Marc Newson, Philippe Starck, Tom Dixon. These are designers whose names have appeared on furniture brands and countless design media. However, it is no exaggeration to say that Japanese design entrepreneur Teruo Kurosaki, who passed away on 23 March 2026, was the one who gave them a springboard to success on the world stage. He was the founder of the Tokyo-based furniture company Idée. His passing was accompanied by deep sadness among the many designers who’d worked with him. Here, we pay homage to the man who became the custodian of aspiring designers.

Teruo Kurosaki and Idée

Idée was founded in 1982 as a company to create original furniture working with designers from Japan and abroad, aiming to offer a lifestyle rooted in aesthetic sensibility. Over time, the company expanded beyond furniture making to become a lifestyle brand offering a wide range of products – from textiles and plants to music and food – with a mission to encourage adventures into personal interests.

Founder Kurosaki was born in 1949. In the early 1980s, while visiting his younger brother who was studying in London, he encountered antiques. As he looked at Western antiques, he became intrigued by the ideas behind objects that humans had created, wondering, 'Who made these, and with what intentions? What situation were they used in?'

This led him to begin importing Western antiques into Japan, to celebrate the intrinsic value of objects that had been passed down for generations. Kurosaki had an acute eye for aesthetics; he was probably one of the first to introduce midcentury French designer Jean Prouvé’s work to Japan in the 1980s (Prouvé specialist Galerie Patrick Seguin only opened in 1989). Jasper Morrison recalls, ‘I went to Tokyo and I remember meeting [Kurosaki] there for the first time and being impressed that he was showing products of Jean Prouvé and Serge Mouille.’

Idée was founded not only to deal in vintage items, but also with the aspiration to create living environments that would inspire Japanese people to aspire to such a lifestyle, leading to the launch of Idée’s original furniture production. For this reason, Idée had its own workshop from the start, handling production from woodworking and metalwork to electrical work. Its staff formed a community much like the guild craftsmen of the Middle Ages. Its initial furniture was based on European furniture – Thonet’s bentwood chairs or Eileen Gray’s art deco screens.

Marc Newsom and Idée

A decisive moment for Idée, and probably for the design scene in Japan, came in the mid-1980s, when Australian designer Marc Newson, fresh out of art school in Sydney came across Kurosaki. ‘I first met Teruo Kurosaki quite serendipitously. It was the result of an extraordinary (quite literal) crossing of paths in Tokyo in the 1980s when I was in my early twenties. Kurosaki fast became a wonderfully generous mentor, and my very first patron (my only, in truth). A critical part of this support came from how he set me up at Idée. Despite sharing the space with Idée’s employees, I was encouraged to work on and develop my own designs,’ Newson tells Wallpaper*.

At the time, there were many builders’ stores in Tokyo that dealt with lamp fittings, which excited Newson, who gathered components from these suppliers and assembled lighting fixtures to create the ‘Super Guppy’ lamp in Idée’s workshop.

Probably the most recognised of Newson’s designs made at Idée is the ‘Embryo’ chair. Kurosaki asked for the help of a surfing wetsuit manufacturer in Zushi, Kanagawa, using neoprene to realise the distinctive form of Newson’s design.

‘Kurosaki also helped me organise my living accommodation, at times at apartments he owned. His support was sincere and all-encompassing – that of a true friend – affording me the time and space to progress in the field. With him, Tokyo was a city where the future somehow felt present and vital. He was a man who took great pleasure in championing other designers and loved forging connections between those he admired. For me, Kurosaki simply embodied Japan,’ continues Newson.

Making Aoyama, Tokyo, the epicentre of design

‘I started a furniture business without any furniture background. So I didn’t know the rules or the business model in making furniture,’ Kurosaki once said. Maybe because of this, he was willing to risk producing adventurous designs, while other furniture company owners with history might think harder about the practicality and viability of the design.

When Idée opened a four-storey shop in Aoyama in 1995, the neighborhood began to transform into a 'Design Block'. Cassina also opened a showroom in the district in 1997, and other international furniture brands followed suit, both in Aoyama and Omotesando.

After seeing London Designers Block, Kurosaki envisioned Tokyo becoming a city of design. In 1999, he organised Tokyo Designers Block, a series of simultaneous design exhibitions held at local shops. Involving embassies from various countries, this event – which continued until 2005 – introduced to the city the work of designers from around the world, including Sweden, the UK, and France, and was likely the first initiative to proclaim to the world that Tokyo was an epicentre of design.

Kurosaki himself later exited Idée, which is now under the umbrella of Ryohinkeikaku, the firm behind Muji. However, rather than limiting itself to furniture, the Idée shop – which, as early as 1997, featured curated books, music, a florist, and even a coffee stand – significantly broadened the definition of design, and it was precisely this that allowed it to touch the lives of so many people. It could be said to have pioneered the trend, now commonplace at Milan Design Week, of technology and hospitality companies exhibiting alongside furniture brands.

Making it in the land of opportunity has often required outlandish signage and bold graphical articulation. Here we have selected a series of American objects that bear instantly recognisable design statements that have stood the test of time. Is there something distinctly American in their combination of commerce and culture, or is successful branding simply a case of mass consumption meets volume marketing?

All the examples featured here have become acknowledged showstoppers in their respective genres, adorning everything from fashion and fast food to architectural wonders and waistbands, mashing up high art and commerce in wondrous combinations along the way. These are their creative stories.

14 American logos that made contemporary graphic design history

I ❤️ NY

By its sheer ubiquity, I Love NY may be the world's most appropriated logo. Fifty years after it was introduced, it has become an all-purpose shorthand for allegiance and affection for anything, anywhere. Designed by Milton Glaser in 1976, it originally served as the graphic punchline to an ad campaign that helped rescue NYC from the brink of bankruptcy. Desperate to arrest its ballooning fiscal deficit, city officials funded the campaign to lure tourists back to the Big Apple. Doodling on the taxi ride from his home to the office, as he often did, Glaser drew a red heart paired with the letters ‘I' and ‘NY' rendered in American Typewriter, a slab serif with a 1970s flair, and worked with longtime studio assistant George Leavitt to slightly tweak it. Decades before the proliferation of emojis, some worried that the rebus-like construction would confuse people. Nevertheless, the city officials accepted the proposal, and soon made it the logo for the entire state. Copycats emerged almost immediately, but the state secured copyright, earning it tens of thousands of dollars in licensing fees each year.

The logo's widespread popularity became Glaser's calling card but also a kind of creative prison, with almost every article about him inevitably circling back to it. The 2009 National Medal of Arts honoree's many other achievements include co-founding New York magazine, designing restaurants, and producing hundreds of posters, album covers and book jackets, as well as logos for Brooklyn Brewery, DC Comics, and Italian gelato maker Sammontana. Glaser, who passed away on his 91st birthday in 2020, never lost sight of the New York logo's original purpose as a civic symbol. In the aftermath of 9/11, he appended it with the words ‘More Than Ever', added a burn mark to a corner of the heart, and gave the grieving city a ready-made banner. The same poster re-emerged in shop windows and on food carts during the pandemic. In 2023, the city felt compelled to rebrand Glaser's logo, but the flood of complaints confirmed one thing: a ferocious affection for the original. Text by Anne Quito

Read more about the design of I Love NY

New York Mets

Selected by a public competition, the design for the New York Mets logo, unveiled in 1961, was the work of illustrator Ray Gotto. Though the baseball team would play in Queens (as rivals New York Yankees were based in the Bronx), Gotto sensed that an emblem that could unite the entire city was needed, so he drew a symbolic New York skyline using a medley of landmarks from various boroughs, including the Woolworth Building, the Empire State Building and the UN HQ, while a suspension bridge anchors the composition. Originally rendered in black and pink, the palette was later revised to blue, orange and white, colours that also echo New York City's flag. In the decades since, the Mets have cycled through owners, managers, stadiums and uniforms, but Gotto's logo remains a fiercely guarded emblem. Text by Anne Quito

Read more about the design of the New York Mets logo

Tiffany & Co

The Tiffany box sits on the illustrious list of famous objects that money can't buy. ‘Charles Lewis Tiffany has one thing in stock that you cannot buy for any price; he will only give it to you. And that is one of his boxes,' read a 1906 article in the New York Sun, and the rule still stands. The box's distinctive shade of turquoise has been trademarked since 1998 and an official Pantone colour since 2001 (dubbed 1837 Blue to reflect the company's founding year). Having remained largely unchanged, in 2005, Pentagram partner Paula Scher was asked to give the brand a discreet refresh. The new identity focused on the blue box, and the shade was rolled out to include advertising, bags and the inside of the boxes. The new logo was hand-drawn to resemble a hot-stamped, letterpress typeface, signalling a combination of luxury and craft. Text by Rosa Bertoli

Read more about the design of the Tiffany & Co logo

Chateau Marmont

Chateau Marmont occupies a mythic place in Hollywood folklore: a decadent sanctuary overlooking the Sunset Strip that has been attracting artists, movie stars and musicians for almost a century. It opened originally as an apartment building in 1929, modelled loosely on the medieval Château d'Amboise in the Loire Valley, before becoming a hotel in the 1930s. When André Balazs took over in 1990, he wanted to retain as much of its historic ambience as possible, working with creative agency Pandiscio Green on a visual identity. The hotel's storied past is reflected in its timeless logo, which uses the medieval-style lettering of the Libra font (created by Dutch typographer Sjoerd Hendrik de Roos in 1938) – its hand-drawn look is perfectly in keeping with the property's French gothic, intentionally shabby aesthetic. Text by Kevin EG Perry

Read more about the design of the Chateau Marmont logo

IBM

Designed in 1956, at a time when International Business Machines was still using vacuum tubes in its vast room-filling computers, the IBM logo was the work of Paul Rand, who had honed his skills as a magazine art director before turning to corporate identity. The simple three-letter device gave the industrial monolith a coherence across a dizzying range and scale of products, capable of coping with everything from a business card to a business park entrance. Rand would modify it in 1960 and again in 1972 to create the familiar striped version.

Distinctive, bold and graphic, it was an appropriately serious signifier for the world’s largest computer maker, and is still in use today. In many respects, IBM was a pioneering design collaborator, also choosing to work with the likes of Charles and Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi, Eliot Noyes, George Nelson, Denys Lasdun and Eero Saarinen.

Read more about the design of the IBM logo

Snoopy

Created by Charles M Schulz, comic strip Peanuts followed the exploits of Charlie Brown and his dog Snoopy. Snoopy was the result of Schulz's observation of the relationship between children and dogs, noting the high levels of tolerance a dog has for children's games. Schulz originally drew him as an ordinary-looking black and white beagle who walked on all fours, but he later simplified him, with Snoopy developing long ears and expressive dots for eyes. The streamlined design made Snoopy both instantly recognisable and adaptable, meaning he could move easily from newspaper strips and toys to products, ad campaigns and fashion collaborations. He has appeared in collections by the likes of Chanel, Gucci and Lacoste, and on everything from sneakers to watches, including Timex, who, in 1965, became one of the first watch brands to obtain licences for the use of the Peanuts characters. Text by Hannah Silver

Read more about the origins of Snoopy

Campbell's

The Campbell's soup can was already one of the most recognisable pieces of packaging in America by the time Andy Warhol turned his attention to it in the 1960s. Adept at blurring the boundaries between commercial design and fine art, Warhol was unique in recognising the power packaging had to transcend the mundane, becoming a cultural symbol in its own right. By reproducing the soup can almost exactly, and without comment, Warhol asked viewers to consider why such an everyday item held so much significance, and whether it came from his reproduction or the effectiveness of the original package design. The work became a defining image of the Pop Art movement, presenting an entirely new vision of what contemporary art could be, as well as influencing generations of graphic designers and advertisers to come. Text by Hannah Silver

Read more about the origins of the Campbell's soup can

Hollywood

The most famous sign in the world transcended every conceivable aspiration of its originators, developers SH Woodruff and Tracy E Shoults, who, in 1923, were part of a consortium looking to promote their new real estate venture Hollywoodland. The job went to Thomas Fisk Goff of the Crescent Sign Company, who set out the name in 50ft-high blocky capital letters across the hillside above Beachwood Canyon. Visible for miles, and illuminated for its first decade, the sign was initially popular but soon started to decay. Demolition was considered at the point when it simply read ‘ollywoodland', but, in 1949, buoyed by local support, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce stepped in, reinstating the ‘H' and dropping the ‘land'. And there it has remained ever since, even threatening to outlast the industry it celebrates. Text by Jonathan Bell

