Plant markers by Anna Copron, Sub-studio

Handcuff bracelets by Klaus Rosburg, SONIC Design

Engraved wood panel by Brad Ascalon

Ham Sandwiches by Jan Habraken and Alissia Melka-Teichroew, byAMT

Interlocking bracelets by Joseph Eberle, BangBang

Monster Mirror by Ben Light, B.Light Design

sKwirl by kHyel, The Weather sKwirl

Scarf by Kevin McElroy

RSVP to designglut [at] gmail.com with the subject “Laser Party.”
Due to limited capacity, we’ll only be able to put the first 50 RSVPs on the list – so get yours in early!

WHO
A group of designers and laser-lovers

WHEN
Thursday, July 22
5-9PM

WHY
Because we have a laser, and we want to see the coolest, most unconventional stuff that designers can come up with to do with it! Come hang out with us and watch as the pieces come hot off the laser.

WHERE
NY Designs
45-50 30th Street
Long Island City, NY
(Take the 7, E, V, or G trains)

View Larger Map

Design Glut is a very small company of 2 people. We’d gotten pretty comfortable with that, until our latest adventure. As we curated and organized a show during Design Week called Uncomfortable Conversations, all of a sudden we were working very closely with a group of 15 designers and 6 sponsors.

There were plenty of times when we found ourselves less-than-amused by the number of uncomfortable conversations we had to have to pull this thing off. It was a ton of work, but by rallying a group, we were able to make a statement of such greater magnitude and depth than we ever could have done on our own.

On May 16th, 400 people came out to the opening party. Uncomfortable and comfortable conversations were had. Conceptual design was appreciated. And we realized that Design Glut has the ability to bring together the design community IRL, not just on the internet, which is super exciting. Here’s a recap of the our first event – with more shows definitely to come!

In the gallery, a.k.a. an empty storefront in the Meatpacking District that we took over for a week.

photo by Jacob Krupnick

Chrissy Conant’s A2Zzz Pillows. Cuddle up with some Ambien.

Will Robison’s Kevin Carpet Bench. For an hour each day that the show was open, a fetishist was rolled up inside the carpet and show-goers were invited to sit on him. Here’s a series of pictures showing Julio, the human carpet, going in:

Will sitting on Julio.

photo by Jacob Krupnick

From left to right: Liz, Julio’s wife, Vincent, Julio’s adorable little baby boy, and Matthew Waldman of Nooka

photo by Jacob Krupnick

Demian Repucci’s Consumption dinnerware is decorated with infographics that describe the vast differences in food and water consumption around the world.

Vincent Lai’s Deterrent bag is reversible, allowing you to bust out some spikes on a would-be attacker.

Uncomfortable Typographic Situations by MSLK shows what can happen without proper kerning. Also a good litmus test for how dirty your mind is – different show-goers saw different things on first glance…

photo by Luke Escamilla

Body Function by Matthew Waldman. It’s uncomfortable. Enough said.

photo by Jacob Krupnick

Materious’ briefcase/paper shredder (cleverly titled In Case) is a must-have accessory for crooked CEOs.

photo by Luke Escamilla

Chi-Merica by Paul Loebach is a reconfiguration of his Half Mirror, putting an uncomfortable conversation about the ethics of furniture manufacturing out there. That’s the designer, caught nervously biting his nails.

photo by Ryan Heiser

Ana Linares’ It’s Not You / It’s Not Me necklaces are a conversation starter, but a relationship ender.

photo by Ryan Heiser

Which contrasts with Sruli Recht’s Garrote necklace/choker – a conversation starter, but a life ender.

Karl Zahn’s hanging lamp, Heavy, addresses the terror of the cartoon world – death by falling anvil.

And then there’s the Trashlight by Craighton Berman. What do you throw away? What dirty little secrets get hidden in those black plastic bags? If you think you have nothing to hide, or if you’re a bold exhibitionist, cast light on your refuse and put it out on display.

And the final theme of the show was uncomfortable conversations about touching. For those of you who find the subway too germy and and tightly packed, put on a pair of Andrew Haarsager’s Mind The Gap gloves. Should someone’s hand start to drift down the pole towards yours, you’ll be well-protected and ready to impale them.

If you’re the angry type (and New Yorkers tend to be), perhaps you should consider letting go of some of your grudges. Shaking hands with your enemies might seem too extreme a first step – so use Dominic Wilcox’ Pre-Handshake Handshake Device to get used to the motion.

photo by Ryan Heiser

This year, Model Citizens has grown tremendously. In a huge gallery, gleaming white walls and natural light, many young designers showed the freshest design work I’ve seen in a while. Here’s a breakdown of our favorites.

