12.10.14

Studio Visit

Maryanne Moodie, Brooklyn Textile Artist

There are few people who get the opportunity to uproot, relocate, and be instantaneously welcomed by a community of powerful and creative women. But Maryanne Moodie — the Melbourne, Australia native who settled in Brooklyn last year after her husband got a job a Etsy — did just that. Since arriving, she says, “I’ve been able to meet and forge fast friendships with so many amazing textile ladies — inspirational women who are creative as well as business focused. I’ve had the chance to collaborate professionally with them — as well as down a few glasses of wine over plans for world domination.”
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12.09.14

Fair Report

At Art Basel and Design Miami 2014

Glancing out the window on this cold, grey, rainy day in New York City, it's hard to believe that just last week we were frolicking in the sunshine in Miami, immersing ourselves in art and design and running into friends like Su Wu and Brent Dzekciorius on the street while flitting between parties and champagne brunches. While the primary purpose of our time there was to launch a new collaboration with Print All Over Me for the shop at the Standard (read all about that here), we managed to squeeze a million other activities into our four-day trip, from a visit to the impeccably curated Untitled art fair to a bizarre slide lecture and fashion show by Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe to a 3AM performance by rapper Rae Sremmurd at a local nightclub that left our ears ringing for three days straight. While you won't find that particular dalliance documented here, we did take plenty of photographs of art and design; some of our favorites are posted after the jump.
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12.08.14

Sight Unseen Presents

SU x PAOM for The Standard Shop

Last week in Miami, you could go home with art in just about any form — not just on a canvas (Art Basel) but in the form of a vase or a table (Design Miami), a pool toy (Grey Area x FriendsWithYou), a champagne bottle (Ruinart x Georgia Russel), or, if you happened by the shop at The Standard Spa, beach gear courtesy of yours truly. For this year's Miami fair, Sight Unseen teamed up with Print All Over Me to curate a line of warm-weather clothing and accessories sold exclusively at the Standard, featuring prints by Paul Wackers, Ellen Van Dusen of Dusen Dusen, Peter Judson, Rachel Domm, Caitlin Foster, Marta Veludo, Eunice Luk, Branden Collins, and Rafael de Cardenas (who designed the shop's interior a few years back).
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12.06.14

Saturday Selects

Week of December 1, 2014

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: A full report on our travels in Miami and Finland is coming next week, but until then we have acid-trip lenticulars, '80s-era armchairs, and the most G-rated fun you can have in 52 pages.
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12.03.14

Gift Guides

75 Gifts We’re Coveting — Ryland

Welcome to Sight Unseen’s second annual gift guide, in which each member of the Sight Unseen team will share the 25 items they’re coveting at the moment. Today's honors go to the newest third member of Sight Unseen: assistant editor Ryland Quillen. Gift guides are great because they not only tell you what cool things to buy for your loved ones but they also give you a sneak peek into the inner workings of the author's brain. For example, Ryland likes: chunks of resin embedded in things, glyphs, figurative animal prints, and long walks on a rocky beach. If you do too, this is the list for you! Happy holidays!
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04.10.12

SU Services

Pop-Up at Creatures of Comfort, 2012

When fashion mecca Creatures of Comfort wanted to develop a clientele around its growing design offerings, it invited us to create an in-store pop-up. The Shape Shop featured geometry-inspired objects commissioned by Sight Unseen.
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12.02.14

Gift Guides

75 Gifts We’re Coveting — Jill

Welcome to Sight Unseen’s second annual gift guide, in which each member of the Sight Unseen team will share the 25 items they’re coveting at the moment. Yesterday we got a peek at Monica's picks (from $10 chocolate bars to $10,000 chairs), and tomorrow we'll be hearing from our assistant editor Ryland (dude loves himself a nude-colored seating element!) Today it's Jill's turn, and this year's list doesn't stray too far from the color scheme of 2013. Into blue, aqua, blush and brass? This is the list for you! Happy holidays!
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12.01.14

