05.25.16

Up and Coming

Meet the Talented Sisters Behind Our New Favorite Lighting Brand

If you visited Sight Unseen OFFSITE last week, you might have noticed one standout booth in particular, dressed as it was in moody shades of blue, showcasing an incredible number of variations on the sculptural, globe-bulbed typology that's recently become so en vogue in the lighting world. In fact, in its striking beauty, the booth was impossible to miss: The lights were the work of London-based sisters Gwendolyn and Guillane Kerschbaumer, two Austrian-born designers who work under the studio name Areti.

More

05.23.16

Fair Report

The Best of New York Design Week 2016

New York Design Week may come hot on the heels each year of the all-consuming behemoth that is the Milan furniture fair, but to pay it any less attention would be a mistake — between Sight Unseen OFFSITE, ICFF, Colony, Wanted, and the goings-on at outposts like the Future Perfect and Matter, the days when America's most important contemporary design event was simply a watered-down rehash of Europe's are indisputably over. Here's a roundup our favorite finds from this year's show.

More

05.20.16

Sight Unseen OFFSITE

Take a Tour of the 2016 Show, Part II

This year's show was, as always, meticulously curated to ensure both the highest quality of designs and a variety of experiences. We had pop-ups where visitors could buy chocolate, cosmetics, fragrances, ceramics and smoking accessories; we hosted our second annual lunch cafe by Sunday Supper, this year in collaboration with Baked by Lexie Smith; we partnered with Homepolish to create and style a lounge using furniture by the show’s designers; and we had mega-Instagrammable moments in the form of Bower’s infinite hall of mirrors, kinder MODERN’s Design Chess matches, Land of Nod’s supersized play room, Eric Trine’s pink toilet, and Leong Leong’s foam-roller TOPO installation for Ford, which throughout the weekend became a jungle gym for our littlest Sight Unseen fans. Here's Part II of our tour.

More

05.19.16

Sight Unseen OFFSITE

Take a Tour of Our 2016 Show, Part I

Since Sight Unseen OFFSITE began three years ago, we've held the fair in three different locations, and people often ask whether that nomadic spirit translates in practice to something of a logistical nightmare. The answer, of course, is yes, and yet, each May, there's a huge payoff: Our space has informed the character of each year's show in an immeasurable way, and this year's fair was no different. See what you missed firsthand in this part one of two tours of our 2016 show,

More

05.16.16

Sight Unseen OFFSITE

These Norwegian and American Designers Spent Six Months Collaborating on Skype

For the Norway x New York booth at Sight Unseen OFFSITE, we set up a cross-cultural exchange pairing 5 entrepreneurial American studios (Ladies & Gentlemen, Bower, Farrah Sit, Jonah Takagi, Assembly) and 5 up-and-coming Norwegian ones (Vera and Kyte, Bjørn van den Berg, Silje Nesdal, Hallgeir Homstvedt, Morten and Jonas), who spent the past six months working together via Skype and emails on a long-distance collaboration, with the aim to develop an object or series of objects that utilized an American workshop for fabrication.

More

01.25.14

Saturday Selects

Week of January 20, 2014

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: an art installation inspired by Facebook, a refined furniture collection by a Danish design student (above), and a mirror you could get lost in.

More

05.14.16

The Making of

Leong Leong’s TOPO Installation for Ford at Sight Unseen OFFSITE

Design-lovers seeking a moment of calm this week will find just that in TOPO, the immersive sound bath installation designed by Leong Leong for Ford that's featured at our third annual Sight Unseen OFFSITE show, open today through Monday. Inspired by the experience of driving through landscapes in the Ford Edge, TOPO is a space to chill out, lounge around, and tune in to a meditative experimental soundtrack created by the designers with the engineers at ARUP.

More

05.07.16

Fair Report

10 (More) Things We Loved at Collective

The 2016 edition of Collective Design ends tomorrow, and though our time there has been mostly spent chatting with visitors, press, and neighbors in our own, relatively massive booth, we were sure to put on our press hats to suss out what other gems were on view. The caliber of the fair is truly excellent this year, from the wire and wood Nendo cabinets that line the entryway to the Lindsey Adelman light explosion way at the other end. Here are 10 of our favorite, must-see moments.

More

05.06.16

Excerpt: Exhibition

4 Art and Design Shows You Should See This Weekend

Some of us are currently having the busiest week of our year, juggling two major shows at once. But for all our readers whose schedules are slightly more forgiving at the moment, we envy you, because there's some excellent art and design to be seen out there this weekend, and not just at Frieze or Collective Design. Here's a quick roundup.

More

05.05.16

Fair Report

Fountains, Pink Daybeds, and Foam: A Tour of Our Booth at Collective

For the second year in a row, Sight Unseen is proud to be presenting at Collective Design, which opened to the public yesterday and runs through Sunday afternoon. We're smack in the middle of the fair this year, spotlighting new work by five American design studios on the rise: Bower x Studio Proba, Chris Wolston, Only Love Is Real, and Fort Makers. At the VIP opening on Tuesday night, we heard comments like "It's like Sight Unseen come to life!" "It's amazing how every booth is so different but everything goes together perfectly!" and, straight from Julianne Moore's mouth, "This is gorgeous." We couldn't agree more.

More

05.03.16

Sighted

Sneak a Peek at our Collaboration with Designtex, Debuting at Collective Design!

When Collective Design invited Sight Unseen to create a special installation for the second year in a row, spotlighting new work by five independent American design studios on the rise, we knew we wanted a visual thread that might tie the collections together and add an extra dimension to the presentation. Enter Designtex, the Steelcase-owned manufacturer of textiles and wallcoverings, whose genius Made to Measure program we'd been eyeing a while, partnering as it does with some of our favorite artists, illustrators, and designers to create a totally customizable wallcoverings or textiles. For Collective Design, opening tomorrow, our five designers — Only Love Is Real, Chris Wolston, Studio Proba x Bower, and Fort Makers — will debut a collection of furniture and lighting set against a backdrop of custom wallpaper they’ve developed with Designtex especially for this show.

More

05.01.16

Saturday Selects

Week of April 25, 2016

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: the best in totally affordable and totally unaffordable fashion and design, two illustrations and a Toronto house we wish we could move into immediately, and a few more Milan fair stragglers, including the playful room divider above by Ana Arana.

More

04.29.16

Studio Visit

Eric Trine Wants to Bring Powder-Coated Joy to the Masses

In the three years since we met Eric Trine — who, at the time, was a grad student skipping his art-school graduation to show with Sight Unseen during New York Design Week — the Long Beach, California–furniture designer has emerged as a true talent. And though his powder-coated pieces — geometric, clean, bright, and fun — have wowed us from the start, over time he’s honed his approach and philosophy, shifting from a DIY mentality to a full-fledged operation with a driving vision behind it: to make great-looking, high-quality products that are actually affordable.

More