Read more about the Hollywoodland sign design

MoMA

Ivan Chermayeff 's logotype for MoMA first surfaced in 1964, taking a starkly typographic approach with its effective and appropriately modern use of Franklin Gothic No.2. MoMA Gothic, a custom typeface designed by Matthew Carter, was introduced in 2004 and, five years later, Pentagram was appointed to create guidelines for the use of MoMA Gothic across the museum's entire visual output, from signage to posters and publications. The agency worked in parallel with Julia Hoffmann, MoMA's creative director for graphics and advertising, to devise ways it could be cropped, coloured and paired with content, reducing the logo down to an abstracted set of letters. Chermayeff 's original solution proved so enduring that it remains the foundation stone of the museum's visual identity more than 60 years after it was devised. Text by Jonathan Bell

Read more about the MoMA logo design

McDonald's

The first McDonald's restaurant to showcase the golden arches in physical form opened in 1953 in Phoenix, Arizona, designed by Stanley Clark Meston. Working with co-founder Richard McDonald, who suggested the idea of the arches, Meston's assistant Charles Fish rendered the forms not as simple curves but as structural parabolas. However, it was the company's head of engineering and design Jim Schindler who would translate the physical incarnations into the extended ‘M' logo, with the signature yellow and red colours providing eye-catching contrast. Today's McDonald's franchises are flat-packed structures that can be erected in 24 hours, not neon-lit Googie wonders that send midcentury buffs salivating. But on packaging, the golden arches have been served up to billions in the decades that followed their creation. Text by Jonathan Bell

Read more about the origins of the Golden Arches

Nike Swoosh

‘I don't love it, but it will grow on me.' This was the reaction of Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike, when he first saw what would become the Nike ‘swoosh', conceived by Carolyn Davidson to adorn the fledgling sports label's footwear. (Then a design student at Portland State University, she was paid $35 for the commission, though was later rewarded with shares in the company and a diamond ring bearing the motif.) Originally designed as a take on the stripe that featured on other sneakers of the time, its elongated silhouette was conceived by Davidson to express a feeling of speed and agility – as if it was being viewed dashing past. And dash it did. In 1972, one year after Davidson submitted the design, two of the top American finishers at the Boston Marathon crossed the line wearing Nike shoes marked with the swoosh. Text by Jack Moss

Read more about the story behind the Nike Swoosh

Levi's

Levi's began in San Francisco in the mid-1850s during the California gold rush when Bavarian immigrant Levi Strauss identified a need for hard-wearing work clothing for miners. In 1873, he invented the ‘waist overall' (crafted from indigo selvedge denim with metal rivets, they are what we now know as the ‘original blue jean') and the year is stamped on the leather patch that appears on every pair of Levi's jeans. Known as the ‘two-horse patch' in reference to its protagonists (two horses pulling a pair of jeans in opposite directions without destroying them), the pictorial design was used because of high illiteracy levels in the American West; the idea was that people could go into stores and ask for ‘those pants with the two horses'. The brand's logo has evolved, but the two-horse patch has endured, a symbol of what remains the US' definitive fashion export. Text by Jack Moss

Read more about Levi's design origins

Calvin Klein

Calvin Klein's sans serif logo, first introduced by its namesake designer in 1968, is an exercise in simplicity and directness – a reflection of Klein's approach to fashion, which would flourish in the 1990s. And, while the logo has appeared on everything from fragrance bottles to T-shirts, it will be forever associated with the elastic waistband of the brand's underwear – a stroke of marketing genius that saw people hitch down their jeans to reveal their brand allegiance. Their ubiquity was achieved through Klein's evocative underwear ads photographed by the likes of Bruce Weber and Herb Ritts. Memorable campaign stars have included Olympic pole vaulter Tom Hintnaus, Mark Wahlberg, Kate Moss, Freddie Ljungberg, Naomi Campbell, Justin Bieber, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Jeremy Allen White and Bad Bunny. Text by Jack Moss

Read more about the origins of the Calvin Klein logo

Nirvana

In 1989, Nirvana's first record label, Sub Pop, was in need of artwork for the band's debut album Bleach. It commissioned designer Lisa Orth, who at the time was working at The Rocket, a Seattle music paper that was one of the driving forces behind the nascent grunge scene. The story goes that she simply asked her colleague Grant Alden to use whatever font had just been used on their typesetting machine. It happened to be Onyx, a blocky serif display font that gelled so well with the reversed black-and-white live image on the cover that it became the band's logo going forwards, appearing on records, T-shirts, patches and the like. The font deviates slightly from that used in the band's infamous ‘Satan Worshippin' Mother Fucker' T-shirts, which have flipped ‘N's and appear to be a little more Bodoni-adjacent. Text by Jonathan Bell

Read more about the origins of the Nirvana logo

Every July, as summer reaches its peak in Palermo, Sicily, and the searing daytime temperatures demand near nocturnality, Sicilians take to the streets for the Festino di Santa Rosalia (affectionately called U Fistinu). A celebration of the city's patron saint, who is credited with ending the deadly plague of 1624, the festival is Palermo's grandest annual event. At its heart is a spectacular evening procession through the city's historic centre, led by a towering triumphal float, known as a carro, carrying an effigy of Santa Rosalia.

Earlier this week, the city gathered for the 402nd edition of the centuries-old tradition, which, as locals will tell you, goes well beyond religion. It is something deeply spiritual that taps into a collective memory almost primal in its intensity. 'We all need a little madness,' reflects architect Mario Cucinella, who this year was invited to design the great carro. One of Italy's most celebrated architects, Cucinella admits the commission was daunting, particularly knowing his work would be experienced by the estimated 400,000 people gathering in the city.

Festino di Santa Rosalia chariot by Mario Cucinella

Born in Palermo in 1960 before moving with his family to the province of Piacenza, Cucinella graduated in architecture from the University of Genoa. After working alongside Renzo Piano, he founded MCA – Mario Cucinella Architects, now headquartered in Bologna and Milan. Known for its environmentally responsive architecture, the practice's work spans hospitals, schools, galleries, residential, urban masterplans and exhibition design, but this marks the studio's first venture into designing a ceremonial festival float.

Rather than creating a theatrical stage set, MCA conceived a temporary piece of architecture. 'The carro evokes Palermo, a garden city, much like Monte Pellegrino, where vegetation climbs in terraces, intertwining memory and identity,' explains Cucinella, referring to the mountain that rises above the city.

The structure is loaded with symbolism. A series of stacked timber plinths references the mountain's topography while bright blue bas relief Saladin stars and Norman knot motifs acknowledge Sicily's intertwined Arab-Norman heritage. Integrated into the timber terraces are 40 planters holding more than 150 locally sourced plants – including bay laurel, fan palm, holm oak, mastic, myrtle, wild olive, phillyrea, rosemary and frangipani – transforming the float into a vertical Mediterranean garden.

The choice of plants is particularly resonant. Born around 1130, Rosalia, the daughter of a Norman noble family, is said to have fled an arranged marriage to live as a hermit on Monte Pellegrino, where she died around 1166. Nearly five centuries later, during the plague of 1624, her remains were discovered and carried through Palermo in procession – a moment the city credits with ending the epidemic.

On MCA's carro, the planting rises through the structure before dissolving into a cloud of some 300 illuminated butterflies that spiral around the saint at its summit. Representing transformation, rebirth and collective liberation, they create a luminous halo around the figure of Santa Rosalia. In her hand, she carries a striking blue cross carved by Palermitan artist Filippo Sapienza from the timber of migrant boats that reached Sicily's shores – a poignant reminder that Palermo has long been both a place of arrival and a place of refuge.

The carro formed the centrepiece of a much broader production, art-directed by Luca Pintacuda of Odd Agency, which won the tender for the festival for the third year running alongside partner Coop Culture. Video projections transformed the city's historic façades, while drones, dance, live music and fireworks turned Palermo itself into a stage, tracing a narrative that stretched from the arrival of Arab forces in 827 AD to the city's contemporary identity.

Projects like this, Cucinella says, offer a welcome counterpoint to the years-long process of designing buildings. They allow the studio to engage with the public immediately, rather than waiting years to see their work inhabited. And while the carro is temporary by design, it's expected to be installed somewhere in the city after the Festino, giving the structure a second life beyond the procession.

Palermo's annual Festino di Santa Rosalia, between ritual and spectacle

On the evening of the Festino, that engagement was immediate indeed. As the carro began its slow journey from Palazzo dei Normanni through Palermo's historic centre, Cucinella remained almost hidden within the structure. Visible only in silhouette against its illuminated interior, he looked out over the streets below, where spectators crowd the pavements and spill from balconies overhead.

Guiding the chariot 2.5km through Palermo's historic centre is a huge logistical operation involving scores of security personnel and volunteers. At one point, Santa Rosalia becomes snagged on overhead wires, drawing a collective gasp from the crowd before a technician swiftly climbs a ladder to free her path. There is a unique intensity that elevates the celebration beyond carnival, into something closer to ritual.

At Quattro Canti, Palermo's theatrical Baroque intersection, the procession briefly comes to a halt. The mayor of Palermo, Roberto Lagalla, emerges on the carro's platform, raises his voice – 'Viva Palermo! Viva Santa Rosalia!' The crowd erupts into chant as confetti and streamers rain down overhead.

'I've never experienced anything like it,' Cucinella says afterwards, still absorbing the enormity of the spectacle he helped create. For one night, architecture became theatre, ritual and civic celebration all at once.

mcarchitects.it

For Federico Stefanovich, mimicking nature literally in design misses the point: there’s much more to gain from this vital source of inspiration than just surface level floral patterns or leaf motifs. The Mexican talent – a 2025 Wallpaper* Ascending Star – goes deeper and finds clever ways to evoke the anatomical structures intrinsic to plant and animal life.

Presented by Mexico City’s Ago Projects gallery, Stefanovich's latest collection, Salina, stems from close observations of aquatic organisms – the vast morphology of shells and carapaces beneath the ocean’s surface. Stefanovich has interpreted the essential osseous qualities of these natural elements in the formation of collectible lamp and table designs.

‘Rather than reproduce these references literally, the collection reinterprets them through an abstract lens, seeking to capture the delicate balance between fragility and strength – the rigidity and organic fluidity that characterizes many forms of marine life,’ Stefanovich says. ‘Rather than looking primarily at existing design references or typologies, I tend to begin with structures, behaviours and relationships.’

For Stefanovich, sand-cast bronze is the best process and material to authentically capture the skeleton shapes that keep shells together. 'This process allows me to create intricate yet robust forms – limbs and branches – that can remain hollow and accommodate electrical components when necessary,' he adds.

On top of his interest in natural systems, the designer is also fascinated by the intersection of traditional craftsmanship and contemporary technologies. ‘Much of my work involves moving between handmade processes and digital tools, each informs the other,’ says Stefanovich. ‘Discovering new materials and exploring their possibilities is an important part of the process, as is finding ways to celebrate the traces of making rather than conceal them’.

Fibreglass was chosen for the lampshades because of the material's balance of precision and unpredictability; air bubble imperfections resemble the irregularities one might find on a shell’s surface. Shaped in 3D-printed moulds, the semi-translucent material is ideal for diffusing light. When illuminated, the complex-curve forms reveal all of their textural variations. ‘One material feels skeletal and dense, while the other appears lighter, translucent and almost organic,’ he says. ‘Together they create a tension that becomes central to the collection.'

That’s especially true in the table designs in which Stefanovich attempted to push the limits of asymmetry. 'I’m deeply interested in the engineering dimension of design. Balance, structural logic, assembly and weight distribution are often as important to me as the visual outcome,' he explains.

Stefanovich's solutions are both functional and expressive, allowing the way an object supports itself or comes together to become its identity – just as Mother Nature would have intended.

