The Sight Unseen Art Kitchen, Plus Nine Other Incredible Rooms We Created For the SU x Lightology Country House

Upstate New York is one of our favorite places — close in proximity to one of the world's greatest cities, but so very far away in every other respect. In September, we rented a truck and drove up there, to a picturesque town outside Hudson, excited to do something we love doing almost as much as all of those other activities: styling a photo shoot inside a gorgeous home. For our second collaboration with the online lighting and furniture retailer Lightology, we traded the sleek minimalism and desert sun of Palm Springs for the charm of a (recently renovated) 1980s woodland escape — one whose blue floors, vaulted ceilings, and circular windows served as the perfect backdrop for the Sight Unseen x Lightology take on a country home.
More

It’s Colin King’s Tastefully Curated, Beige-Hued, Branch-Forward World. We’re Just Living In It.

If you were paying close attention, you might have noticed Colin King's slow creep towards ubiquity over the last five years. First came the styling credits for unabashedly chic interiors, like Giancarlo Valle's New York apartment in Architectural Digest, or any number of the exactingly produced homes for Athena Calderone's, Live Beautiful. Then came the brand work — styling for the likes of Anthropologie, Hay, and B&B Italia — and the collabs: a collection of small goods for the Danish brand Audo, a rug series for Beni, and a collection for West Elm, among others. But things really began to ramp up when King's book, Arranging Things — a lavishly illustrated how-to guide to his own particular style — announced its 2023 release. By all accounts, a book by a stylist — normally a solidly behind-the-scenes job — is somewhat of a novelty. While those on the inside may be well-versed in the who’s who of creatives realizing magazine editorials and brand campaigns, rarely does someone break out and make themselves known in the mainstream. But King has achieved just that.
More

For West Elm’s Design Challenge, We Show You How to Personalize Your Living Room With Objects, Sight Unseen-Style

When West Elm approached us last fall to participate in their ongoing Design Challenge series — in which subjects start with a blank canvas and create a room entirely from scratch — we immediately said yes. After all, what better way to show people how to live with objects than to demonstrate it ourselves? The project would bring to life some of the big ideas from our recently published book, and it would give us the opportunity to flex our design muscles, which we don't always get the chance to do. The result is a four-minute video that delves into our philosophy of objects, and how they can bring a major dose of personality to any interior.
More

Milanese Set Designer Elena Mora Has Perfected the Surreal

If you followed the now-defunct Icon Design Italy in its final few years, you would know exactly who Elena Mora is. The Milanese set designer and interior stylist’s cinematic spreads were always a highlight of the Italian design magazine. Recognizable for her lush use of color and irreverent bordering on surreal scenarios, Mora’s work is always so much more than just a product round-up.
More
Juliette Wanty 3D rendered interiors

These Limited-Edition Art Prints Look Right At Home in Juliette Wanty’s Poppy, 3D-Rendered Interiors

Most designers can point to the specific starting point that inspired a space, whether it be a concept, like a Balearic disco; a singular element, like a gilded backsplash; or a particular shade of blue. For a recent 3-D rendered thought experiment, Absolut Art proposed that it could also just be a single piece of art. The Stockholm-based company, which works with up-and-coming talents to create and sell affordable, limited-edition fine art prints, asked interior stylist Juliette Wanty to design five rooms inspired by five of its collaborators.
More

Three Recipes for Virtuous Comfort Food, From a Fave Restaurant of New York Creatives

Right now we're all cooking at home, and all we want is virtuous comfort food — exactly the kind of food that the New York restaurant Dimes is known for. Today we're sharing three recipes from its new book, Dimes Times, all of them warm and soothing, relatively easy to make, and freezer-friendly, too. It's no sitting-at-a-Matisse-inspired-table-sipping-wheatgrass-margaritas, but it's the perfect thing for a pandemic that has deprived us of such.
More

High-End Editorial Set Design, But Make It Cuddly

For its March issue, the Italian magazine Icon Design came up with an amusing way of spotlighting one of the pandemic's unsung heroes — the pets keeping us sane during lockdown — by pairing high-end set designs by stylist Greta Cevenini with portraits of eight dogs belonging to influential Italians. It's genius, because how many of us feel like luxury design is relevant to our lives at this exact moment? But make it cuddly, and it's a whole other story.
More

Muuto’s Ultra-Chubby Kink Vase and Tableau’s Art Florals Are a Match Made in Heaven

When American-born, Rotterdam-based designer Rachel Griffin of Earnest Studio launched her ceramic Kink Vase during New York Design Week two years ago, it became something of an instant icon. This, of course, was just as the appetite for so-called "chubby design" was reaching its frenzied peak, and the Kink, with its double-mouthed, binoculars-on-a-marshmallow-bender form was perfect fodder. Lucky for us, the vase was recently picked up by Muuto, where it will sell for just $200 and still be available in that cozy sky blue.
More

RIP Design Legend Ingo Maurer, Who Was More Relevant Than Ever

In a strange twist of fate, we had a story on the recent resurgence of legendary lighting designer Ingo Maurer on our calendar for today, even before we'd heard of his passing at the age of 87. We had of course followed Maurer's work over the course of our 15 years in the design world, but we had never gone in for Maurer's more purposefully kitschy designs. But to focus solely on those works is ignore Maurer's sheer breadth of output, and to dismiss a collection of his lights that has recently begun to feel more contemporary and relevant than ever.
More