffee table, made from interlocking pieces of white and fumed red oak and inset with mahogany legs.  What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? It seems to me American design is derived from the proposed ideals of the country itself. American designers bring varied perspectives, experiences, histories and philosophies to the field due to their own lineage, identity, and ethnography. For example, much of my sensibility seems to come from my New England upbringing. This manifests itself through my connection to and affinity for the ocean, work ethic, and my interest and exploration of craft knowledge and material intelligence. I’m salty, but also sweet, and these qualities continue to reveal themselves in my work. This is what I find most exciting about any field, group, club, community or clique: the weaving together of each individual into the whole. The overlapping of perspective, feeling or opinion, the disagreement, the empathy, and ultimately the sharing of knowledge and perspective. I might not agree with or like all I see in the field of American design, but I’m glad to experience it, thankful for the discussion via work or otherwise, and strive to respond with my own pieces — adding to and hopefully expanding the conversation in our community. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year?  This year promises many new opportunities to share work and collaborate with people I care about and admire greatly. A gallery show at Verso showroom in Tribeca this summer will include a number of varied furniture typologies which highlight beautiful foreign species of timber. A collection of outdoor furniture for a dear private client to suit their wonderful home and convivial family. A collaboration with a thoughtful fashion designer friend on the wine bar at their inn in Maine. A conceptual chair project I’m developing and will plan to exhibit by the year’s end. My work as an educator … Continue reading Gregory Beson

New York, gingergordon.com It’s not often we christen a Hot List nominee so soon after they graduate — from RISD’s class of ’22, in this case — but Gordon’s strong aesthetic shined through in the room dividers, tables, and stools she showed at last year’s Milan fair and New York design week, so we felt confident calling it early. We’re looking forward to seeing where she takes her sculptural wood forms, stained glass accents, and Surrealist influences. What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? American design runs in every direction. It’s hopeful; it tells stories. There’s a respect for craft but a determination to create something new and to break from what is tired and known. I admire the constant push of material exploration and the unexpected ways in which materials are brought together in American design. These explorations are creating new stories, ones we haven’t seen, and that makes me continuously excited to see what will emerge. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? I’m currently developing my first studio collection, alongside Alexis Tingey. We met each other in school and lived in the metal shop together. We were struck by each other’s work and our shared sources of inspiration. On our last day of class, we decided to open a studio together. This collection is being developed through an artists’ residency at Colony. Our initial pieces for this series will be completed and shown later this year, for our first studio show. These objects look to push the material and form explorations we’ve independently been working on, from carved wooden forms to textured textiles to inlay to stained glass to stack lamination. The pieces hinge on contrast in materiality, strength, and weight. What inspires or informs your work in general? Compositions of line and form often inform my work. I usually sketch with paper and collage, then go straight into material, carving and cutting to reveal interconnected shapes or undulating forms. I admire intricate processes of making, especially handcraft traditionally associated with female makers, like lace-making and embroidery. The intricately woven and knotted forms of lace create patterns that inspire the shapes in my work. I find inspiration in objects that tell stories; the details that draw you in and reveal something unexpected, like a small gilded piece of inlay or an object with an unexpected movement or perspective. All objects … Continue reading Ginger Gordon