There are few weeks in London’s calendar when the city feels quite as alive as it does during London Design Festival. Every September, museums, galleries and streets become the centre of conversation, where architects, designers and makers invite us to look differently at the spaces we move through every day.

The first programme announced for London Design Festival 2026, which returns from 12 to 20 September, looks at both the origins of design and its future direction. This year, both craft and artificial intelligence sit alongside one another as historic techniques are revisited through contemporary collaborations, exploring themes of migration, ecology, and cultural exchange across many confirmed projects.

London Design Festival 2026: programme announced

A bamboo pavilion with a bigger story to tell

Among the first commissions announced is The Pangolin Shield, the festival’s inaugural Landmark Project by the Anglo-Indian studio Studio Saar and structural engineers Atelier One. Installed on the Strand, the pavilion takes its cue from the pangolin, the shy, armour-plated mammal whose overlapping scales serve as the starting point for a structure made of bamboo and woven shields traditionally used by farming communities in north-eastern India.

While the pavilion could easily be appreciated for its impressive engineering, the aim is to encourage visitors to engage with it on a deeper level. It invites reflection on colonial histories, the movement of people and ideas, and the stories that materials carry as they journey across the Indian Ocean. Traditionally, the bamboo canopy serves both as shelter and as a space for contemplation, urging those on London’s busiest streets to slow down and be viewed.

Made looks back to the Barbican

Renowned for its iconic brutalist architecture, the Barbican has profoundly influenced London’s design imagination. Its impact is evident in contemporary interiors, furniture design, and even the conversations surrounding urban living.

This autumn, Made revisits that legacy with a new collection developed by designer Miriam Howitt, drawing on archival research into the estate and its original interiors. Furniture, lighting and textiles draw on the Barbican’s distinctive interiors. To accompany this, an installation at the festival explores how one of Britain’s most recognisable architectural landmarks continues to shape ideas of home decades after it first opened.

The V&A begins with an awakening

The V&A has become the spiritual home of the London Design Festival, and its annual commission often captures the mood of each edition. This year, Awakenings, curated by Carrie Chan and Kristian Volsing, looks at how design can reshape our relationship with the world around us.

Spread throughout the museum, the programme brings together designers including Aziza Kadyri, Eunjo Lee and Henry Svendsen, alongside new commissions exploring sound, identity, artificial intelligence and the natural world. There is a sense of curiosity running through the exhibition, as well as a sense that technology is no longer treated as something separate from craft. Instead, both are becoming part of the same conversation.

The Design Museum turns its attention to people behind the practice

The Design Museum’s programme spans fashion, furniture and contemporary design culture. A major ongoing retrospective celebrates NIGO, charting the Japanese designer’s influence across streetwear and luxury fashion. London-based designer, educator and cultural change-maker, Simone Brewster’s Platform installation continues her exploration of sculptural furniture and material histories, layered with references from 'palaeolithic fertility deities to African diasporic traditions'.

Away from the galleries, conversations take centre stage too. Brewster joins Jasmi Hussein, Emefa Cole and Hettie Judah for a discussion exploring design and motherhood, shifting the focus away from finished work, towards the lives and experiences that shape creative work.

Japanese craft meets contemporary design

This year, Craft x Tech Tokai Project continues its tradition of collaboration between Japanese artisans and international designers. The exhibition highlights the fusion of traditional craftsmanship and contemporary design, featuring media such as ceramics, washi paper, lacquer, textiles, and woodworking.

Featuring designers such as Bethan Laura Wood, David Caon, and Philippe Malouin, who engage with artisans whose techniques have been refined and passed down through generations, showcasing the exciting possibilities born from this rich exchange of ideas.

New conversations between Asia and London

Elsewhere, MixZ continues its exploration of cultural exchange between Asia and the UK through a pair of exhibitions taking place at the V&A and the Old Selfridges Hotel.

One of the exhibitions will highlight the ancient beauty of Dehua porcelain, while the other delves into the future with immersive technologies and artificial intelligence. Throughout both presentations, the focus is on collaboration as community, underscoring the idea that true innovation seldom occurs in a vacuum. Instead, it flourishes through the shared knowledge, materials, and ideas that flow between different cultures.

There’s a devil-may-care punk insouciance behind the origin story of Nirvana’s bold serif logo. Beloved by generations born long after Kurt Cobain’s 1994 death, the stark logotype originated from the band’s first record label, Sub Pop, in 1989 for the cover of their debut album Bleach.

The story goes that designer Lisa Orth, commissioned to design the LP, simply asked her colleague Grant Alden to use whatever font had just been used on their typesetting machine. Alden worked at The Rocket, a Seattle music paper that was one of the driving forces behind the nascent grunge scene.

The font was Onyx, a blocky serif display font that gelled so well with the reversed black and white live image on the cover (taken by Cobain’s then-girlfriend Tracy Marander) that it became their logo going forwards, appearing on records, T-shirts, patches and countless hand-made homages. Typographic detectives should note that the font deviates slightly from that used in the band’s infamous ‘Satan Worshippin’ Mother Fucker’ T-shirts, which have flipped ‘N’s and appear to be a little more Bodoni-adjacent.

Cobain’s death in 1994 ossified the logo, which was also used on the final Nirvana album, In Utero, in 1993. As his legend grew, so did the value and scope of the Cobain estate, buoyed by T-shirt sales and vinyl reissues; visit Shop.Nirvana.com to see pure commodification in action.

This article appears in the August 2026 Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Fashion designer Jil Sander made her first foray into furniture design in 2025. Collaborating with the German furniture designer Thonet, she brought her minimalist yet innovative approach to reinterpretations of classic Bauhaus designs by Mart Stam, Marcel Breuer, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Now, she has added two new designs to the resulting JS Thonet collection: the ‘S 411’ lounge chair and the ‘S 1070’ table. Both pieces, rooted in technical developments, offer contemporary takes on classic designs and are available in ‘Serious’ and ‘Nordic’ editions, comprising more sober and lighter colours and finishes, respectively.

The lounge chair takes its framework from a Thonet factory design that dates back to 1932. Its distinct, S-shaped tubular frame combines an elegant cantilevered form with sprung upholstery and is paired with a matching footstool for comfort.

In her design approach, Sander sees herself as closely aligned with the Bauhaus philosophy of elevating everyday objects by marrying functionalism with minimalist aesthetics, but also with Marcel Breuer in particular. ‘It was important to Breuer to combine industrial techniques and components with attractive, high-quality traditional materials such as leather, wood, and tubular steel. He strove to reconcile avant-garde aesthetics with an appreciation for comfort. This approach showed foresight and makes all the difference in the market today.’

She adds, 'The chair appears to defy gravity, in a spirit of constructivism, as if floating freely in space,' she says. 'I wanted to achieve this weightlessness without the glitz of chrome, grounding the “S 411”.'

The JS Thonet collection’s new ‘S 1070’ tables, meanwhile, are an interpretation of a Glen Oliver Löw design from 2004, which itself nodded to Bauhaus designs – in particular, Marcel Breuer’s 1920s ‘B 9’ nesting tables.

Sander has taken the clean-lined piece and added her own finishes and colours, her glossy tabletop nodding to the finish on a Steinway grand piano. ‘To me, colours are like musical notes that can speak to each other and resonate by association,’ she says.

Sander’s purist aesthetic echoes throughout the collection, as Thonet’s creative director Norbert Ruf notes: ‘Jil Sander’s designs have always represented laid-back, elegant luxury and her clothes are worn with pleasure year after year. [She] wants to use her products to convey a sense of value.’

thonet.de

Also in the JS Thonet collection

Although Richard and Maurice McDonald only held on to their hamburger empire for 21 years (selling out to Ray Kroc in 1961), the brothers not only laid the groundwork for global fast food but pioneered the idea of architecture as signage. The first McDonald’s restaurant to showcase the Golden Arches was their second restaurant, located in San Bernadino and designed by local architect Stanley Clark Meston, a specialist in the car-focused roadside architecture that proliferated in the 40s and 50s.

McDonald's Golden Arches

Working closely with Richard McDonald, who suggested the idea of the towering twin arches, Meston’s assistant Charles Fish rendered the forms not as simple curves but as structural parabolas, a familiar form of the era with its roots in modernist concrete engineering.

It was employee Jim Schindler who translated these architectural forms into the extended ‘M’ logotype in 1962, with the signature yellow and red colours providing eye-catching contrast. As an architectural element, the arches lasted barely a decade into Kroc’s aggressive period of restaurant building, yet as a recognisable logotype it was unmatched and simply too good to ignore. Distilled into a single letter atop a pole or on the side of a building, the arches are a throwback to a forgotten era of cinematic, aspirational roadside architecture.

Today’s McDonald’s franchises are flat-packed structures that can be thrown up in 24 hours, not neon-lit Googie wonders that send mid-century buffs salivating. But on wrappers, cups and chip packets, the golden arches have been served up billions upon billions of times in the decades that followed their creation.

After eight years under the leadership of architect Stefano Boeri, the Triennale di Milano today inaugurated a new president. Vincenzo Trione, a professor of art and media history at Milan's IULM University, a columnist for Corriere della Sera and a curator of modern and contemporary art, used his first press conference to lay out his vision for what he described as a 'deeply Italian' next four years.

'We are living in an age in which it is perhaps more important to ask questions than to offer answers,' Trione announced during the presentation of his four-year programme. 'We have sought to create an institution that endeavours to ask questions and regards all our activities as possible and open-ended answers.

'We will begin with a major question – a decisive question of our time. From this question will stem the exhibitions, the public programme and a series of initiatives. Every year, an installation that will serve as a manifesto for that year's Triennale will be placed at the entrance to the Palazzo dell'Arte, becoming, in a sense, our programmatic statement and our artistic manifesto.'

Beyond the exhibitions, Trione outlined a wide-ranging public programme that will accompany each exhibition, comprising lectures by leading thinkers alongside seminars and conferences. The first will be hosted by Franco-Tunisian sociologist Asma Mhalla and will focus on resistance in times of crisis.

Strengthening Triennale’s educational mission

As a longtime academic, Trione also emphasised the institution's educational mission and its relationship with universities and research institutions, including the revival of the Triennale's Centro Studi (Study Centre), originally founded by Giuseppe Pagano and Piero Bottoni in the 1940s. He also announced plans to establish three-year degree and PhD programmes offering advanced training in curatorial studies, architecture, design and fashion.

Alongside the new cultural programme, Trione also unveiled a new Scientific Committee, led by architect and designer Michele De Lucchi, who will also serve as the Triennale's creative director and curator of the Museo del Design Italiano. Joining him are Manuela Lucà-Dazio, formerly managing director of the Venice Biennale and currently executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Foundation, who will oversee architecture; and Andrea Villani, currently curator of the Ministry of Culture's Digital Heritage Gateway Platform and formerly curator of the Museum of Civilizations in Rome, who will lead contemporary art.

Sharing a brief remark during the announcement, De Lucchi hinted at some of the themes his tenure as curator of the Museo del Design Italiano would explore. 'I've always held on to this idea that Italian design is shaped by wonderful entrepreneurs and architects,' he said. 'But the area where we perhaps need to focus more attention is on the artisans, because I must say that in Italy there are still artisans who have disappeared in many other countries around the world. This culture of Italian craftsmanship, this culture of manufacturing, is a truly very special one.'

In his concluding remarks, Trione made a point of noting that although De Lucchi, Villani and Lucà-Dazio each bring extensive international experience, he considers them all 'deeply Italian'.

'I believe that at a time when there has been a blatant preference for foreign figures in the selection of curators and commissioners, this small cultural signal is worth highlighting,' he said. It was an interesting choice of words for Italy's foremost design institution in its most cosmopolitan city, at a time when Milan's growing international profile has increasingly set it apart from the country at large.

While the 2027 programme will be announced this autumn, visitors can look forward to an upcoming retrospective on modernist sculptor Costantino Nivola, which will open in November 2026, as well as a tribute to the American singer and poet Patti Smith, staged in collaboration with Fondation Cartier, also slated for November.

triennale.org

Ivan Chermayeff’s MoMA logotype first surfaced in 1964, making effective and appropriately modern use of Franklin Gothic No. 2 to create a starkly typography approach.