The Model Citizen
How cute are these Model Citizen dolls?

B.Light Design
All of Ben Light’s pieces have so much personality.
See more of his work at blightdesign.com

BangBang
BangBang launched their first collection, ‘Domestic Weaponry,’ at Model Citizens.
More at lovebangbang.com

Michiel Cornelissen
Michiel Cornelissen is a Dutch designer – we particularly loved his jewelry. At just $15 (!) his Happy Bird pendants are a total steal.

Niels Cosman
Niels is a Brooklyn-based designer who does very interesting things with glass and wood. More at nielscosman.com

Directives
Carla Diana is a senior designer at Smart Design, who debuted her “Directives” line of furniture at Model Citizens. More at carladiana.com

Future Retrieval
I’m not at all sure what’s going on here, but I like it. Also, their website doesn’t appear to work, adding to the mystery.

Lara Knutson
Reflective necklaces from Lara Knutson. I will always be sucker for shiny things. More at laraknutson.com

Catherine Merrick
Catherine designed these uber-fun bent-glass-tube candleholders.

Brendan Ravenhill
Brendan showed these fun bent-metal pendant lights.
More at brendanravenhill.com

Lauren Vanessa Tickle
Necklaces made from finely-cut dollar bills. An unabashed flaunting of wealth. We like it. More at laurentickle.com. (Also, how great is Tickle as a last name?!)

We believe it’s the role of creatives to start the uncomfortable conversations that cause people to grow.

“A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.” – Timothy Ferriss

Inspired by the quote above, we challenged a group of designers to create something which provokes an uncomfortable yet important conversation. Participating designers were given complete freedom with the type of object they created, the materials they used, and the topic of the conversation they set out to provoke.

As a result, we have ended up with a wonderfully broad body of work – housewares and furniture, jewelry and fashion, graphics and video. Still, everything exhibited here has one thing in common: the desire to make you uncomfortable. It’s your turn to judge how well they succeed.

- Design Glut, Curators

GROW HOUSE GROW
Grow House Grow is a wallpaper line created by Katie Deedy, and it’s like nothing you’ve seen before. All of her wallpaper patterns are inspired by stories. At BKLYN Designs this year she’s showing three new patterns, all of which are inspired by female scientists from the 19th century. How cool is that?! If you want to learn more about Grow House Grow, read our interview with Katie from last year’s BKLYN Designs.

The lovely designer (and new mom!) herself, on the left:

HUGH HAYDEN AND KATIE VITALE
We met Hugh Hayden last year at the GSS Jello Competition, where we adored his jello “chicken” wrapped in “plastic wrap.” Well, this talented guy is at it again. At BKLYN Designs this year he’s showing a line of wall-hanging, framed, ANT FARMS.

Hugh and Katie:

This one is my personal favorite. Fun fact: The black stopper in the upper left is covering the hole that you can feed your ants through!

PALO SAMKO
Palo Samko was one of our favorites at BKLYN Designs last year, and this year he did not disappoint! His furniture pieces have a fun sense of whimsy about them, and his sculptures are incredibly intricate little worlds.

MATTHEW FAIRBANK
Matthew Fairbank returns with a new collection, branching out into hanging lamps and ceramics. I’m digging the bright colors and gold accents, and am always impressed by the impeccable craft of Matthew’s work. To learn more about Matthew, read our interview with him.

ESKAYEL
Shanan from Eskayel is another designer who’s branching out. She’s applied her patterns to ceramics and textiles this year, creating a comprehensive line for the home. We love the surreal quality of the having plates and pillows with the exact same pattern as your walls. For more Eskayel, read this interview!

RAM METALS
RAM Metals is a custom metal-fabrication studio that had a bunch of great pieces on display. Raine Heidenberg is completely new to us, and we love her work. She designed this huge, severe, geometric chandelier.

These planters were one of our favorite pieces in the whole show, designed by Charles Constantine for Platerworx.

The ‘Flight’ shelves below, designed by Charles Constantine for TIDES OUTDOOR, also have very striking geometry.

LAMACEK
Last but definitely not least, we completely fell in love with the lighting from Lamacek! They won Inhabitat’s award for Best Lighting, and we completely agree. I’ve sworn a million times that I never want to see anything again with antlers, and then someone goes and proves me wrong. And the robot with it’s little red heart is, well, irresistable.

THAT’S ALL FOLKS
These are our favorites – go see the show and let us know if you agree!

How did this start?

James: Well it was easy to find each other, because we’re brother and sister, so that was a previous relationship… We’ve always been really close. We cooperate well. And we decided that we wanted to do something together professionally.

