Nick Pourfard furniture

Nick Pourfard, the Guitar-Maker Turned Furniture Designer On the Rise

Skateboarding gave Nick Pourfard his foundation in design. Building ramps and obstacles for his friends provided an early education in how to put materials together effectively, and old skateboard decks are what he’s used to construct the body of the guitars he’s been producing since 2014. Recently, this San Diego–based luthier (maker of stringed instruments) has moved into furnishings, bringing his meticulous skills and try-it-and-see approach with him.
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Anthony Sperduti Hamptons home tour

Anthony Sperduti’s Art-Filled Hamptons Hideaway

Partners & Spade's Noho storefront closed in 2014, as the brand grew up, evolved, and moved into swankier digs on Lafayette Street. But I was happy to see its spirit alive and well when I walked into Anthony Sperduti's Sag Harbor cottage for the first in an editorial series we're doing with SONOS on the homes of some of New York's most interesting — and influential — creatives. Sperduti's weekend Hamptons house, tucked away in a quiet corner on the Sag Harbor Bay, is our favorite kind of home — the perfect mix of vintage and contemporary art and objects, each with a fascinating story behind its acquisition.
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Tim Colmant, Illustrator

For everyone who's ever bought, coveted, or loved the famous laminates of the Memphis design group — or is semi-ashamedly stalking the new Nathalie Du Pasquier collection at American Apparel — it is nearly impossible not to fall for the work of the young Belgian illustrator Tim Colmant. We succumbed the moment we discovered his cheerful illustrations a little over a year ago, and went on to recommend him to Jonah Takagi, furniture designer and co-founder of the housewares brand Field, when he curated an exhibition for our Noho Design District event last year. A few weeks ago, we found out that our little matchmaking scheme had evolved even further, into a collaboration between Colmant and Takagi's insanely talented girlfriend Mary Timony, whose new band Ex Hex has hired him to wrap its merch in his signature Microsoft Paint–inspired designs. We figured it was time to check in and see what else Colmant has been up to in the year since we first featured him.
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Totokaelo Art—Objects’s Spring Campaigns

The cult Seattle boutique Totokaelo already carries clothing and objects so beautiful that each new season wreaks havoc on the wallets of aesthetes around the country. The only way the store could possibly improve on that game? By shooting those new collections in scenarios designed to make said aesthetes even crazier. To promote its spring Art—Object catalog, the store's creative director Ashley Helvey masterminded two such campaigns: a photo shoot shot by Robin Stein and styled by Margaret Macmillan Jones in the technicolor plaza of Seattle's King County Correctional Center (designed in the '80s by Martha Schwartz and Benson Shaw), and a video, also in collaboration with Stein, that features Cameron Mesirow of Glasser along with music from her latest album, Interiors.
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What Your Favorite Designers Are Listening To This Winter

When winter gets as unbearable as it has been for the past few weeks here in New York, we find the tiniest ways of coping — allowing ourselves to occasionally venture out of the house in our sweatpants, say, or to eat an inadvisable amount of ramen, or to shirk all our errands in favor of staying in bed just a little while longer. Music can't technically warm us up, of course, but it helps too; it keeps our minds off the cold, keeps us moving. And for those who spend their days in huge, drafty workshops, doubly so. With that in mind — and inspired in part by RoAndCo's annual "Wintry Mix" — we invited 13 designers and studios to share with Sight Unseen the songs they've been listening to this winter, and to tell us what they've been working on while listening to them. Check out their playlists on Spotify after the jump.
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At New York Design Week 2013, Part III: Jambox at Noho Next

This year's Noho Next show didn't just look amazing — it sounded amazing, too. That's because in the exhibition's flagship space, Sight Unseen created a special installation for Noho Design District sponsor Jawbone, a kind of video listening area decked out not only with the brand's latest wireless speakers, but with an array of furnishings and objects culled from some of our very favorite designers — from Paul Loebach to Tom Dixon. Styled with the help of Seattle's Ladies & Gentlemen Studio, the space invited Noho Next visitors to kick back, relax, and experience the sound of Jawbone's latest BIG JAMBOXES, which are newly available in more than 100 customizable color combinations. Check out the setup after the jump, plus watch the seven designer-made videos that Sight Unseen hand-picked to screen over the weekend.
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MVM interviews David Shrigley

Sighted on Robot shop's website: Norwegian graphic designer Magnus Voll Mathiassen and Glasgow-based artist David Shrigley have an open-ended discussion about art, illustration, Lou Reed, rulers, and art versus branding. Of the latter, Shrigley says: "I sometimes think of my work as always the same, but then at the same time always different. It's the same aesthetic and maybe the same attitude, but (then) if there wasn't something different in there; if there wasn't some kind of surprise each time, I would probably stop doing it."
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