Chermayeff, son of the modernist architect Serge Chermayeff, worked across graphic design, branding, writing, and design theory, creating logos for Barneys New York, Chase Bank, New York University and many other American institutions. A custom typeface by Matthew Carter, MoMA Gothic, was introduced in 2004 and five years later Pentagram were appointed to create guidelines for the use of MoMA Gothic across the museum’s entire visual output, from signage to posters and publications.

The agency worked in parallel with Julia Hoffmann, MoMA’s Creative Director for Graphics and Advertising, to devise ways it could be cropped, coloured and paired with content, reducing the logo down to an abstracted set of letters. It’s a visual shorthand for high art, cementing the connection between bold graphical simplicity and intellectual rigour, whilst also flexible enough to accommodate the visual splash of Pop or the sober tones of minimalism.

Chermayeff’s original solution proved so enduring that it remains the foundation stone of the museum’s visual identity over sixty years after it was devised. Today, it is used everywhere from the 53^rd Street façade to MoMA’s website and across its range of merchandise, all without missing a beat.

In 1979 the press secretary of the British embassy in Buenos Aires, Randoll Coate, woke from a dream where his friend, the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges had died. Writing to Susana Bombal (who had originally introduced them in the 1950s), he unveiled his idea: inspired by Borges’ short story ‘The Garden of Forking Paths’, he vowed to create a labyrinth in his honour whenever the day came.

True to his word, after the writer’s death in 1986, the maze maker’s design came to life in Argentina. Due to its success, Borges’ widow Maria Kodama began to propose Coate’s project to places dear to the writer. Venice, itself a winding labyrinth of a city, held a special place in his heart.

Labirinto Borges at the Giorgio Cini Foundation

In 2011, twenty-five years after Borges' death, the labyrinth opened on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. Set in a weathered cordon steel skeleton to protect it from the elements, vivid green boxwood plants wind in long articulated lines, revealing the form of an open book, the writer’s surname splayed out in elegant type on each 'page', mirrored and intertwined.

Looking closer, images emerge: a question mark, a cane, a pair of eyes. 'The labyrinth’s perimeter asks us with its symbols and signs to remember the reasons why it was planted,' says Pedro Memelsdorff, the musical director of the Giorgio Cini Foundation. '[It’s] a monumental tribute to Borges for the future and for future generations.' Today, forty years after the writer’s death, thanks to the generous support of PwC Italia the labyrinth has been fully restored.

Restoring the original maze

'We might think of it as a mosaic, with the plants as the tiles that live or die,' says Renata Codello, the Secretary General of the Foundation. The process of creating and maintaining the maze is 'a constant action … always living and present.' 165 dead or severely damaged boxwood plants were removed, while the irrigation system responsible for maintaining the verdant green was inspected and repaired where faults were found. Only time will tell if the older plants accept the new ones; like a body after an organ transplant, things need to unite. In the 15 years since it was first planted change was inevitable, with this revisitation the 1,1150 metres of winding path have been trimmed and unified. Weeds painstakingly removed by hand, the soil revamped, refreshed, and enriched with additional fertilization.

Thanks to a collaboration with the Italian Union of the Blind and Visually Impaired, the restoration also includes the addition of a tactile map at the start of the maze. Borges lived for the last years of his life in darkness, his sight gradually deteriorating over time until he went blind at the age of 55. So this small but powerful gesture creates another moving link to the author, allowing visitors to understand the structure of the labyrinth and feel its twists and turns before they take that first step into the unknown, and experience it for themselves.

The Labyrinth is now open to the public
visitcini.com

The world’s most famous sign transcended every conceivable aspiration of its originators, developers SH Woodruff and Tracy E Shoults. The pair were part of a consortium looking to promote their new real estate venture, Hollywoodland. The year was 1923 and the job went to Thomas Fisk Goff of the Crescent Sign Company, who set out the name in 50ft-tall blocky capital letters stalking across the hillside above Beachwood Canyon.

Visible for miles, and brightly illuminated for its first decade, the sign found local favour but soon started to decay. The final act of British starlet Peg Entwistle added tragedy to the site when she jumped off the ‘H’ in September 1932. She became a posthumous symbol of the darker side of Tinseltown.

In 1944, the city took ownership and even considered demolition – at this point, the sign simply read ‘ollywoodland’. Buoyed by local support and with a canny eye to the future, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce stepped in to save it, agreeing to reinstate the ‘H’ and drop the ‘land’.

As a result, the Hollywood sign became a globally recognised visual shortcut for a neighbourhood that was originally incorporated back in 1903. The original wooden and steel structure was completely overhauled and replaced in 1978, following a $250,000 fundraising campaign led by Hugh Hefner. Each letter was given a sponsor, including Andy Williams for the ‘W’ and Alice Cooper for one of the ‘O’s (given in memory of Groucho Marx). And there it’s remained ever since, frequently trespassed upon, occasionally vandalised, and even threatening to outlast the industry it celebrates.

hollywoodsign.org

A version of this article appears in the Wallpaper* August 2026 Creative America issue, available from 4 July, in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

For decades, luxury yacht interiors have followed their own peculiar visual language: glossy timber, formal salons and a succession of disconnected rooms that could just as easily belong to a five-star hotel as a vessel at sea. Architect Enrico Bonetti always found that strange. 'The interiors were inexplicable,' he says. 'You'd move from one room to another and everything would suddenly change for no apparent reason.'

That dissatisfaction became the starting point for one of the most influential yacht designs of recent years. It started nine years ago, when Italian shipbuilder Benetti approached Bonetti's New York-based architecture practice, Bonetti/Kozerski, to rethink the interiors of its new Oasis series. Rather than turning to another yacht specialist, the Italian builder deliberately sought architects from outside the industry, with no yacht experience, hoping a fresh perspective might challenge long-established boat-design assumptions.

Step inside the Benetti Oasis yacht by Bonetti/Kozerski and Kelly Behun

Working alongside British yacht designer RWD, Bonetti questioned almost every convention. Why should the main salon follow the same layout every other yacht had adopted? Why should stepping inside feel like entering an entirely different world from the deck outside?

Instead, the studio approached the yacht as it would a house, blurring the boundaries between interior and exterior so that the space feels like a continuous narrative rather than a series of disjointed statements. The teak decking continues seamlessly through the living spaces, large expanses of glazing dissolve the distinction between inside and out, and glossy white lacquer (made by a piano factory) reflects changing skies and water back into the interior. Bonetti says a client once told him, ‘When you step out of bed and put your feet on the teak floor, you already feel close to the water.’

Many of the ideas now seem obvious, but they represented a significant departure for an industry set in its ways. The Oasis 40M, launched in 2020, became one of Benetti's best-selling models, spawning a smaller 34m version and, more recently, the Oasis 42M. More than 50 have now been built, with the studio continuing to customise many of them for individual owners.

One of the latest examples, with interiors designed by New York-based interior designer Kelly Behun – featured in the Wallpaper* US400 for 2026 – pushes the residential sensibility even further. For the owner, who was simultaneously commissioning Kelly Behun to design a holiday home in Comporta, Portugal, the interiors of the yacht became an extension of that domestic project.

‘The brief was surprisingly similar to what it would be for any home,’ Behun explains. ‘To create spaces that feel elegant, comfortable, welcoming and distinctly personal.’

Designing for the sea inevitably introduces constraints unfamiliar to residential designers. Every material must satisfy marine regulations, weight is carefully controlled and every millimetre is scrutinised. Rather than limiting creativity, Behun argues those restrictions sharpen it. Furniture proportions, layered natural materials and tactile textures – such as timber, stone, leather and linen – were all carefully considered to create spaces that feel lived-in rather than overtly luxurious.

‘Let’s face it. When you're on a boat, you're often moving, often in the sun, often barefoot,’ she says. ‘A space that feels too studied or formal works against all of that.’

The result is an interior that feels relaxed and residential: warm timber panelling, subtle lighting and softly curved furniture replace the glossy finishes and theatrical spotlights that once defined the category. ‘There's an ease built into the material choices that mirrors the ease we were seeking,’ she says.

For Behun, that reflects a wider shift across luxury design. Yacht owners are increasingly looking to residential interiors, hospitality and fashion for inspiration rather than following an established nautical formula. ‘People are moving away from environments that simply communicate status,’ she says, ‘towards spaces that feel personal, layered and emotionally resonant.’

Bonetti believes the same evolution is happening across yacht design more broadly. What was once considered radical has rapidly become the new norm. Looking across today's launches, he sees many of the same principles his studio first fought to introduce almost a decade ago. 'Back then there were two main options: the old, very opulent designs, or complete white boxes filled with showroom furniture. Now you see a lot of yachts that look very similar to what we’re doing.'

For Bonetti and Behun, it seems, the best way to redesign a yacht is to stop thinking like a yacht designer altogether.

This is the latest instalment of The Inside Story, Wallpaper’s series spotlighting intriguing, innovative and industry-leading interior design.

At the top of Regent's Park Road, where Primrose Hill's terraces begin their steep climb, a tall, narrow townhouse manages to feel both serious and unserious, sophisticated yet lighthearted.

Home to a couple and their dog, the three-storey house had a specific brief – one that isn't requested enough in a world of extreme curation in high-end design: the ability to not feel ‘overly interior designed’. Finding an interior designer to execute this wasn't necessarily easy, but in 2021 the couple came across Studio Iro's breezy, under-curated work in a magazine feature.

The architectural bones were already in place, courtesy of Chassay & Last, who opened the rear of the house into a double-height volume, slotted a mezzanine above the kitchen, and installed a stone, blackened-steel and glass staircase, drawn together with a shadow-gap detail sharp enough to cut.

Recreate the mood

Onto this, Studio Iro refined the layouts and specified finishes in a way that never feels over-engineered. Central to achieving this are the colour threads running through the house: a blue leopard-print carpet in the hallway sets the indigo undertone found throughout the property, echoed in a deep navy in the bedroom, lavender-grey stone in one bathroom and ridged dark-blue glazed tiles below ground. A burnt-orange sofa and terracotta accents on the top floor provide the contrast.

Texture plays an equally important role in lending sophistication. Clay Works limewash brings a soft, chalky quality to the primary bedroom and bathroom, while limewashed wood, stone and microcement create a tactile backdrop throughout. On the lower ground floor, microcement flows from the open-plan interior out into the garden, pairing with blackened-steel kitchen cabinetry and exposed brick for a calm, industrial feel.

Where the house does allow itself a flourish, it's a considered one: a kitchen island developed with Adam Blencowe, and a custom chest of drawers, vanity console and rug for the primary bedroom. The kitchen, built with Roundhouse, sets a Caesarstone worktop against blue-painted timber joinery; De La Espada dining chairs gather around a table the clients already owned.

That instinct – to add rather than replace – runs through the whole project. The clients' collection of modernist furniture, some of it decades old, wasn't cleared out to make way for something new. Instead, Studio Iro folded it back in, setting it alongside contemporary pieces in kindred materials.

The refusal to over-assert gives this house its authority. Studio Iro's real skill here isn't visible in any single room – it's in everything left alone, and every decision not to push further than necessary.

Launched during Milan Design Week 2026, when the city overflows with temporary installations destined to disappear as quickly as they arrive, Nemo Lighting's new showroom (Via Santa Cecilia 4/A) quietly did the opposite. What designer Ron Gilad has created is anything but ephemeral; the project represents a radical rethinking of retail, transforming the showroom into an environment where light becomes something to inhabit rather than simply observe.

Nemo Milan by Ron Gilad

‘I tried to give the light the freedom to live,’ says Gilad. That ambition is immediately apparent, even before you step inside. There is, in fact, no traditional threshold. Above the entrance, two intersecting LED crosses (reminiscent of a pharmacy sign) display haiku dedicated to light. Visitors may walk through the large glass façade or ring a doorbell that makes no sound at all. Instead, it activates a light embedded within what appears to be a framed artwork, discreetly alerting the staff gathered around a large circular table on wheels. The same illuminated frame conceals a printer: objects refuse to be what they first appear, setting the tone for a visit that blurs the boundaries between function, illusion and play.

