03.11.21

Sighted

Xanthe Somers Wants Us to Question Everything About Our Relationship With Domestic Objects

As a self-taught ceramicist, not knowing the "right" way to do things has led Somers down some experimental paths. Clay has become a medium for her to interrogate concepts beneath its fragile surface. As a contemporary ceramic sculptor, she describes her pieces as a satirical and questioning take on domestic objects. “We cannot treat domestic objects as inert beings; they have place and purpose and motivation,” she says. “Clay has a long history of being used for functional, domestic objects that are laden with political and social constructs."
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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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05.22.19

Fair Report

Our Favorite Finds at New York Design Week 2019 — Part I

With our OFFSITE show taking a year off, and Collective Design retired, New York Design Week could have theoretically suffered a participatory hit — and yet that was very much not the case. Below, we've rounded up more than 75 objects and exhibitions we dutifully scouted around town, including powerhouse show Next Level, and that's only part one....
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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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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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03.01.21

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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