New York, episode.nyc If you visit the website of Episode, a ceramic lighting brand designed and created by Jesse Shaw, you might not understand what the fuss is about — his core production collection comprises simple lamps in solid-colored shapes with textile shades, no big deal. But where Shaw really shines is in his specialty work with clients and collaborators, which lives over on his Instagram: limited-edition sculptural lamps designed with Friends of Form and Post Company, espresso cups and color-blocked butter holders, or the series of painterly table lamps that introduced us to his work in the first place. It’s genuinely exciting to see what he’ll post next. What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? American design is kind of a free-for-all, in a good way. The mix of cultures that we are lends people the chance to appreciate whatever style or era they want. Living and working in New York City can be a bubble at times, so disconnected from other parts of the country, while also being one of the most diverse connected places in the world. This is inspiring — to live in such a global city — but it’s still only one of the many versions of this country and the design world in it. I didn’t finish school and spent the last eight years exploring who and what I’m drawn to and why. In that time, and from this one place, I’ve been able to work on a range of different projects all over the country, in all types of spaces, from the rural west to beach towns to mountain homes. Maybe that spectrum of opportunity is what American design is. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? I recently released some new collaborations with a few designers and also have a hotel project that I’m in the middle of. I’m most looking forward to working on a new group of pieces that involve lighting, but aren’t quite lamps: sculptures that are connected by light that play with the negative space between them. I’ve yet to have a solo show, but am happy to have waited to let my work develop to where it is. I’m hoping to soon have the opportunity to install a spread of work built specifically for a space, and to explore the use of the environment they’re displayed in. What inspires or … Continue reading Episode

New York, dana-arbib.com Arbib spent 10 years designing textiles as founder of the fashion label A Peace Treaty, but took a detour during the pandemic when she met a glassblower from Venice who promised to show her his craft. Two years later, she debuted her first collection in a Tiwa Select show at Michael Bargo: Called Vetra Algo — which translates to “seaweed glass” — the oversized glass vessels and plates come in shapes inspired by the North African artifacts of Arbib’s Libyan heritage and in colors that reflect the Venetian lagoon. They’re often adorned with globules, discs, or snakelike lines, and they were one of our favorite collections of 2022.  What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? American design could mean anything and everything. It is an amalgamation of many different cultures and backgrounds being expressed. I am a part-Israeli, part-Libyan, part-Canadian, part-Italian, with parents living in the French Caribbean, and here I am practicing in the United States and producing in Venice, Italy. My gallerist, Alex Tieghi-Walker, is Welsh and Italian, and has lived all over the place, but explores craft in the USA. American design is an expressive exploration of cultures and viewpoints, anchored in the “now,” but in reality drawing from infinite worlds and backgrounds. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? I’m excited to start making lights! Vases and vessels felt like a great introduction to my career in glass, and now I’m ready to make things a bit more complex. I’m going to be going back to Murano to practice developing these new works, and I’m also looking forward to my second solo show in Summer 2023. What inspires or informs your work in general? I try to create work that feels timeless and modern. Something you want to hold onto and pass down generationally. I am inspired by old masters in my craft and antique North African and Roman vessels, which speaks to my cultural heritage; the city of Venice, which speaks to where they are produced; and the aesthetic language by which my mother and father raised me, through their taste in art and design. Everything from the bespoke tailor in Rome, to an Egyptian relic, to designer Bauhaus pieces. My first show in May was inspired by the Venetian lagoon and the forms and colors of the seaweed that grows beneath the surface. Right now I’m inspired by rooted … Continue reading Dana Arbib

New York, cultivationobjects.com Cultivation Objects’ Nathaniel Wojtalik was born in Colorado, went to art school, and bopped around New York designing sets and store displays before settling down in 2020 to found his Brooklyn-based studio. Not content to simply build a chair — as he put it, he “had a guilt attached to creating furniture that didn’t embody an element of mindfulness” — he began assembling pieces from prototypes and off-cuts found around his studio that provoked a reaction, forcing the sitter to stay open to new ways of interaction. “There are a million beautiful chairs out there that are perfectly functional and easy on the eyes,” says Wojtalik. “But if I was going to make something, I wanted the process and act of making it to be as compelling as the final object.” What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? I would compare it to a murmuration of starlings, thousands of birds flying together in an ever-evolving pattern. Each individual exists so close to the edge, that they can fearlessly pivot, tumble, and whirl within a split second, every one independent yet somehow connected by the constantly flowing entropy we all somehow manage to navigate. It’s a rolling cloud of life. Half of which can be explained by physics, while the other half remains a mystery. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? I have a new body of work that I have been working on using new materials, forms, and ideas. I am a curious person by nature, so I’m always trying to incorporate new methods and materials into the works. In the past I have created hard aesthetic breaks from one series to another, but I have found that I am not yet ready to move on completely from some of these ideas so I am going to keep producing things in parallel and allow the concepts to converge if they want to. There are also a few collaborations that I am excited to see come to fruition. What inspires or informs your work in general? This is constantly changing, but I think the work relies on a structure of feeling, a vicarious recording of thought and experience. The structure, a firm and definitive framework, acts as a kind of vessel for something more sensitive. My newest series incorporates rigid and industrial looking materials but then they are paired with hand-sculpted, soft … Continue reading Cultivation Objects