On one side, a wall-mounted shelf gathers an eclectic mix of objects, from the classic ‘Kuta’ lamp, designed by Vico Magistretti in 1972 to an AI-generated reinterpretation of Edward Hopper paintings. On the opposite side of the room, concealed niches hide unexpected discoveries – guests lift what seems to be an orange canvas with a wall lamp to reveal ‘Pivotante à Poser’, the celebrated lighting design by Charlotte Perriand.

Digital figures with human legs, fictional monks, pigeons and even a towel-bearing female populate the showroom, reinforcing Gilad's surreal narrative. Beyond the main area unfolds a sequence of rooms connected by distinctly Milanese arches. Here, historic classics converse across generations: ‘Parliament’, originally designed by Le Corbusier for Chandigarh's Parliament in 1963, faces the contemporary ‘Fox’ lamp, while ‘LBB01’ by Lina Bo Bardi illuminates a glass table beside ‘Cupido’, casting light onto an impossibly tall volume titled The Lamp Waits Alone Then Suddenly Remembers How To Be a Sun. Even after closing hours, dedicated videos transform the large windows facing Via Damiano into illuminated urban stages.

The spiral staircase leads downstairs into the technical world of brands Reggiani and ILTI Luce, but the surprises keep coming. Inspired by Milan's Duomo, the welcome area features a black daybed balanced on four miniature chairs facing a giant screen that frames a virtual view of the Madonnina, the golden statue crowning Milan Cathedral. Different marbles recreate shifting sunlight across the floor, while in another room, an enormous cabinet conceals countless drawers filled with lighting solutions.

‘For Ron and me, this is more than a showroom – it's a manifesto,’ says Federico Palazzari, CEO of Nemo Lighting and Nemo Group. ‘We simply wanted to create the most interesting lighting showroom in the world.’ More importantly, he argues, it is an antidote to today's fragmented attention span. ‘We work for people's eyes. Our goal is to invite concentration – not only on the product itself, but on how light is staged, experienced and understood.’ The result is a retail environment where curiosity replaces mere consumption, and every visit becomes an invitation to slow down, look closer and rediscover the pleasure of being surprised.

An often overlooked genre, outdoor showers are on the rise. Versatile and practical, they elevate outdoor spaces and offer both a pause from the heat and a practical solution to cool off in the Summer. A must-have poolside tool, we also like the idea of an outdoor shower as an indulgent, refreshing addition to a garden space.

We look at five recent outdoor shower designs that we'd like to have in our backyard right now.

Five outdoor showers we love

FormaLibera by Pierattelli Architetture for IB Rubinetterie

FormaLibera is a modular and customisable outdoor shower system by Pierattelli Architetture for IB Rubinetterie that is both a minimal design and an ultra-accessorised functional object. The idea, the architects explains, comes from showering in unconventional outdoor settings, from a field to a remote beach. From this, a first concept featured a portable version that comes with a dedicated kit and case to be easily transported and used anywhere. Evolving into a freestanding or wall-mounted shower system, FormaLibera is defined by accessory bars, soap holders and multi-purpose supports.

weareib.it

Pool by Roca

One of the leading bathrooms and faucets companies globally, Spanish brand Roca is expanding its offering outside the washroom and into outdoor spaces with Pool, a new shower that combines a minimal design with the company's expertise. The elegant, sleek outdoor shower is designed with versatility in mind, imagined for both residential environment as well as hospitality and wellness spaces. The minimalist silhouette is available in both wall-mounted and freestanding and a palette that will bring a joyful touch of colour to your garden.

roca.com

FFQT by Formafantasma for QuadroDesign

For their outdoor shower for Italian bathroom specialist QuadroDesign, Formafantasma decided not to reinvent the wheel, and instead to play on the genre's most intuitive iteration. 'Sometimes a design is effective when it is at its most subtle state, what stands out, are the services it provides,' say the designers, perfectly describing their concept. The outdoor shower is simply a stainless steel support onto which a standard hose can be installed: an ingenious way to make the most with a simple gesture.

quadrodesign.it

Bold by Natalino Malasorti for Cea Design

Cea Design's Bold by Natalino Malasorti is the result of extensive technological research to create a freestanding outdoor shower that is both minimal and powerful. The elegant stainless steel body is resistant to corrosion and the adjustable showerhead allows for options that include a rain jet or aerated rain jet, wider or closer.

ceadesign.it

Outdoor Shower by Cristina

This outdoor shower by Italian bathroom brand Cristina was conceived to be an unobtrusive, discreet presence in an outdoor setting. Its sinuous minimalist design is characterised by a freestanding design paired steel for durability and withstanding being exposed to all climates. Products like this outdoor shower affirm the brand's mission to offer 'solutions designed not to revolutionize, but to evolve what already exists sustainably and consciously.'

cristinarubinetterie.com

Nothing embodies the calm authority of American industry like Paul Rand’s logo for IBM. Designed in 1956, at a time when International Business Machines was still using vacuum tubes in its vast room-filling computers, it remains in use, continuing to give the massive company a lustre of quiet, competent efficiency and no-nonsense directness. It is the anti-Apple, in other words.

Rand – who had already effectively re-branded himself from Peretz Rosenbaum to better appeal to Madison Avenue’s prejudices – was unashamedly inspired by the European avant-garde, in art and commerce. After honing his skills as a magazine art director, he turned to corporate identity. In IBM, he struck commercial gold.

Founded in 1911 as a maker of record-keeping systems, the company became International Business Machines in 1924, building a global empire based on the technology of the punch-card, then as one of the pioneering manufacturers of electromechanical, then vacuum tube and then transistorised computers from the 1940s onwards. In 1964, it introduced System/360, a family of modular computers with multiple applications that could be scaled up and down as required. Shaped with austere futurism by industrial designer Eliot Noyes, they were the perfect foil for Rand’s logo.

The simple three letter device gave the industrial monolith a coherence across a dizzying range and scale of products, capable of coping with everything from a business card to a business park entrance. Rand modified it in 1960 and again in 1972 to create the familiar striped logotype (with two weights of stripe, depending on the scale of use).

Distinctive, bold and graphic, it was an appropriately serious signifier for the world’s largest computer maker. In many respects, IBM was a pioneering collaborator with high design; the company also worked with notable designers like Charles and Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi and George Nelson, as well as architects as diverse as Denys Lasdun and Eero Saarinen. Navigate to its website today, and Rand’s work is still at the top of the page.

Think Donald Judd, and you immediately think of the Untitled (Stack) – or Plywood, particularly for anyone who has followed the contemporary design world over the last decade. Judd is a giant. Most people know the art, and 20th-century art history would be incomplete without his defining works and writings on the vernacular and, albeit reluctantly, minimalism. Now, a quarter of the way into the 21st century, Judd’s precise inquiries into architecture and furniture are becoming as widely recognised as his wall works and floor pieces – thanks in large part to the exhibitions and programming of Judd Foundation, as well as the four-decade-old commercial arm Donald Judd Furniture, which continues to appear across galleries, art fairs and cultural institutions. (How many celebrity homes now include a ‘Daybed’ or ‘La Mansana’ table?)

With this growing interest, in summer 2026, 101 Spring Street presents the exhibition ‘Donald Judd Furniture: Wood and Metal’, a selection of vernacular pieces that thoroughly exemplify Judd’s ethos outlined in his famous essay, ‘It’s Hard to Find A Good Lamp’.

As such, Judd Foundation ‘decided about a year ago that it needed its own [design] director’, explains Judd’s son and foundation co-president Flavin Judd (who shares responsibilities with his sister, Rainer Judd). ‘Design is just as important as art with regards to Don’s practice and spaces, as well as the work of the foundation in extending scholarship on his work and ideas.’ So who did the organisation choose for the job? ‘We already knew Alexandra and it was just obvious,’ says Flavin.

Enter Alexandra Cunningham Cameron – an honoree of the Wallpaper* US400 and a veteran of contemporary design who helped shape the design market through Design Miami and navigate the evolving institutional landscape at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. As the first-ever director of design for Judd Foundation, Cunningham Cameron arrives as the organisation prepares for the Judd Centennial in 2028 – a milestone that will bring a series of institutional exhibitions and programmes across New York, Marfa and internationally (details remain under wraps, but the scope is expansive). With considerable curiosity surrounding the appointment, Wallpaper* spoke with Cunningham Cameron about what’s next for Judd Design.

Judd Foundation’s first director of design on her new role

Wallpaper*: What does it mean to become the director of design for such an esteemed artist foundation?

Alexandra Cunningham Cameron: I'm only a month or two in, so I'm still exploring. It's a new position, and the way it’s been structured is around increasing awareness and understanding of Judd’s broader design practice. So this is a full range of activities: developing new scholarship programmes, institutional collaborations and fostering Donald Judd furniture, which continues to be produced and supports the foundation financially. I'm also looking at Judd’s work in product design, adaptive reuse, environmental design, graphic design and other areas of the field.

W*: How do you see carrying his design and architectural legacy forward?

ACC: That’s part of the plan I’m developing. Looking closely at his personal collections has been fascinating to me. He had an incredibly sophisticated understanding of international material culture, and you see that in the careful selection of objects he surrounded himself with – everything from a bedside clock to an Alvar Aalto ‘Paimio Sanatorium’ piece.

I have an unusual background in that I worked in the commercial sector for many years at Design Miami – working with design galleries, looking at the design market – eventually specialising in practices that exist between art and design: artists who became designers or architects, or architects and designers who moved more into visual art; people who maintain this kind of polyvocal approach.

Then I went to Cooper Hewitt as curator of contemporary design, and that’s when Rainer and Flavin thought of me for this role. I think they saw my ability to look at both sides. I think of design as an ecosystem. It’s a practice, but there are commercial elements. It’s related to trade and preservation. It carries forward material culture and material histories.

So I felt like this opportunity was an incredible moment to bring that experience into the foundation, which has already done such an incredible job of documenting and preserving his design legacy, inviting the public to visit the spaces in New York and Marfa, publishing catalogues…

There’s been a lot of work around design already done recently. There was an exhibition in Tokyo, a furniture exhibition in Seoul, and we just opened a small furniture exhibition upstairs here at 101 Spring Street. For me, one of the challenges is thinking about how to make design an automatic reference in the Judd lexicon – making it more familiar and available to people outside of some of the circles you mentioned.

W*: Judd kept art and design, as well as institutional and commercial, separate. How do you navigate those divisions in your role?

ACC: Judd definitely drew a hard line around use; but you see in all of the Judd spaces how the art and the design live together. When you’re looking at a practice that reaches out into different ways of making, they’re not necessarily working against each other. Two, three, four or five things can be true at the same time.

I’m less interested in trying to draw that distinction and more interested in growing the understanding around what was happening with Judd design, why it was meaningful, and how it was an important part of his overall body of work.

Something that’s incredibly interesting for me is thinking about how to connect the design work to the contemporary moment – conversations around design, and how we think about self-reliance, subjectivity and care for the environment. It’s important to think about the furniture and design practice as something that isn’t only in the past, but something that continues to live today.

The topics in the contemporary design world – organic materials, circularity, local production, craft – are all present in his design practice. They’re often topics that are less discussed, so I would love to open up more conversations about how the design practice relates to these critical contemporary design and architecture issues.

Judd was advocating for new ideas; he was bringing a critical lens to the world, and I think that’s something the international design world needs a bit more of – taking risks, acting on your own terms and standing up for your point of view.

W*: What’s one of your first projects out of the gate – how do you want to bring Judd’s ideas into actual dialogue?

ACC: At the moment I’m focused on going to Marfa to dive into the archive, spend more time thinking and planning, visit all the sites and go into storage. I’ve only been to Marfa once, for the reopening of the Architecture Office last year, so it’s all still in development.

But I would say that some of the characteristics really associated with innovation are how I want to approach his work. It’s important to remain true to his vision, but at this time that doesn’t mean it’s something static.

W*: What, out of Judd’s architecture and design canon, is the most emblematic of the way he thinks about design?

ACC: Oh, this is an interesting question. Looking at the furniture forms, their use of material and form is so clear. You can almost immediately see the thinking behind how they were made, how they will be used, and also where they’re from. There’s a clarity to that vision that many people respond to immediately, almost intuitively, which I find fascinating.

