Canadian furniture designer Thom Fougere
12.21.15

Up and Coming

A Canadian Furniture Designer Strikes Out On His Own

At the age of just 24, having just graduated from architecture school, the Winnipeg–based designer Thom Fougere became the creative director of EQ3 (which is something like the Canadian version of Room & Board). Now, just five years later, Fougere has opened up his own shop as well.
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Danish graphic designer Kristina Krogh
12.19.15

Saturday Selects

Week of December 14, 2015

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: A killer new objects line by a Danish graphic designer, new wall-coverings by two Sight Unseen–approved artists, and a timely primer on James Turrell — for all your Hotline Bling–inspired holiday party chatter needs.
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Studio Cofield Emerging Designers
12.16.15

Up and Coming

Brooklyn’s Cofield Is Scaling Up

Though Sara Ebert and Jason Pfaeffle studied in the same industrial design program at Pratt, it wasn’t until they started working together on a post-grad project for West Elm that a partnership developed. As they started spending more time together, they would often ask each other’s opinion on personal projects. They soon realized they shared a creative point of view; love blossomed and their design studio Cofield was formed.
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Junpei Inoue
12.15.15

Sighted

Junpei Inoue’s Technicolor Wall Hangings

Being multi-taskers ourselves, we have nothing but admiration for people like Junpei Inoue — not only does he split his time between Brooklyn and Tokyo, he spends his days toggling between running and designing an art magazine, designing websites and logos for other people, and creating illustrations for textiles and fashion. Not such a stretch —until you consider his art practice as well, in which he creates intricate yarn-based wall hangings that are dyed using careful applications of acrylic paint.
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04.01.14

At Home With

Iacoli & McAllister

Here at Sight Unseen, we tend to pride ourselves on the timeless nature of so many of our features. But if you look back at the first time we covered Jamie Iacoli and Brian McAllister, way back in 2010, the article is almost laughably out-of-date. For one, we called Seattle a city that’s “not exactly famous for its flourishing industrial design scene” — which is, of course, the premise behind this entire week. And as for Iacoli & McAllister? Back then, they were better known for powder-coated shop tools and cake pedestals than for the beautifully lightweight and sophisticated furniture that has become their signature (and they hadn’t even begun to make jewelry!). They were so very green back then — only having recently found vendors and retailers to make and sell their work — whereas now they’re like the éminence grise of the Seattle design scene, so entrenched in its visual identity that you can’t remember a time when they weren’t there. What hasn’t changed? When we interviewed them in 2010, the onetime couple had broken up but were still living together. Today, they’re still broken up and living together, though in the intervening years they spent three years living apart.
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12.14.15

Up and Coming

Meet Frama, the Studio That’s Reinventing Danish Design

Copenhagen-based Frama is forging a new direction in contemporary Danish design, giving its clean lines and mid-century shapes a new sense of warmth and sophistication. In addition to producing handsomely understated products — some designed by its in-house team, others commissioned from top Nordic talents — the studio has recently begun to branch into interiors, infusing them with character by blending old and new contexts, materials, and influences. Simply stepping into their showroom and studio, which is housed in a centuries-old pharmacy with original woodwork, you can easily see how effortlessly they meld the two together.
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12.13.15

Saturday Selects

Week of December 7, 2015

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: A hot tip on a stealth sale of Barber Osgerby goods, ideas for ultra-design-y stocking stuffers, and a new collection of understated wood furniture by French studio Dessuant Bone, pictured.
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Norwegian Designer Kim Thome
12.11.15

Up and Coming

Kim Thomé, A Norwegian Designer By Way of London

Think of the London-based, Norwegian designer Kim Thomé’s playful approach to design as a Venn diagram of sorts: On the one side is a fondness for color and geometric pattern play, and on the other is an affinity for reflection and creating optical scenarios that can change at the viewer’s discretion. Where the two overlap is a creative region in which the designer thrives.
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Group Partner's Boob Pots
12.10.15

Studio Visit

The Brooklyn Ceramicist Behind the Insanely Popular “Boob Pots”

Even with its door wide open, Isaac Nichols’s Greenpoint studio is easy to miss. Walk past, look around, turn back, and there it is, tucked inside a cavernous, garage-like space that’s served as a creative home base for Nichols (who works under the name Group Partner) and a wide circle of artist friends for the past two years. The studio, unassuming from the outside, hums within: music plays; the stretch and tear of packing tape is constant. All around, laid out on makeshift surfaces and shelves, are Nichols’s signature pieces in varying stages of completion: ceramic pots molded to mimic breasts, each adorned in a hand-painted outfit, and his famous face pots, each with one of three appointed names: Adam, Rory, or Pat.
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12.07.15

Excerpt: Exhibition

The New Wave of Los Angeles Design, On View Now at Our Site Specific LA Show at Austere

When the folks behind the airy Los Angeles design showroom Austere asked us to create an installation in their space, the theme was a no-brainer — we'd showcase the new wave of L.A. design, inviting 11 of our favorite studios to install a selection of their work. The result is Site Specific L.A., which opened on Saturday and runs through February 14, and is like a mini, localized version of our New York show, Sight Unseen OFFSITE.
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12.07.15

Excerpt: Magazine

Soft Baroque in PIN-UP No.19

Up until recently, there were only a few chairs, mostly vintage, that I'd consistently dreamed of decorating an entire room around: Vico Magistretti's green Selene stacking chairs for Artemide come to mind, as does the sheepskin coziness of Hans Wegner's Flag Halyard chair for PP Mobler. But in Milan last spring, I found a new contender: Soft Baroque's Enzo Mari–inspired, infinitely changeable New Surface Strategies armchair, available only in electric blue.
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