Why Paperless Post? Where did the idea come from?

James: We threw some ideas around, but we came to this one because we decided that there was no online option for designing and sending a meaningful note – something that expresses your look and your style. That’s a big part of how people have communicated for a long time, but it’s not one that’s caught up with the internet until now. The people who love us are are people who really get what’s great about nice paper.

Alexa: We wanted to create a platform for more meaningful communication online, both aesthetically and emotionally. And we want to give people a centralized archive of all these really important communications from years of their life.

Like a box of letters.

Alexa: Yes, exactly. I don’t know if you’ve ever done this, but I always save birthday cards. That’s basically the only kind of paper card I get anymore, because it comes with a physical gift. The experience of going back through all these old cards is really powerful. Each one of them represents the person that wrote it, because they chose this paper and they wrote these words and it was to you. It has a meaning that transcends the time when it was written. We want to make that for the online world.

James: Bringing texture to the flatness of email is our big idea. We’re giving people the tools to create and manage the communication that actually matters to them online, in an emotional way.

That’s really cool. When did you launch?

James: We launched our public beta on April 17th of 2009, but we started thinking about this business about 2 years ago. I was a sophomore in college, and Alexa was one year out.

Alexa: We took this risk and it was really scary. But I remember James saying to me once – a lot of times the scariest things that you do, if they work out, they’re better than you expected. You really couldn’t have imagined what happens.

Do you guys have a business background?

Alexa: We didn’t have a business background, but now we do! If you have a goal in mind, and you want to achieve that goal really, really, really badly, then you do everything that you need to do to make it happen. The limitations that building a viable business sets can actually be a really good thing for creativity.

Definitely. I think that’s important. If you could do anything in the world, you wouldn’t know where to start.

Alexa: No, you wouldn’t. And what you would make probably wouldn’t be that awesome, because it would be all about you.

Have you seen a good response so far? What has it been like?

Alexa: Yeah, it’s been incredible. We’ve grown by a multiple of 10 in terms of users and revenue in the past 4 months. What people like most is the aesthetics. If you read the reactions from users, it’s just all about design. A really important part of the site is our design tool. It allows you to choose a paper, choose a motif, set the type, and word the invitation. There are defaults set in so that there is some guidance for people who don’t feel comfortable really getting into the whole design process. But then, a lot of people who use us really do have a vision of what they want this to look like. The products that come out of these user accounts are really amazingly reflective of those people who make them. They’re really different.

How have you gotten the word out about your service? How has this spread?

James: It’s been a lot of viral growth. People receive these invitations and notice that it’s different from anything they’ve ever seen before on their computer screen. They say, “What is this?” and go to our home page and create an account and end up sending an invitation to new people, who continue the same process.

Alexa: 600,000 invitations have been sent so far.

What’s been your happiest moment with all this?

James: One of them was definitely when an article about our company was published in the New York Times, in the style section, in June. The piece was really positive, and it was the realization of a lot of work on our end.

Alexa: One of the moments that I can think of is on Mother’s Day, when we saw that all these people from different places were going on our site to basically jerry-rig invitations to send a Mother’s Day card to their moms. We saw that this idea of aesthetics that we started with, doesn’t just relate to invitations. It relates to all these other kinds of messages that people want to send each other. Watching the users take our products in their own direction – that made me really happy.

So what’s next?

Alexa: We’re adding announcements now, and we’ll be adding a bunch of other products this fall. Maybe you don’t have a party coming up, but you want to send a thank-you note to your friend’s mom.

James: Or you want to announce that you graduated from college, or that you had a baby.

One last question – what advice do you have for people who want to start their own business?

Alexa: I would say just do it. And you better really be committed to succeeding, and you better make sure you choose the right idea, meaning that you care about it. And that you have people you trust.

James: You need willpower and commitment.

Alexa: And determination. Be ready to do whatever you have to do, that’s legal and being a good person, to get there. Seriously. If you feel that way then you’re ahead of a lot of people.

AREAWARE

Paul Loebach’s stools in new colors!

ARTECNICA

Hanging, flat-packing lamp by Karl Zahn

THE FOOD SECTION

Apparently there is a section of the gift fair where they give away yummy things like mini red-velvet cupcakes. WIN. We should have discovered this a loooong time ago.

Hammond’s Candies are gorgeous.

K STUDIO

We COMPLETELY fell in love with K Studio’s pillows. They have so much character!

K is for Kegan.

LICHEN

MOLLA SPACE

How freaky are these bookends? WANT. Probably the #1 “I need to buy this as soon as it’s available” thing at the show.

NEO-UTILITY

These are headphones. COOL.

