11.25.15

Up and Coming

Chicago Illustrator Clay Hickson’s “Anti-Style”

There’s a distinctive quality to Chicago illustrator Clay Hickson's work that I couldn’t quite put my finger on — that is, until he told me his dad had been an airbrush illustrator in the ’70s and ’80s, filling Clay's childhood with the kind of sumptuous close-ups that turn product illustration into fetish. That cheekiness, bold composition, and surreal eroticism all resonate in Hickson’s work, but here they’re reinterpreted through digital media.

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11.24.15

Interiors

A Beige Interior By BROOK&LYN That’s the Opposite of Boring

Our website is known for its love of color. Today, though, we're taking a rare moment to celebrate the lack thereof, with a Los Angeles interior project by BROOK&LYN and Akin Creative that proves a rare exception to the "boring beige" maxim. The two studios recently teamed up to outfit the new L.A. outpost of Bassike, an Australian fashion brand known for its high-end line of basics, and took visual inspiration from the label's understated approach.

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11.23.15

Excerpt: Exhibition

Design Miami Sneak Peek: Sabine Marcelis’s New Resin and Neon Lamps

If there's one thing we've always hated about Miami, aesthetically speaking, it's all the neon signs. Yet they're a big part of the city's visual identity, making it all the more fitting that at this year's Design Miami show, Belgium's Victor Hunt gallery will be exhibiting a brand new edition of Eindhoven grad Sabine Marcelis's neon and cast-resin lamps — the Dawn series — that offers a moment of redemption for those gaudy illuminated tubes.

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11.21.15

Saturday Selects

Week of November 16, 2015

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: A surge of palm trees and lava lamps brings back a major '70s vibe, an exhibition at Table of Contents highlights the Memphis group's little-known second wave, and a shop in Sweden dedicates itself to selling the work of "kickass female designers."

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11.20.15

Sighted

Jewelry Made From Stone, Resin, and Plastic Trash

Most of Mexican designer Poleta Rodete's jewelry is made from raw granite or marble. Her special collection for the Mexico City design gallery Ángulo Cero also appears to be composed of elements scavenged from nature — the kind of plastic or glass bits you sometimes find washed up on the shore — yet Rodete has fabricated the pieces from scratch, by mixing limestone, marble, granite, epoxy resin, and plastic trash to create an entirely new material.

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09.22.14

Sighted

Hazel Stark’s New Textiles

It was only just last year that we were wondering what brilliance Hazel Stark would produce if ever she turned her attention to designing and making full-time, and already we have the answer. Having left her job with Ally Capellino earlier in the summer, Stark initiated work on her new collection, Naturally Dyed #1, with a long period of research into materials.

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11.19.15

8 Things

Robert Storey, Set Designer for Kenzo, Nike, and More

What really interests Storey is creating immersive environments. “A spatial design work can exist in an image and it’s great for people to experience it that way,” but it’s not the same as being there. The temporariness is an essential part of the experience. Here are 8 of the London set designer's most lasting inspirations.

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11.18.15

Invitation

Ladies & Gentlemen and Robin Stein Team Up on a Still Life Inspired by Moholy-Nagy, Not Memphis

You know all those contemporary still-life clichés, like pastel backgrounds, cactuses, and Sottsass-approved geometric shapes? When New York photographer Robin Stein recently teamed up with Brooklyn design studio Ladies & Gentlemen for a studio visit (coming soon) and impromptu creative photo shoot (pictured after the jump), the longtime friends decided to toss all those ubiquitous tropes out the window and do something different.

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11.17.15

Sighted

Bario Neal & Linder Just Broke the Rules of Men’s Jewelry

The Philadelphia-based jewelry design studio Bario Neal has long offered wedding bands for men, and particularly expressive ones, at that: Some of its rings look like carved petrified wood, some have a hammered texture, some are boldly striped. But there's one steadfast rule of men's jewelry that even Bario Neal has never dared to break — until now.

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11.16.15

Studio Visit

Designer, Artist, and Animator Todd St. John

Todd St. John launched a stand-out furniture line this spring, but “I do a lot of animation, illustration, and narrative work,” says the designer, whose background is in graphic design, and whose clients have included The New York Times, Prius, Nickelodeon, Pilgrim Surf Supply, and MTV. “So I’m often experimenting with and developing new characters. There are tests around here everywhere.”

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11.14.15

Saturday Selects

Week of November 9, 2015

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: a new flat-woven rug made from waste material, a new collection of accessories for your bathroom, and a few more pics from The Future Perfect's new show, including the mobile pictured above by Ladies & Gentlemen Studio.

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11.13.15

Up and Coming

Grande Edition, Furniture Designers

The gorgeous, angular furniture designs of Grande Edition pull off a neat trick — looking sleek and light while having the weight and permanence associated with natural stone.

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11.12.15

Current Obsession

Why Designers Are Obsessed With a Metal Finish Called Hammertone

When something previously considered irreparably uncool — like Tevas, or turtlenecks — suddenly becomes a massive trend, it can be hard to pinpoint exactly why. Today, beginning with the Eric Trine pieces above, we're unpacking the rise of the bumpy industrial metal finish known as hammertone, surveying its best examples and hearing from the designers themselves why they've become such converts.

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