03.10.21

Interiors

The Parisian Design Duo Channelling 1970s French Glamour

The 1970s were, arguably, one of the best eras in French design. It’s a decade that saw then-president George Pompidou commission Pierre Paulin to reimagine the Élysée Palace’s interiors in his unorthodox space-age designs, and the stiff conventions of mid-century modernism finally loosened into an ironically cosmopolitan glamour. So when we came across French design duo Hauvette & Madani’s sumptuous interiors that so perfectly channel that decade’s vibe, we were instant fans.

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03.09.21

Sighted

Two New Ways to See Vince Skelly’s Shaggy, Chainsaw-Carved Sculptures

Living in the Pacific Northwest, there's no shortage of timber. But rather than planing those native trees or turning them on the lathe, like so many of his peers, Vince Skelly uses a chainsaw to roughly sculpt each of his chairs, tables, or sculptures from a single block of wood. Skelly follows the grain and patterns inherent in each piece, inspired by antecedents that stretch from prehistoric megalithic dolmens to the sculptures of Brancusi, the paintings of Philip Guston, the cartoon sets of the Flintstones, and the carvings of JB Blunk.

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03.08.21

Interiors

Pops of Color and Prototypes Elevate This Brooklyn Renovation in a Former Bakery

Not to make you feel bad or anything but while some of us baked banana bread during lockdown, Antonio Monserrat attempted a full renovation of his historic Williamsburg apartment, the first solo project of his career after formally training as an architect in London and Vienna and spending several years at Zaha Hadid Architects. His ambition paid off as he now lives in a space where lively pops of color meet beams of morning light and elegant arches accentuate high ceilings.

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03.06.21

Saturday Selects

Week of March 1, 2021

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: a new Parisian skincare brand with stellar packaging, a Dr. Seuss-goes-to-the-desert furniture collection, and a dental clinic inspired by David Lynch.

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03.05.21

Interiors

This Renovated Warsaw Apartment Masters the Vintage-Contemporary Mix

Is Piotr Paradowski the best interior design studio you've never heard of? We stumbled upon the latest project by the Krakow-based firm on Instagram this week and were surprised to find very little about the studio online besides their own site, which includes several richly-hued, vintage-inspired projects much like the renovated Warsaw apartment we're featuring today.

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04.06.18

Up and Coming

The Swiss Artist Turning Photographs and Digital Renderings Into High-End Carpets

Growing up in the '90s in Switzerland, Nadja Stäubli always had an analog camera with her. "I ended up studying photography at the University of Arts in Switzerland, and, for my thesis project, I wanted to work with a different medium then simple photography," explains the founder of the cult-favorite rug company Schoenstaub. Stäubli dug around to find a high-density weaving machine that could translate the grain of her 35mm film into knots on a rug, and, through family connections, ended up finding the only one that could do it in the world. The idea was to produce a single carpet for a gallery; it was such a success, Stäubli decided to turn the enterprise into a full-fledged company.

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03.04.21

Excerpt: Exhibition

Meet UNNO, the New Online Gallery Championing Latin American Design

UNNO, a new online-only gallery from architect Laura Abe Vettoretti and interior designer Maria Dolores, is making the most of the situation after plans to open a physical gallery in Milan last year were put on hold. Their mission, they tell us, is to introduce the richly varied landscape of Latin American design to collectors across the globe, spurred on by the region’s fertile mix of craft tradition and yet-to-be-discovered crop of contemporary designers.

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03.03.21

Graphic Design

A Roberto Burle Marx book, and Other Graphic Design Picks for March

In a new column, each month The Brand Identity will share with our readers a selection of the most interesting studios, packaging designs, and branding and identity projects featured recently on their site. This month: A book on the work of iconic landscape artist Roberto Burle Marx, the design of a favorite Spotify playlist series, an identity for an experimental Australian tea house, and more.

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03.02.21

Sighted

This New York Designer Turned His West Village Walk-Up Into a Design Showroom

Bereft of the camaraderie and inspiration that's provided in a normal year by design parties, openings, and exhibitions, Olivier Garcé and Clio Dimofski, partners in life and at the New York arm of Pierre Yovanovitch's New York office, moved a passel of furniture into their West Village apartment and opened it up by appointment only.

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03.01.21

Q+A

James Shaw On Why He Hopes His Design Practice Will One Day Eat Itself

“Daffodils are great,” says British designer James Shaw when I point out the bright yellow bunch sitting behind him in his southeast London workshop during our Zoom call. “They always start off really unpromising as those little green buds, and then they get better and better and they last for ages.” It’s an apt metaphor for Shaw’s own work, which often begins as discarded post-consumer plastic that he turns into slightly trippy organic forms reminiscent of crude cake frosting, created with his self-built plastic extruding gun and sculpted into quotidian objects from toilet paper holders to bowls, candelabras, and chairs.

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02.27.21

Saturday Selects

Week of February 22, 2021

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week, two wooden, wavy moments, a pair of brightly optimistic gallery exhibitions, and a whole slew of mood-lifting lighting designs.

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02.25.21

Invitation

Lauren Coleman Plays With the Suspension of Time in Her Second Campaign for La Prairie

For the second edition of our collaboration with La Prairie, marking the release this month of its groundbreaking Platinum Rare Haute-Rejuvenation Protocol, we invited Lauren Coleman to create three experimental animated GIFs that would freeze a moment in time on an infinite loop, celebrating the way that the Protocol does something similar for your skin.

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02.24.21

Up and Coming

Travertine, Salt, and Wood: Gregory Beson and the Beauty of Tangible Materials

There’s something refreshingly thoughtful about the way New York–based furniture designer and Parsons professor Gregory Beson talks about his practice. He may be represented by Love House in New York and Rossana Orlandi in Milan, but when discussing his recent collection, Home Group One, it’s not some white-gloved gallery where he pictures it. “I see the pieces as plinths for living,” says the Massachusetts-born designer, describing the series of tables, chairs, and shelving formed of interlocking planes of solid walnut.

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