07.12.22

Q+A

Aimee McLaughlin On Starting a Ceramics Podcast (Pot-cast?) and Why Ceramics is Like Therapy

Though Aimee McLaughlin, of Objet Aimée, is drawn to the shapes, proportions, and details of antiquity, there’s nothing dusty about her ceramics. With a voracious curiosity and thoughtfulness, she re-contextualizes and refreshes classical forms: She’ll make the earthy naturalism of a speckled stoneware pot more romantic with twisted handles; render a pitcher that evokes fluted Greek columns in a satisfyingly deep, glossy green; or achieve a beautifully tonal black-on-black pattern of snake scales for the serpent-shaped arms that adorn a sinuous, double-headed vessel.
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03.21.22

Excerpt: Book

“Why Design Matters” is Only the Tip of the Iceberg in This Expansive Book of Interviews by Debbie Millman

If you've ever thought about starting a podcast — a design podcast, sure, but really one on any topic at all — you probably have Debbie Millman to thank for that. Millman, who started the phenomenally popular Design Matters way back in 2005, was one of the first people working in the medium — and, as I was reminded when flipping through her new book Why Design Matters, which brings together more than 50 conversations from the show's past, remains one of the best. We're excerpting one of our favorite interviews from the book, with the filmmaker, graphic designer and artist Mike Mills, here today. 
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01.31.22

Sighted

The Mexican Studio Reinventing Everyday Objects

Algo Studio’s products — made from ceramics, cast concrete, resin, or terrazzo they fabricate themselves — are everyday objects that founder Diego Garza has thoughtfully reimagined with their ultimate function in mind. The results are attractive and original pieces in unusual shapes and commanding colors. “I’m trying to subvert or alter a little bit whatever is expected in an object,” he says.
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01.15.22

Saturday Selects

Week of January 10, 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 showroom and studio dedicated to LA’s creative community, ceramics for every proclivity and pleasure, an ode to the chaise longue, and more.
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12.04.21

Saturday Selects

Week of November 29, 2021

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: a Calder-inspired exhibition in Melbourne, a psychedelia-inspired glassware collection, and a trippy lazy susan on which to spin canapés — or other passed things — at your next holiday party.
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11.09.21

Q+A

Meet the Swedish Brand Championing “Bold Minimalism” With Rugs That Are Stylish, but Subtle

When Liza Laserow-Berglund, her husband Fabian Berglund, and his brother Felix Berglund decided to start a business together, the biggest thing they had in common was Sweden, and their desire to share some part of their native country’s vibe with the rest of the world. When they realized that rugs played a huge part in every Swede’s life, they founded Nordic Knots, a rug brand aimed at spreading the Scandinavian design gospel. Their goal? A highly curated brand offering mid-range rugs with a distinct point of view — but not one loud enough to overwhelm a room.
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10.23.21

Saturday Selects

Week of October 18, 2021

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: an affordable(ish) amorphous plaster mirror, new chairs by Moroccan Renaissance woman LRNCE, lamps that are like little paintings, and a dreamy Kips Bay room by Michael Hilal (above).
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06.09.21

Graphic Design

A ’70s-Inspired Sunscreen, and Other Graphic Design Picks for June

Each month The Brand Identity shares with our readers a selection of the most interesting studios, packaging designs, and branding and identity projects featured recently on their site. This month: An identity for a Black- and women-owned L.A. bookstore, a quirky custom typeface for a London underwear brand, and colorful, '70s-inspired packaging for a sunscreen brand (above).
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05.21.21

Up and Coming

The Dutch Designer Making Colorful, Jewel-Like Cocktail Glasses

For years, de Beijer designed purely ornamental vessels made from synthetic and non-traditional materials like resin and pigmented polyurethane cast by hand. "People have frequently asked me why I didn't make these vessels in 'real' glass,” he said. And so he did. Designing out of his father’s studio and working in close collaboration with the renowned glassblowers at Van Tetterode Glass Studio in Amsterdam, de Beijer has created his first series of glassware made exclusively for Side Gallery.
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05.10.21

Q+A

Caroline Denervaud’s Paintings Are a Dialogue Between Art and Dance

It was French artist Yves Klein who, in 1960, first used women’s bodies as canvases, covering them in blue paint to study the impressions they made on paper, while an orchestra played on. Swiss-born multi-disciplinary artist Caroline Denervaud’s vibrant, abstract artworks recall Klein's pioneering performative work, and also comprise the emotionally raw, humanistic approach to movement as seen in the works of visionary German dance choreographer Pina Bausch. “She was the first person who inspired me,” recalls Denervaud.
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04.22.21

Interiors

Heading to New Mexico? Rent the Vintage-Furnished Ranch of a Beloved LA Fashion Designer

If the headline of this story seems to assume that you might, in fact, be heading to New Mexico soon, it’s entirely intentional — the state is again becoming a haven for a new wave of creatives. One of them is the Los Angeles fashion designer Raquel Allegra, who went to New Mexico a year and a half ago in search of real estate for a healing commune she was planning with a group of friends, but ended up buying her own sprawling 8,000 square-foot vacation home in Taos that she rents out part-time on Airbnb.
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Hannah Nowlan Tatsiana Shevarenkova
04.02.21

Excerpt: Exhibition

In a New Exhibition, Abstract Paintings and Anthropomorphic Vessels Pair Perfectly

In ballet terms, a pas de deux is a duet. Two dancers perform a sequence in such perfect, excruciating synchronicity that it appears they are, for the fleeting moments they inhabit the stage, two halves of the same whole. This kind of creative coupling is what curator Kitty Clark had in mind when she put together her latest show, Soul Bed, featuring painter Hannah Nowlan and ceramic artist Tatsiana Shevarenkova, which just opened its doors at Saint Cloche Gallery in Sydney, Australia.
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