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05.25.16

Up and Coming

Meet the Talented Sisters Behind Our New Favorite Lighting Brand

If you visited Sight Unseen OFFSITE last week, you might have noticed one standout booth in particular, dressed as it was in moody shades of blue, showcasing an incredible number of variations on the sculptural, globe-bulbed typology that's recently become so en vogue in the lighting world. In fact, in its striking beauty, the booth was impossible to miss: The lights were the work of London-based sisters Gwendolyn and Guillane Kerschbaumer, two Austrian-born designers who work under the studio name Areti.
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Ben Branagan's sculptural vases
02.26.16

Excerpt: Exhibition

Sculptural Vases With Scholarly Origins

Among our 30-something friends, collaging is suddenly all the rage. (Maybe it's the new adult coloring book?) But to our minds, there's another use for old books and papers that consistently produces a far more beautiful result: paper pulp, the key ingredient in CHIAOZZA's charming Lump Nubbins, Silo Studio's PPPPP bowls, and now Ben Branagan's Monuments series, which debuted last night in a window installation at London's Darkroom concept shop. For the exhibition, Branagan, a designer and professor in visual communications, transformed the pulped remains deaccessioned library books into a series of totemic, distinctly non-functional pots and vases.
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Isabel + Helen Constructivist Kinetic Sculptures
01.26.16

Up and Coming

Isabel + Helen’s Constructivist-Inspired Kinetic Sculptures

What happens when restrictive graphic forms are expanded into three-dimensional objects? The kinetic sculptures produced by London-based duo Isabel Gibson and Helen Chesner seem to be one modern-day answer. In their projects, references to historical art and architecture movements are offset by an unabashedly free creative approach that escapes all formal restrictions. Even the final pieces are difficult to categorize: Are they sculptures, products, or props?
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Hunting & Narud Studio Visit
01.04.16

Studio Visit

Hunting & Narud Are Rewriting the Rules of Scandinavian Design

Originally from Norway, Amy Hunting and Oscar Narud both completed design education abroad — Hunting at the prestigious Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (KADK) in Copenhagen and Narud at the RCA in London — but the design heritage of their home country remains an important theme in their work. "There's obviously this romanticized cliché of Scandinavian style but a lot of young designers are now trying to push back," says Narud when we talk about their aspiration to reinterpret the stereotypical notions of a Nordic aesthetic. "Scandinavian design is redefining itself with our generation. We all struggle with the weight of the heritage, but there's a lot of stuff happening now."
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Norwegian Designer Kim Thome
12.11.15

Up and Coming

Kim Thomé, A Norwegian Designer By Way of London

Think of the London-based, Norwegian designer Kim Thomé’s playful approach to design as a Venn diagram of sorts: On the one side is a fondness for color and geometric pattern play, and on the other is an affinity for reflection and creating optical scenarios that can change at the viewer’s discretion. Where the two overlap is a creative region in which the designer thrives.
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Set Designer Robert Storey
11.19.15

8 Things

Robert Storey, Set Designer for Kenzo, Nike, and More

What really interests Storey is creating immersive environments. “A spatial design work can exist in an image and it’s great for people to experience it that way,” but it’s not the same as being there. The temporariness is an essential part of the experience. Here are 8 of the London set designer's most lasting inspirations.
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09.29.15

Fair Report

At the 2015 London Design Festival

In terms of sheer distance traversed, if not content, LDF now stands nearly on par with the Milan fair. But these days it’s also becoming equally vital as a destination for open design debate, with a strong manufacturing voice represented and a buffet of ambitious installations on offer. Guide in hand, we hit the mean – but thankfully sunny – streets of London to choose our favorites from this year’s show.
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09.28.15

Q+A

Laura Houseley on Ready Made Go at the London Design Festival

Last week's London Design Festival included plenty of beautiful objects thoughtfully displayed on pedestals or on gallery walls. But possibly even more compelling was the setup at the Ace Hotel's Ready Made Go exhibition, curated by Laura Houseley of Modern Design Review magazine, where visitors could experience a handful of new designs by local up-and-comers actually put to work in their intended habitat.
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09.15.15

Graphic Design

Peter Judson’s April Showers

If illustration doesn't work out for Peter Judson, perhaps he might consider interior design as an alternate career? In the story we published on the London designer today, he revealed that for every day in April of this year, he imagined and drew a different shower stall, complete with tile schemes, hinges, Bacterio-style laminates, and geometric faucets.
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Gyrecraft by Studio Swine
07.28.15

The Making of

Gyrecraft by Studio Swine

At a material level, Gyrecraft is a collection of high-end objects made with plastic debris reclaimed from the ocean. But the significance of the project lies in the complex historic and cultural references woven into its narrative and assembled into a compelling critique of the modern concept of luxury.
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