Everyone from amateur woodworkers to people running institutions – there’s really a vast range of Judd furniture enthusiasts. So one of the elemental furniture forms is probably the most familiar.

In terms of the experimental, something I’m still developing an understanding around, I’m fascinated by his work in land conservation and the 33,000 acres in Marfa. How Judd was thinking about landscaping, preservation and care for the environment – nature is wild, but abstract too – and that kind of grappling with the natural world and sciences is something I’m looking forward to developing a deeper understanding of when I’m in Marfa.

Chateau Marmont occupies a mythic place in Hollywood folklore: a decadent sanctuary overlooking the Sunset Strip that has been attracting artists, musicians and movie stars for almost a century. The hotel’s storied past is reflected in its timeless logo, a typemark set in calligraphic strokes that invoke the uncial script first used by biblical scribes thousands of years ago.

The story of the Chateau Marmont logo

This Gothic lettering is perfectly in keeping with the aesthetic of the property itself, which opened as an apartment building in 1929. The original owner, Fred Horowitz, instructed architects Arnold A Weitzman and William Douglas Lee to model its design after the Château d’Amboise in the Loire Valley, a French royal castle dating from the 12th century and known as the final resting place of Leonardo da Vinci.

Chateau Marmont opened when Hollywood was in a state of flux, with the silent movie era giving way to the advent of the talkies. In 1931, Horowitz sold the property to the magician and film director Albert E Smith, who reconceptualised the property as a hotel just in time for Los Angeles to host the Summer Olympics in 1932. Writers including F Scott Fitzgerald and Dorothy Parker became early fans, and it wasn’t long before Chateau Marmont acquired a reputation for debauchery and discretion. In 1939, Columbia Pictures co-founder Harry Cohn famously instructed his stars: ‘If you must get into trouble, do it at the Chateau Marmont.’

When hotelier André Balazs took over the property in 1990, he knew he wanted to retain as much of the hotel’s historic ambience as possible. The logo was created soon afterwards, by creative agency Pandiscio Co, which utilised the Libra font originally created for the Amsterdam Type Foundry by renowned Dutch typographer Sjoerd Hendrik de Roos in 1938.

Given the number of artists and other creatives who flock to the hotel, it’s no surprise that the logo has been a source of inspiration ever since. After a stay at the Chateau, Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele conceived a 2019 collection that included handbags, shirts and sweaters that prominently feature the logo, as well as drawstring canvas bags inspired by the hotel’s laundry service.

The logo also appears on the Chateau’s signature stationery, which has been used as a canvas by a succession of visual artists. In a 1991 sketch on a hotel notepad, the Pop Art pioneers Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen reimagined the building’s towering exterior as a mound of caviar and avocado mousse.

More recently, the cartoonist Gary Baseman sketched Blackie the Cat enjoying Sunday brunch in the hotel’s courtyard, while the graffiti artist André Saraiva created a whole series of illustrations featuring his Mr A character on in-room stationery.

No doubt the distinctive typemark will continue to inspire those who stay at the hotel for generations to come. It is a logo that suggests that at Chateau Marmont, history is still being written.

London's Serpentine Galleries has appointed the Italian design studio Formafantasma to a newly created advisory role intended to embed 'environmental thinking across its programme, operations and organisational culture'.

Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin, who work between Milan and Rotterdam, have taken up the title of 'Lead R&D Fellows, Ecology', in a three-year partnership that signals a shift in how the art institution approaches environmental responsibility. Rather than contributing a single exhibition or project, the duo will work across the organisation, examining everything from curatorial processes and exhibition-making to daily operations, resource use, labour and the gallery's civic role.

Serpentine and Formafantasma

The collaboration will begin with a research phase, during which the designers will map the Serpentine’s processes and systems and identify where they can best intervene. They plan to 'prioritise approaches that can begin locally and scale systematically'. A parallel public programme will communicate the findings and activities that emerge.

'We look forward to collaboratively reimagining the civic role of institutions, from curatorial processes to questions about space, resources, labour and ecology, and to creating new platforms for dialogue that acknowledge urgency while insisting on knowledge, complexity, and accountability,' said Trimarchi and Farresin, in a statement announcing the appointment.

In 2020, the duo presented ‘Cambio’ at Serpentine North, a research-led exhibition examining the ecological, political and economic dimensions of the global timber industry. While that project examined the environmental consequences of an entirely separate sector, this fellowship turns a critical lens on the institution itself – its day-to-day operations and long-term strategy.

'Our partnership with Formafantasma extends ecological thinking into our systems, our spaces, and our everyday practices, probing the complex, and often contradictory, role an institution like ours plays within the ecological crisis,' Serpentine's chief executive Bettina Korek said.

Artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist added: 'Formafantasma’s practice critically engages with the ecological responsibilities of design, examining materials across time, from their histories to questions of future survival within contemporary living conditions, and following “Cambio”, we can’t wait to start this new chapter together.'

Thinking beyond art and culture: an urgent shift

The appointment of a design studio by an art institution reflects a broader tendency among cultural organisations to draw on expertise from beyond their traditional disciplines. Earlier this year, Whitechapel Gallery appointed the economist Mariana Mazzucato as its economist-in-residence, while Fondation Beyeler in Basel created the role of botanical curator for Rahel Kesselring.

It also comes as museums and galleries face growing pressure to address their environmental impact. A 2024 survey by research body Indigo found that 72 per cent of UK cultural audiences believe cultural organisations have a responsibility to influence society on the climate emergency, while only 16 per cent think they currently place great importance on that role. A 2021 report by climate action charity Julie's Bicycle estimated that the global art world's carbon footprint – including institutional activity and visitor travel – amounts to around 70 million tonnes each year.

The sector has started to measure its own progress. The Gallery Climate Coalition, whose members include more than 2,000 commercial galleries, non-profit organisations, cultural institutions and artists' studios across more than 60 countries, set a target of halving members' carbon emissions by 2030. Its 2025 report indicates that 79 per cent of organisations that began monitoring emissions in 2019 are on track to meet that goal, but warned that the largest players account for a disproportionate share of emissions. According to the coalition, the biggest 22 per cent of organisations generate half of all emissions, while the top 0.04 per cent account for around 5 per cent – roughly 140 times their proportional weight. It claims that wider adoption of measures already implemented by its 'leading members' could save five million tonnes of carbon annually by 2030.

As arts organisations face mounting pressure from both public opinion and financial constraints – against a backdrop of a cost-of-living crisis, tightening budgets and increased scrutiny of public spending – they are increasingly being challenged to demonstrate their wider civic relevance and responsiveness to societal concerns. The Serpentine’s decision is an example of such responsibilities being reflected in internal governance, not just public programming.

Today (8 July 2026), British designer Faye Toogood unveils her latest collection. ‘Bone, Roll, Slump’ comprises furniture pieces that have an air of the archaeological about them – objects that feel found or unearthed rather than made.

The first chapter, ‘Bone’, centres on a dining collection inspired by mudlarked bones and fossils. At its heart is the ‘Bone Table’, a monolithic superellipse carved from solid oak. Asymmetrical in form, it is available in an eight-seat version or a smaller, more circular table for six.

Rather than being lacquered, the oak is oiled, preserving its natural texture and allowing the material to age gracefully. Four circular piercings punctuate the tabletop, recalling the oversized timber plugs once used in traditional joinery. They expose the oak's vertical grain while anchoring the surface to its stout, rounded legs. The swollen, sculptural profile of those legs, shared by the table and its chairs, reference knucklebones – once used in games and divination.

The ‘Bone Chairs’, meanwhile, stand on two solid legs, adopting a primal stance. Beneath their tactile exterior lies a timber frame sculpted with wool, coconut husk and natural latex – upholstered in bouclé as standard, with other fabrics available. The family comprises a dining chair, an armchair and an oversized ‘Jumbo’ armchair.

Where ‘Bone’ feels excavated, ‘Roll’ is more contained, while retaining the collection's preoccupation with weight, volume and organic geometry. Three-drawer consoles and single-drawer bedside tables take the form of rounded timber lozenges resting on stout, trunk-like bases or, alternatively, cantilevering from the wall. The grain follows the curvature of each piece, while finishes include golden oak, rich walnut and ash stained in ‘Chalk’, ‘Putty’ or ‘Malachite’.

The collection concludes with ‘Soft Slump’ – asymmetrical, bagel-like lounge chairs which appear to collapse gently into themselves. The effect is achieved through an unconventional construction: rather than stretching upholstery taut, around four metres of fabric are gathered and cinched, a bit like the drawstring of a duffel bag, creating deep folds. Set atop either hand-forged, dimpled steel legs or industrial castors, Toogood insists these are also the most comfortable chairs she has ever made.

'Bone, Roll, Slump' is unique, intriguing and pleasingly tactile – a quality that makes it feel both contemporary and somehow elemental.

Pieces from the collection can be purchased from Faye Toogood’s website.

Today, two seemingly disparate worlds collide: the vibrant universe of British-Nigerian artist and designer Yinka Ilori MBE, and Dunelm, the UK's largest homeware retailer. As of today (8 July 2026), the pair are launching a summery new collection, available online and in selected stores.

Anyone familiar with Ilori's work will know that his visual language is joyous, often built around vibrant shades and geometric patterns (as seen in his recent London exhibition, ‘Joy Through Resistance’, and his Milan Design Week collaboration with Veuve Clicquot). That sensibility runs throughout the 40 pieces in the Dunelm collection, which spans furniture, bedding, lighting, rugs and soft furnishings, with prices ranging from an accessible £9 cotton jacquard hand towel to a £799 king-size boucle ottoman bed.

Ilori felt a personal connection to Dunelm's origins as a market stall in Leicester, having grown up around his parents' local supermarket in north London. ‘What struck me about Dunelm's beginnings was their love for community,’ he explains. ‘Growing up in a working-class environment, community was everything for my family. There were similarities with this and Dunelm's beginnings as a market stall – how they sought community.’

That focus runs through the collection. Many pieces draw on the diverse communities that shaped Leicester's textile industry across the 20th century, with floral patterns referencing national flowers from countries including India and Pakistan, in a nod to the city's Asian, African and Caribbean cultures. This commitment to authenticity extends to the campaign photography, which features real Dunelm employees.

Shop the collection

A handful of pieces have emerged as favourites among the design team and Ilori himself. The ‘Sweet Flows’ swivel chair (£299) is a colourful, pattern-rich armchair that he says ‘instantly makes you want to smile’. ‘Home interiors can be quite serious, so I chose a colourful palette and vibrant pattern that is immediately engaging. It sparks joy and stands on its own as a piece of art. It's also really comfortable!’

The ‘Bell LED’ lamp (£65), meanwhile, feels ‘very playful and nostalgic’, Ilori continues. ‘It's a classic and timeless piece that would feel at home in the 70s or 80s. There are also elements that feel quite art deco.’

The ‘Net Floral’ duvet cover set (from £16) reimagines the classic British net curtain with floral motifs, while the ‘Gerbera’ cushion (£26) combines crewel wool embroidery with a geometric floral pattern. The ‘Kaleidoscope’ floral round rug (from £135) is a handmade, 100 per cent wool piece with a textured, bobbled finish, and the ‘Half-Log’ sideboard (£599) brings a sculptural silhouette to life with a warm oak finish and chrome legs.

Both Ilori and Dunelm frame the collaboration around the shared belief that good design shouldn't be reserved for a select few. ‘I think it's important we design objects that are rich in storytelling, that speak to people in different ways and that celebrate unique ideas,' says Ilori. 'I hope this collection brings joy into people's everyday lives.’

Yinka Ilori's collection for Dunelm is available to shop from today.

Tylko wants you to listen to music. Truly listen. Away from the screens and digital scrolling of playlists, but instead encouraging taking the time to give a composition a rare glimpse of full attention. But how do we break free from these digital crutches? The Warsaw-based furniture company has the answer – and they're entering the world of hi-fi, with Tylko Sound. The new speaker system is created to slot perfectly within the company’s customisable shelving systems, and sit neatly within a home.

Tune in to Tylko Sound

'People stopped really hearing music. That kind of listening – intentional, attentive – has quietly disappeared from most homes,' Says Ben Kuna, co-founder and CBO of Tylko. 'Music is one of the strongest carriers of emotion, yet we’ve stopped making space for it in our daily lives. With Tylko Sound, we wanted to bring it back.’