POKETO

SKINNY VINNY

New accessories from Skinny Vinny: wallets and ties

THE.

TOUCH

VANISHING CREATURES

You just came out with an article on Core77 about design clubs cropping up around the country. Could you quickly summarize what’s going on here?
 
L: Sure–right now it’s very difficult for young designers to exist in the space between craft fair and large consultancy. We’re part of a larger movement of emerging design clubs in America, including JOIN:Design Seattle and The American Design Club in New York, that exist to build infrastructure to promote and support these small design businesses. Each group is approaching this problem differently, but in general we all exist to raise the visibility of young designers in the states and to create opportunities by establishing credibility with larger entities that are able to support design: the public, the press, manufacturers, etc.

How does being part of a club help young designers?
 
L: We found that just by formalizing a tiny bit, we got tremendous response from people, which indicated a strong will for this kind of thing. There was an immediate positive impact, and people came out of the woodwork to help and produce work. We’re developing a core group of people in Chicago who know each other and talk to each other and feel inspired by each other, which goes a long way towards building momentum.
 
C: And with the first show, The Promise of this Moment, it was just a call for entries, but it actually spurred a tiny production of work. “OK, well I’m going to make this thing for this show.” So maybe 6 people made new objects for the show. There is definitely an observed impact on the community; it’s not just like, “Oh we bring you guys together.” We actually got people to do more than they would normally do.

ODL members with inflatable ODL logo 

How did you get the idea to form the Object Design League?
 
C: We both graduated from the Designed Objects program at the Art Institute a little over a year ago, in 2008. We came to realize that we really missed the community of school.
 
L: One of our professors, Jim Termeer, suggested that we meet up once a month after graduation, to chat about what we were doing, maybe do a crit or two. So the seed was planted there.  About a year later, after all the post-graduation dust settled, we realized that there isn’t much structure for being an independent designer in Chicago, and that we really missed being involved in a design community.
 
C: And the thing is, that there are a ton of people here doing things – designers, furniture makers – but there isn’t really a tight community. So we planned a little meeting, and sent out emails to people we knew, saying, “Want to come over and we can talk about…stuff?” That was the very beginning, and it evolved very quickly. Within a few months people started emailing us, like Richard Wright. It was obvious that people are interested in this. There’s a desire for it, in Chicago.
 
L: At the first meeting, maybe 7 people showed up. At the next meeting it was 30, and the next meeting it was 50. It’s amazing, how quickly things can grow.

When did you start doing events?
 
C: In March we had our first slideshow event, which was sort of modeled after the Pecha Kucha. 10 artists and designers each did 5 minutes of presentation on all kinds of different topics. We thought we were going to have 15 people show up, and it ended up being like 50, with people standing around the sides of the room because we ran out of chairs.
 
L: By the third event I hardly knew any of the people there! It’s great to have numbers, but I think the most significant thing for us was realizing, in just a few events, that there’s tons of people who are ready to be a part of this. We’re putting together events, like the slideshows, that can help inform design work and help people get ideas, as well as opportunities for people to show their work. We’re trying to help designers be able to build their small businesses.
 

Photo Paddles by Steven Haulenbeek in The Promise of This Moment show

I saw pictures online from your show “The Promise of this Moment.” How did that come together?
 
C: These three grads from the Art Institute formed a collective called The Mighty Bearcats. They’re a little bit before our time – the program that we graduated from is new, so for a while there wasn’t really anyone who wanted to do that kind of work here in Chicago, except for those guys.
 
L: They were kind of this lone little group in Chicago. We met up with them, once we started the ODL. and they told us, “Listen, this gallery’s giving us a space to do this show, it’s going to be a lot of work for us to fill up the whole thing, we’d love to bring you guys in on it.” So that’s how the Promise of this Moment thing happened. The idea was that we could help sponsor and produce and curate this thing.
 
C: They had the idea, and we sort of figured out how to do it – the logistics, the call for entries, the graphics… We can send all of these things to our members and say, “Everyone jump in!”
 
L: One of our members, Michael Savona, did the graphics for the show. We had some of our members come help with the fundraising party. It was the perfect scale project to really dig in. When it was over, it felt like we had accomplished exactly what we had wanted to do with it.
 
That’s fabulous, especially for your first time doing something like that.
 
L: I was amazed how much support we had. The fundraising party was sort of a donation thing… You didn’t have to give, but people were really excited, put in their petty change or cash or whatever, and they helped fund it. And then the space we originally had folded two weeks prior to the show. Big problem! But Morlen Sinoway, who knew the Mighty Bearcats, ended up saying, “I have this empty space that’s not rented yet – you guys should use it.”
 