San Diego, ceramicsfurnitureplants.com In 2020, former photographer Roly Gomez launched a design studio centered around the three elements represented in its name: ceramics, furniture, and planters (plus a few rugs made in Oaxaca). But for us, of course, it’s the furniture that stands out — chunky wood pieces that have a Judd-like minimalism but subtle aesthetic moments, like the grooved details of a bench arm, the oversized handles of a cabinet, or the edge of a table leg seemingly peeking up through its top. What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? American design isn’t bound to a specific style but is more about individuality, embracing other cultures, and having the freedom to work autonomously. This sense of freedom to explore and navigate without any boundaries is very compelling and is what initially led me to this space. Seeing a resurgence and appreciation of hand- or slow-made objects has been refreshing and inspiring in many ways. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? I look forward to building a small team and expanding into interiors. I’m excited to introduce a new collection that includes a few larger upholstery pieces and lighting. There are plans to move into a larger studio space with the possibility of an attached showroom as well. Aside from that, I hope to recharge a bit and do some traveling. What inspires or informs your work in general? I consume a lot of imagery on a daily basis. Before I took the leap into designing and building furniture, I spent a lot of time on the road with a camera. The kind of work I was drawn to involved people, but I often felt uncomfortable convincing strangers to let me into their lives and photograph them. Consequently, I was spending a lot of time in nature and became drawn to making images of trees and forms in general. To this day, photography still plays a big role in my process. Being able to now work in a studio and in three dimensions has opened up a new world for me. It feels a lot more natural, and in many ways is an extension of what I was trying to say with my photography. Living and interacting with my own work on a daily basis is something that’s very satisfying for me.

Los Angeles, ceramicah.com The handmade ceramic vessels and lamps of Micah Blyckert — who formed Ceramicah with his partner, Alexandra Cadiz, after they both left careers in architecture — are fairly simple in terms of form. But gosh, those glazes! From a perfectly weathered black-and-white stripe to a subtly colorful raku to a sleek-yet-rustic rust-hued gloss, they render the pair’s collection both interesting and sophisticated, the perfect thing to vibe up a neutral interior. What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? American design is synonymous with experimentation, playfulness, and freedom. It’s a collision of different ideas, cultures, and ways of thinking that are allowed to evolve without the confines of formal traditions. The Los Angeles design scene exemplifies this, as a city of transplants who value innovation above assimilation. The lack of cohesion is actually where its magic lies, with artists and designers that bring completely different perspectives to the table and rebound off each other. This multidimensionality and freedom of expression is what keeps us eager and inspired to create more. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? On the heels of launching our new branding and website, we’re excited to dive into expanding our product line and develop new designs and collections. This will include experimenting with different forms, materials, and finishes while also streamlining our production process. We’ve also been working on some custom pieces for a few hotel projects that will be opening late 2023 and are excited for more hospitality work in the future. Personally, travel is always a highlight and we have been extremely drawn to Mexico recently, particularly the Yucatan. Hopefully this year will take us back there and beyond. What inspires or informs your work in general? Everything we do stems from the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This philosophy started early in our careers as architects, learning how to consider each element of a project, from the scale of a room down to the feel of a tile. When designing a piece now, we start with structure and proportion, using the flexibility and constraints of clay to distill a design down to its simplest yet most effective form. Micah’s sketchbook is full of the same images drawn over and over at different scales, and our studio is stacked with prototypes alike. From there we experiment with finishes … Continue reading Ceramicah