The idea emerged while architect Paul Cournet, of multidisciplinary Rotterdam Practice Cloud, helped develop Tylko’s Berlin showroom. During the process, he kept returning to a simple observation: Tylko’s modular shelving was already a grid built for sound, yet nobody had designed a speaker specifically to live inside it.

The Tylko team worked with Rotterdam-based architect and Form Follows Frequency, a studio working with acoustics and design. Together, they made sure that the speaker's sound wasn’t compromised. Instead, they created a structure that became part of the system.

The collection includes the Tylko Coax Speaker with and without Bass Reflex, and the Tylko Subwoofer. The entire system is designed to be adapted. It can start as a single speaker, which can then be added to a collection of subwoofers to create a home stereo system.

Handcrafted in Poland, the speakers are made from Baltic birch plywood, the same material used throughout Tylko’s furniture collection. It is finished in high-gloss lacquer and available in Signal Red, Mint Green, and Chalk White.

Tylko Sound also marks a new entry point into hi-fi. Although blending furniture with a speaker is a standout feature, they also made sure the design of high-quality listening was more accessible. ‘For less than €700 per speaker, Tylko Sound proves that stepping into hi-fi no longer requires a premium-budget investment,’ says Kuna. The collection rethinks the relationship between sound, furniture, and space.

Tylko Sound is a limited-edition product currently available in selected European markets: Germany, Austria, Belgium, Poland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France. Prices start at €491 to €970 tylko.com

The Tiffany & Co box sits among the illustrious list of most famous objects that money can’t buy. Its combination of Robin Blue shade, white ribbon and black letterface are perhaps among the most instantly recognisable brand identities in the world. ‘Tiffany has one thing in stock that you cannot buy (...) for as much money as you may offer; he will only give it to you. And that is one of his boxes,’ read a 1906 article in the New York Sun, and the rule still stands.

Creating the Tiffany & Co iconic blue box

The box’s distinctive shade of turquoise has been trademarked since 1998 and an official Pantone colour since 2001 (dubbed 1837 Blue to reflect the company’s founding year). Its chromatic formula is one of the industry's most closely- guarded secrets. 'It's our most recognisable brand quality, and therefore, it has to be perfect, and it has to be right,' says Richard Moore, Tiffany & Co's vice president of creative visual merchandising at Tiffany & Co. 'People have a big affinity with that colour.'

Having remained largely unchanged since it was first introduced in the 1880s, in 2005, Paula Scher, partner at global creative agency Pentagram, was asked to give a discreet refresh to the brand. Tiffany & Co,’s new identity focused on the iconic blue box, and the shade was rolled out to include advertising, bags, as well as the inside of the boxes themselves. The new logo was hand-drawn to resemble a hot-stamped letterpress typeface, signalling a combination of luxury and craft.

'Long considered the ultimate in gift retailing, Tiffany & Co. was seeing increased competition in the luxury market and sought to reaffirm its status,' reads a note from the studio. '[...] Scher developed new identity and packaging standards for the luxury retailer that restored the lustre of the brand.'

The Wallpaper* US400 is back. Now in its fourth edition, the list has evolved to become a roll call of creative talent in America today, from emerging design voices to established names in business, architecture, fashion and more. There’s plenty to celebrate in 2026; this year’s reveal coincides with the 250th anniversary of the US as well as the 30th anniversary of Wallpaper*. But what exactly is the US400, and what makes it stand out from the rest? Here, we break down everything you need to know.

What is the Wallpaper* US400?

The Wallpaper* US400 evolved out of a desire to capture the special energy that defines America’s creative ecosystem, timed to our annual US-themed August issue. Initially, in 2023, that began with a group of 300. But we quickly realised that that number didn’t quite cut it. Now in its fourth year, the project has evolved into a list of 400 individuals and firms that we feel encapsulate what the American spirit of ingenuity is all about.

Why are there 400 names?

Unlike other lists out there with 50 or 100 honourees (we won’t name names), we recognise 400 individuals and firms. Yes, 400 is a large number, but we firmly believe that a broader grouping – a sample size, for the statistically inclined – begins to better approximate the depth and breadth of creative output in the United States. We like to think of it like a snapshot at this moment in time, more than an ossified roster, one that will organically change year over year.

Here’s a fun parallel: During the Gilded Age, ‘The Four Hundred’ served as a definitive list of who was who in American society.

So who’s on the list?

Our inductees all fall under Wallpaper*’s editorial pillars: architecture, design, jewellery, fashion, hospitality, art, technology, transport and entertaining. In 2026, that included everyone from titans of industry to fledgling design practices; Blue Chip artists to indie gallerists. Essentially, the fascinating people that make up the Wallpaper* family.

How do you choose who’s on it?

There is no formal application process to be on the list. But we do take a few things into consideration. Have we published your work? Have you done something newsworthy in the last twelve months? What kind of impact have you made in your field? Have you inspired us? Simply put: the list is made of the interesting people we’d want to invite to one massive dinner party.

View the Wallpaper* US400 online and find out more about the August 2026 issue’s celebration of Creative America here.

The August issue is available from 4 July, in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

The New York Metropolitan Baseball Club was established in 1962 to soothe fans still reeling from the departure of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants. In pursuit of larger audiences and new stadiums, both beloved franchises relocated to California after the 1957 season, closing the chapter on New York’s so-called golden era of baseball.

From the outset, the Mets’ emblem (largely unchanged since its debut)was conceived as an act of reconciliation. Its dark blue field and baseball motif nod to the Brooklyn Dodgers, while the Dutch orange and interlocking 'NY' on the logo’s first version evoke the New York Giants’ branding. The result was a carefully crafted homage.

Selected from hundreds of entries in a public competition, the design was created by Ray Gotto, a prolific cartoonist best known for his syndicated baseball strips Ozark Ike and Cotton Woods. The former Navy illustrator who was living in New York City at the time approached the brief with an understanding of what was truly at stake. Though the Mets would play in Queens (as rival New York Yankees were based in the Bronx) Gotto sensed that an emblem that could unite the entire city was needed.

To foreground the Mets’ name, Gotto drew a symbolic New York skyline using a medley of landmarks from various boroughs. From left to right, he included a silhouette of a church spire, the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, the Woolworth Building, the Empire State Building, and the United Nations headquarters. A suspension bridge anchors the composition, all of it contained within the circular frame of a baseball. Originally rendered in black and pink per the logo design contest guidelines, the palette was later revised to blue, orange, and white at the team’s request—colours that also echo New York City’s tricolour flag.

In the decades since, the Mets have cycled through owners, managers, stadiums, and uniforms, yet Gotto’s skyline, stitched in blue and orange, has endured. More than branding, the Mets logo has become a fiercely guarded emblem within the 'Mets Nation.' In 2014, eagle-eyed fans noticed a subtle alteration to the logo on the club’s social media accounts. They decried that the United Nations building appeared to have been mysteriously altered to resemble the Citigroup Center tower. Whether a sneaky marketing gesture or a digital prank, the change vanished almost as quickly as it appeared. The Mets denied making any revisions to the official mark.

'The Ray Gotto design makes sense,' says Walter Bernard, former art director of New York, Time and Fortune, and a longtime Mets fan. 'Most baseball fans love their teams’ history and traditions, and the Mets logo carries so much tradition that change simply isn’t necessary.'

The logo first appeared in print in November 1961, about five months before the Mets took the field. It fulfilled its purpose brilliantly: fans swiftly bought into the new franchise and snapped up tickets to games. Gotto was paid $1,000 (around $11,000 today)—a respectable fee at the time, but a bargain in retrospect for an enduring mark that helps sell millions of dollars of merchandise for one of baseball's most valuable franchises.

The south of France’s annual design competition and festival, Design Parade, celebrates a milestone anniversary in 2026, marking 20 years of its ‘Objet’ (Product design) competition, and 10 years of its ‘Architecture d’intérieur’ (Interior design) competition. The occasion was customarily revelrous with passionate speeches, a pétanque tournament, a retrospective exhibition curated by David Giroire, and a talks programme featuring India Mahdavi hosted by Matter + Shape beneath umbrella pines to a soundtrack of cicadas.

Design Parade 2026 at Villa Noailles

At the 1920s Villa Noailles in Hyeres, the ten ‘Product design’ finalists included ‘imprecise candle clocks’ that challenge our relationship to time by Matisse Vrignaud and Lundja Medjoub (winners of a residency at the Sèvres National Manufacture). Yohan Thomas’ efficient lamp that hacked its own design system bringing autonomy back to small-scale manufacturing. And Mexican designer Eduardo Altamirano’s hypnotic, minimalist open speaker won the public prize.

Tin Ayala (Ecuador), who remixed precolonial Andean ceramic huacos with characters from video games and comics suggesting pre-to-post-colonial continuities, won the jury’s ‘Product design’ grand prize. Meanwhile conceptual designer Shahar Livne (Netherlands), a former student of Formafantasma, examined colonialism through the lens of rubber, examining its human and animal cost.

Stanislas Colodiet, director of CIRVA (France’s International centre of Glass and Plastic Arts) and member of the ‘Product design’ jury this year, remarked that post-colonialism has gained more interest from designers in recent years, as well as how objects can shape new rituals. 'An object should have agency,' he says.

Colodiet will work closely with winner Ayala during an upcoming residency at CIRVA in Marseille, which is part of the prize; and was proud to reflect on the collaboration with last year’s winner Simon Dupety, whose installation of organic glass vessels and lamps formed a dystopian garden inside the Villa Noailles.

Transforming Villa Noailles through contemporary interior design

The ten ‘Interior design’ competition finalists each transformed a room in the villa. Winner of the jury’s grand prize, Valentin Bayoud’s hearth-inspired cocoon replaced fire with water, inviting shared contemplation. Water was central to Elen Rio’s Mediterranean garden with a dynamic basin and playful hosepipes; as well as Yohann Hubert and Carlotta Lagazzi’s (winners of the Nationale manufactures Mobilier national Prize) reimagining of a wrecked boat.

Julie Liger, Artistic Director of Design Parade, noticed an increase in ‘spaces that isolate you from the intensity of life, yet not to be alone – to be with friends and discuss, and to see and observe nature.’ Reflecting on her own pioneering participation in 10 years of the ‘Interior design’ competition, she’s seen the rise of environmentalism. Today it’s integral to how all finalists think, yet this year explored it with the most freedom and sophistication in the use of circular and natural materials.

As well as noting an almost ‘Baroque’ approach to craft and decoration, with designers showing intensive interest in materiality and taking craft back into their own hands. See Boris Cojean’s silky beeswax surfaces; Simon Searle and Victoire Lesthevenon’s local timber tinted with plant-based dyes (Public prize winner); Marion Moustey and Ewerton Alves’ aubergine curtains; and Clément Pasquier’s magical cork oak skin.

Liger sees the competition as an extension of the rich French heritage of interior design, and importantly one that, rather than in Paris, is rooted in the Mediterranean context of the south. Taking place during intense heat-waves across Europe, Design Parade’s question of how to live in the Mediterranean felt very relevant, as Northern Europe looks south for wisdom and innovation from shading, to water management.

An eco-system of design

Each year of the festival, the regional eco-system of design further strengthens. This year, visitors can discover new collectible design gallery Pour Vous and return to the Banane d’Or concept space in Hyères; be inspired by graduate presentations at the Camondo Méditerranée school and an exhibition on design and textiles at the Hôtel des Art featuring Sheila Hicks, Hella Jongerius and Muller Van Severen in Toulon.

They can also experience the work of Design Parade veterans of all levels in various places. During opening week, Edgar Jayet (5th Interior design winner, 2021) opened a recently designed home to curious visitors; pétanque played out at the sea-front Hotel Le Provencal designed by Rodolphe Parente (6th Interior design jury president, 2022, and 10th Interior design jury member); and lunch was hosted at Hotel Lilou designed by Kim Haddou and Florent Dufourcq (3rd Interior design finalist, 2018).