C: That’s one thing that we’re finding in Chicago: as soon as you send out an email that says, “We need a space for a couple of weeks,” someone’s going to pop up and be really responsive – it’s great.

Pipette Lamp by Smith and Linder

You two also design together, as Smith and Linder. When did you start that?
 
C: Well, we knew we wanted to work together. Initially we looked at competitions as a way of helping us decide what project to jump on. The first one we entered was DWR’s Modern + Design + Function (M+D+F) show.
 
L: I think they do it in different cities – it’s a competition they sponsor for local furniture designers.
 
C: We decided to design something for that. The first time we sat down, we were sitting at this desk next to each other and we were like, “So, what do we do now?” We needed to set up some sort of a structure just to even get started. It was a little weird.
 
L: We came up with a prototype of a lamp, which got accepted into the DWR thing. Once it got to that point, any division between who was doing what just kind of melted away. It was super fluid and smooth. It’s funny, people would email our company, and we’d both get the email. We’d both respond and CC each other, within seconds, and the emails would be almost exactly the same – verbatim. It’s like we have the same brain! But that’s a great feeling. It’s definitely hard to find that.
 
C: That project allowed us to get the ball rolling. There was no pressure. It seemed kind of fun and interesting to us – a light with two ends on it. The final piece is called the Pipette lamp.
 
L: Going through the full cycle once, on our own, without school pin-ups or critiques or assignments, was really important. We figured out our own way of working. I think we’re both very design-through-making. We just want to make the thing and see what its implications are. Make it, evaluate it, make it again – without a lot of mind-maps and illustrator documents and things like that.
 

Michael Savona’s Goose Cones in The Promise of This Moment show

Everybody has their own process. The process that they teach you in school is geared towards the company model – it directly sets you up for going to work at a typical firm.
 
C: A lot of that process – model making, illustrations, renderings, presentations – is meant to help outside people to understand your idea. Working on our own allows our idea to be insulated up to a point where it’s much more developed and ready for other peoples’ eyes. In some ways, for creative work, that makes so much more sense. It allows you to bring projects to their right fruition, rather than getting watered down too early in the process.
 
L: Misinterpretation can be deadly. If you show it to people and they don’t see something, or they see something too literally, it’s over.

C: I can see the benefits in both ways of working, the independent process vs. the firm/group process. But I think having at least a portion of your practice be independent work is a really important thing to develop your own perspective – which ultimately adds to the larger conversation.
 
So what’s next?
 
C: For the Object Design League, we’re thinking about coming out with a publication, doing a pop-up shop around the holidays, and ICFF in the spring – those are the big ones, aside from continuing the slideshow events.
 
L: We’re also trying to figure out how to move all this from a moonlighting thing to something we can actually do full time.
 
C: Once again, it’s all about getting the framework down. That’s what you need to keep it going.

Bryan Metzdorf’s Teton Blanket in The Promise of This Moment show
 

Our booth-neighbors from the Apulian region of Italy had a rotating podium, which I stared at throughout all four days of the show. They also had a shiny sheep/chair in the colors of the Italian flag placed on the aforementioned rotating podium. This is what ICFF is about, ladies and gentlemen.

And that was not the only gem. I didn’t manage to spend much time actually looking at the show, but here are the standouts that I saw:

1) This task chair from Arper. I WANT IT. Aeron chair be damned, this thing is sexy. I don’t even care that the armrests appear to be more decorative than functional. If anyone would like to make a gift to the Design Glut office, our address is 1050 Broadway, Unit 3, Brooklyn NY.

2) The DesignBoom Mart. I suppose we’re biased because the Mart pretty much launched our company – but every year it has the best stuff by independent designers. And everything costs $10-$100 dollars.

Anti-Theft Lunch Bags by The.

Crayon Rings by Timothy Liles

Bags and bow-ties by Skinny Vinny

3. Jan Habraken’s booth design for Kikkerland. Made out of Campbell’s soup cans, which were all donated to feed the hungry after the show ended. After seeing the amount of trash that is generated at these trade shows, from one-time-use podiums and graphics, this solution seems particularly brilliant and poignant. And it looks amazing.

4. IKEA. That’s right, IKEA had a booth at the fair this year. And they did a great job. If anyone’s making their mark on international contemporary furniture design, it’s them. They showed beautiful designs at incredible prices. This is definitely a trend that I endorse.

5. Japan. An entire huge room was devoted to Japanese design and they did a great job on the exhibit design – better lighting and an overall more calming atmosphere than one usually encounters in the Javits Center. Made me think, why can’t all trade shows feel like this?

For more coverage of the show I recommend checking out Core77, NOTCOT, Apartment Therapy, and Inhabitat.