A Speaker That Looks Like a Sculpture, and So Much More, From a New Australian Design Talent

There’s a raw simplicity to Australian designer Tom Fereday’s work that comes from applying simple gestures to great effect. The majority of his pieces are sculpted or constructed from a single material, and have one, carefully considered defining feature. Take his Cor light, a pillar of travertine with fileted corners, from which a curved slice is pared away to reveal a hollow core and a light source that glows from within. Or his Cove Lounge, a chair with a slender metal frame that — rather than wrapping around the backrest — elegantly disappears into the curved panel on one side and reemerges on the other. “I try to add innovation in the pieces from a perspective where we might look, for example, at articulating engineering details with natural materials,” Fereday says. This approach to simplified and sophisticated contemporary form-making is proving to be a hit with design lovers worldwide.
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“Am I Just Making the Trash of the Future?” And Other Philosophical Questions With Designer Drew Abrahamson

“I always want my work to be fun, not taken too seriously, a point of conversation,” says Australian artist and designer Drew Abrahamson. And while it definitely is, it’s thoughtful, too, and even veers, in a light-hearted way, toward the kinds of philosophical questions anyone who puts anything out into the world ought to probably ask themselves: “Am I just making the trash of the future?” Abrahamson’s answer, in his recent series “We Are All Garbage,” is pretty much yes, but concedes that there’s freedom and liberation in the act of creation, especially when it isn’t so tightly tied to the constraints of marketability. 
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Tour “The Bae,” A 250 Square-Foot Airbnb Whose Functions Are Hidden in Its Walls

In 2017, Tasmanian architects Alex Neilsen and Liz Walsh bought a 250 square-foot apartment and rebuilt it into their vision of a perfect “micro-luxury” home. Their intent was to create something amazing enough that it could set an example for small-space living, and by renting it out on Airbnb, help open other people’s eyes to its possibilities. The apartment became “The Bae,” and guests who enter it are often nervous at first about its small footprint — but ultimately fall in love.
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A New Identity For an Australian Designer, and Other Graphic Design Picks For May

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: culture-driven visuals for a Brooklyn menswear brand, a website for a tribute album to a famed Russian Poet, and a flexible graphic identity for an Australian multi-disciplinary designer (above).
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Stacey Rees’s Abstract Female Portraits Capture a Moment of Inner Contemplation

In her previous works, the Australian painter Stacey Rees seemed to be captivated by the strange and modern notion of the selfie. Her portraits explored the idea that people can define their self-worth by the public face they show to the world and that people can, in fact, manipulate those images for a better outcome. What comprised the inner life of those who swore by such digital machinations, she seemed to ask? In her new body of work, which was on view this month at the Sydney gallery Saint Cloche, Rees appears to sink even deeper into the stillness of contemplation.
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Melbourne Design Week 2021

Our Top Picks from Melbourne Design Week 2021 — An Actual Design Fair Happening Right Now, IRL ?

In Melbourne, there's an honest-to-god IRL design fair going on right now, and we can barely wrap our heads around it. In case you're as excited as we are to live vicariously through the Aussies, we've put together a tour for you of our 7 favorite Melbourne Design Week exhibitions that are currently on view so you, too, can experience it mask-free, from the comfort of your home.
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Nicolette Johnson Assemblage vases

These Surrealist-Inspired Vases Are the Breakthrough That Resulted From a Creative Block

At the beginning of the pandemic, some designers may have viewed the ensuing solitude as an opportunity to "bloom where you grow." But not everyone found it easy to stay inspired. "After lockdown started in the early months of 2020, I felt completely unmotivated to make work," confesses the Brisbane ceramicist Nicolette Johnson. After a while, however, Johnson gave herself permission to make literally anything, and began sculpting shapes out of soft clay — inspired by Surrealist and Constructivist motifs — and attaching them to small wheel-thrown vases.
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Week of April 6, 2020

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: a reissued Nanna Ditzel chair, a stylish oasis in the desert, and the only pocket knife we'd pay $375 to probably never use.
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Our 3 Favorite Projects from the Pandemic-Shuttered Melbourne Design Week 2020

Just as Melbourne Design Week was set to open its largest edition ever a week and a half ago, with over 200 events ready to launch around the city, it was largely shut down by the COVID-19 crisis, one of the increasing design-world casualties the virus has claimed this year. We spotted a few great projects in our inboxes and on Instagram, though, so we're highlighting our three favorites here.
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