Gift Guides

75 Gifts We’re Coveting — Monica

If you’re anything like us, you probably spent this weekend thinking less about buying new things and more about giving thanks for what you already have. But let’s be real: Gifting season is about to get seriously underway, and with that in mind we've put together a fantasy wish list of all the beautiful, considered design objects we've been eyeing lately. Welcome to Sight Unseen's second annual gift guide, in which each member of the Sight Unseen team — Monica on Monday, Jill on Tuesday, and Ryland, our assistant editor, on Wednesday — will share the 25 items they're coveting at the moment, from the attainable ($10 chocolate bars) to the wildly aspirational ($10,000 chairs). Happy holidays!
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11.26.14

Excerpt: Magazine

Color Palette, From PIN–UP #17

When PIN–UP editor Felix Burrichter asked me to put together a product-driven color story for the magazine's new fall issue, which just came out last week, I said yes without hesitation — then secretly panicked later. It turns out that defining yourself by a single hue can be strangely intimidating. After thinking about it for ages, I resolved not to think at all, resorting to an idea that's been kicking around Sight Unseen's Pinterest feed for months now: electric blue, reimagined for the magazine as the more whimsical-sounding "peacock." I rounded up 14 of our favorite examples, which PIN–UP contributor Fausto Fantinuoli turned into the gorgeous illustration pictured above, along with the selections of Ambra Medda (dolphin), Tauba Auerbach (vermillion), and Paloma Powers (blush). Burrichter was kind enough to let us share the full story, which you can view after the jump.
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11.25.14

Sighted

Ann Veronica Janssens, Artist

Lately it feels like whenever we've seen a piece at an art fair that we love, it's turned out to be the work of one of a very small group of our favorite artists (Alicja Kwade, Thea Djordjaze, Jonas Wood, David Korty, etc) whose work seems to pops up again and again in such contexts. One of the most frequent is Ann Veronica Janssens, a British-born, Brussels-based artist whose practice is based around finding ways to visualize light and other ephemeral forces while balancing them against the more tangible qualities of architecture. Janssens has been around for awhile — she represented Britain at the 1999 Venice Biennale — but we're particularly fond of her most recent body of work, which is more object-based than light-based. See a selection of it after the jump.
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11.24.14

Sight Unseen Presents

Our 5th Anniversary Party

Two weeks ago, Sight Unseen celebrated our 5th anniversary with a post full of birthday cards made for us by our favorite designers and readers. But we couldn't possibly mark such a momentous occasion with a web post alone — we had to throw a party, of course! Last Thursday night, we gathered 200 of our closest friends and clients together at the stunning roof bar of the McCarren Hotel & Pool in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where we sipped Bombay Sapphire cocktails, danced to music spun by DJs Kyle Garner and Jon Santos under a piñata by Confettisystem, tossed around pool-toy dance props crafted by Misha Kahn, and ate adorable hand-shaped cookies and a golden birthday cake baked by Fredericks & Mae. There were even custom zig-zaggy funhouse mirrors by Chiaozza on hand to freak us out once we got tipsy. It was a memorable night for all involved, and we're grateful to our partners at Bombay Sapphire and Chelsea Hotels for helping to make it happen. It's definitely going to be hard to top come 2019!
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11.22.14

Saturday Selects

Week of November 17, 2014

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: A new series of prints by Nathalie du Pasquier, two art galleries dabbling in design, and the prettiest darn tool boxes and switchblades we've seen.
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Marcello Velho
11.21.14

Graphic Design

The UK Illustrator Making Abstract, Tumblr-Inspired Art

We've become quite fond of these late-Friday hits of pure joy, and this one arrived in our inboxes just in the nick of time. Marcello Velho is a United Kingdom–based graphic artist. His abstract compositions have quite justly made the blog rounds in recent months, but we particularly love the new styled photos he sent of his work below, which mix Tumblr-inspired art with modern furniture icons.
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