One day, dreams Liger, Design Parade will take to the streets with regional public commissions from designers, such as a fountain or landscaping. Perhaps more critically and environmentally engaged than ever before, this year’s Design Parade shows that it’s set on further expanding its impact through its community, as well as continuing to inspire surrealist imaginations through its enduringly playful spirit.

Design Parade is on view until 4 September 2026
villanoailles.com

The 60th Montreux Jazz Festival starts today. What better way of getting into the swing of this pivotal point in the musical calendar than by looking back at some of the greatest poster designs created to promote the event?

This year the artwork has been undertaken by Swiss fashion designer Kévin Germanier, while the Swiss-Iranian photographer Anoush Abrar has completed a new photography monograph, The Elegance of Time, capturing some of the key participants over the years.

Germanier is in good company. Over six decades, the Montreux team has been able to tap some top talent to create the annual poster, as well as finding elegant and timely representations that epitomise the graphic style of each era.

Past contributors include Keith Haring (who also worked on a poster with Andy Warhol), David Bowie, Jean Tinguely, Milton Glaser, Tomi Ungerer, Sylvie Fleury and Julian Opie.

The 60s and 70s in Montreux poster design

Set on the shores of Lake Geneva, the modern festival has been directed by Mathieu Jaton since 2013. The event was started in 1967 by Claude Nobs and represents the intersection between jazz and contemporary music in all its forms.

Some of most significant names in 20th and 21st century music have performed over the years, including but not limited to Etta James, Quincy Jones, Bob Dylan, Elton John, Ms. Lauren Hill, Aretha Franklin, David Bowie, James Brown, Kendrick Lamar, Leonard Cohen, Marvin Gaye, Miles Davis, and Nina Simone.

The 80s at Montreux

Germanier’s poster has been formed from more than 60,000 glass, wood and plastic beads and sequins, embroidered onto a velvet canvas. The vivid, densely layered piece was worked on by six artisans and was inspired by the non-literal, abstract tradition of Montreux poster design.

The 90s in Montreux Jazz Festival Posters

‘My favourite Montreux posters are those that represent the Festival in a non-literal way, Germanier says, ‘Music isn’t just a saxophone or a guitar – it’s a feeling. I tried to convey that explosion, that emotion that moves both your body and your heart. I wanted something generous, dynamic and vibrant.’

Montreux Jazz poster art in the 2000s

The 60th Edition features performers as diverse as PinkPantheress, Loyle Carner, Billy Cobham, Van Morrison, The Roots, Raye and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, part of a total of 700 concerts, DJ sets and events over the fortnight, all housed with the Montreux Music & Convention Center, newly reopened this summer after a multi-year renovation.

Montreux Jazz Festival posters from 2011 to the present day

The 60th Edition of the Montreux Jazz Festival runs from 3 to 18 July 2026, MontreuxJazzFestival.com, @MontreuxJazzFestival

The Elegance of Time, Montreux Jazz Festival by Anoush Abrar, CHF 60, MontreuxJazzShop.com

By its sheer ubiquity, I ❤️ NY may be the world's most appropriated logo. Some 50 years after it was first introduced, New York state's official brandmark has become an all-purpose shorthand for allegiance and affection for anything, anywhere.

Milton Glaser and the I ❤️ NY logo

Curiously, I ❤️ NY was born during a time when there was little to love about New York City. Designed by Milton Glaser in the mid-1970s, the logo originally served as the graphic punchline to an advertising campaign that helped rescue the city from the brink of bankruptcy. Desperate to arrest its ballooning fiscal deficit, city officials funded a campaign that could lure tourists back to the Big Apple. Wells, Rich, Greene, helmed by the trailblazing ad executive Mary Wells Lawrence, produced it; songwriter Steve Karmen wrote an earworm of a jingle, and Glaser was asked to create a logo.

Working pro bono without a contract, Glaser quickly sketched a mark consisting of the tagline spelled out in all caps and divided between two black lozenge shapes. The city accepted it without changes. But a few days later he had another thought.

Doodling on the cab ride from his home to the office, as he often did, Glaser drew a red heart paired with the letters 'I' and 'NY' rendered in a friendly font. He chose American Typewriter – a slab serif with a certain 1970s flair – and worked with longtime studio assistant George Leavitt to slightly tweak it. Decades before the proliferation of emoji, some worried that the rebus-like construction would confuse people. Nevertheless, New York City adopted Glaser's second proposal, and soon made it the official tourism logo for the entire state.

Copycats emerged almost immediately. What makes I ❤️ NY remarkable is its portability. In Glaser's personal files one can find knick-knacks bearing variations of his logo – I ❤️ Macedonia, I ❤️ Ngorongoro, I ❤️ Rhodes – sent by friends and fans. Fashion brands like Chanel, Coach, Kate Spade, and Raf Simons have produced collections around the logo, while bootleg trinkets emblazoned with variations on I ❤️ NY abound. The state ultimately secured a copyright in the mid-1990s and earns tens of thousands of dollars in licensing fees each year.

A heavy legacy

Over the decades, every article about Glaser tended to circle back to I ❤️ NY. Its widespread popularity became his calling card and also a kind of creative prison. 'It's something I wish people would forget,' he said in a 2016 New York Times profile. 'I've done other things.'

Indeed, the 2009 National Medal of Arts honoree had achieved many other things, including co-founding New York magazine, designing beautiful restaurants, and producing hundreds of beloved posters, album covers and book jackets. Glaser’s abecedarium of logos includes marks for Brooklyn Brewery, DC Comics, and Italian gelato maker Sammontana. Yet nothing quite matched the universal impact of I ❤️ NY – perhaps only his iconic 1966 Bob Dylan poster counts as a distant second.

Glaser, who passed away on his birthday in 2020, never lost sight of the logo's original purpose as a civic symbol. I ❤️ NY, at its core, is a cri de coeur for resilience. In the aftermath of 9/11, Glaser appended it with the words 'More Than Ever', added a burn mark where the Twin Towers once stood, and gave the grieving city a ready-made banner. The same poster re-emerged in shop windows and food carts during the coronavirus pandemic.

In 2023, New York City felt compelled to modernise Glaser's logo. The woeful ‘We ❤ NYC’ rebrand was swiftly dismissed as a flop. The flood of complaints about it confirmed one thing: ferocious affection for Glaser's original. In an era when brand loyalty is elusive, the logo conceived half a century ago remains, somehow, irreplaceable.

miltonglaser.com

This article appears in Wallpaper’s August 2026 Creative America issue, available from 4 July, in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

This is the latest instalment of The Inside Story, Wallpaper’s series spotlighting intriguing, innovative and industry-leading interior design.

Talk of New York's real estate scene currently centres on 262 Fifth Avenue, a new residential tower rising on one of Manhattan's most famous streets. Standing 860 feet and 52 storeys tall, the project marks the first New York collaboration between Meganom and Norm Architects, with Five Points Development Group behind its delivery. Italian design house Molteni&C was tapped to furnish the interiors; today, Wallpaper* takes a look inside.

In a skyline increasingly defined by its density, 262 Fifth Avenue takes a more restrained approach. The building comprises just 26 full-floor and duplex residences, allowing generosity of space to become its defining luxury. That sense of deliberation continues in the architecture itself: each home is column-free, creating uninterrupted living spaces – and uninterrupted views of Manhattan.

Norm Architects, responsible for the interiors, describe each residence as a ‘sanctuary in the sky’ – places of calm that sit above the city's tumult while remaining intrinsically connected to it. The Copenhagen studio draws on its understated vocabulary of natural materials, fine craftsmanship and muted tones, producing spaces that feel subtly luxurious rather than ostentatious.

Molteni&C contributes two of the home's defining architectural elements: the 'Prime' kitchen and the 'Gliss Master Filo Door' wardrobe system. Installed throughout every residence, the kitchen combines natural stone and wood veneers which harmonise with the palette of tactile, understated finishes. Its pared-back geometry lends the living spaces a soothing architectural rhythm, balancing New York's metropolitan sensibility with the material rigour of Italian craftsmanship.

The partnership builds on Molteni&C's longstanding history of collaborating with architects and developers on landmark residential buildings. At 262 Fifth Avenue, the brand showcases a level of craftsmanship that has room to breathe, helping the tower stand apart in an increasingly homogeneous landscape of Manhattan luxury developments.

Behind every successful designer, artist or creative entrepreneur is a great lawyer. Or at least there should be. For decades, Hugh 'Don’t sign it!' Devlin was that person for many of Britain's leading creative luminaries. Now a new foundation established in his memory aims to ensure the next generation has access to the same kind of expert support.

Hugh Devlin: the creatives' protector

A partner at international law firm Withers before founding his own consultancy, Delightful, Devlin became one of the creative industries' most trusted advisers. His client list stretched from independent designers and artists to creative directors at global luxury houses, perfumers and beauty entrepreneurs, journalists, product designers and CEOs, but his reputation grew from something much more vital than legal expertise alone. He was generous with his time, fiercely protective of creative talent and renowned for stepping in – often pro bono – at pivotal moments, whether rescuing a young designer from a disastrous contract or quietly introducing the right people to solve a problem.

When Devlin died suddenly in 2023, the sense of loss across fashion, art and design was profound. His wife, Sarah Polden Devlin, has since helped establish the Hugh Devlin Foundation to continue the work he so instinctively did alone, and the outpouring of support has been remarkable. Founding partners include Anya Hindmarch, Charlotte Tilbury, Christopher and Tammy Kane, Sam McKnight, Sarah Mower, Edward Barber, Jake Chapman and many others who credit Devlin with helping shape their careers, alongside a growing network of lawyers, accountants and commercial advisers volunteering their expertise.

The Hugh Devlin Foundation

'Hugh was a problem solver, whatever form it took or scale it presented at,' says Polden. 'His love and respect for creativity saw this expressed through his willingness to step in wherever he could. He also had a remarkable ability to connect people with exactly the expertise they needed. We want to replicate that willingness and efficiency – in an inevitably more structured way – as compared to a single person acting spontaneously.'

In an era when designers and artists are under increasing threat from copycats, generative AI and exploitative contracts, the timing is significant. The creative industries remain one of the Britain’s greatest economic and cultural assets, yet the realities of building a business are more complex and demanding than ever. The rising cost of genuine professional advice – although always prohibitive – sees many fall back on generic, often inaccurate (also AI) sources instead.

The Hugh Devlin Foundation focuses on exactly this gap: giving creative people access to the expertise that can help them make better decisions at defining moments in their careers.

For Hindmarch, who worked closely with Devlin throughout her career, the foundation is about preserving something the creative industries have lost. 'Hugh was the person you could go to, who would protect and fight for creatives,' she says. 'The creative industries are less protected without Hugh's presence. I know that he would be rooting for the work this Foundation will do in his memory. I am sure its work will support, protect and even save some of the creativity and brands of the future. What a legacy that will be.'

The foundation's model is deliberately practical, explains director Jade Mitchell. Emerging creatives, freelancers and small businesses can apply for pro bono legal, financial or commercial advice, with applicants matched to professionals accordingly. 'We're really looking to make sure we offer the right intervention at the right moment,' says Mitchell. 'This means we're focused on situations where timely expert advice can prevent a problem from becoming something much bigger.'

The emphasis on prevention over cure is central to the Foundation's philosophy. Mitchell is also keen to stress that support doesn't begin and end with one-to-one advice. A major priority is building the Foundation's website into a practical resource, bringing together guidance from its founding partners and organisations including the British Fashion Council, the Sarabande Foundation and ACID, while working with universities and colleges to strengthen commercial education for creative students.

'Many graduates leave university with incredible creative talent but very little understanding of contracts, intellectual property, finance or running a business,' she says. 'If we can help someone avoid signing a damaging contract or understand the value of their intellectual property before they're in difficulty, that's every bit as valuable as helping them resolve a crisis afterwards.'

New challenges for the creative industries

As artificial intelligence reshapes the creative landscape that mission feels both relevant and urgent. In the creative industries AI has intensified debates around copyright, licensing and ownership, leaving many designers and artists uncertain about how their work can be protected.

'AI is creating enormous opportunities, but it's also raising complex questions,' Mitchell agrees. 'We're not here to take sides in every debate around AI, but we can help to ensure creatives aren't navigating those changes alone.'

The foundation's multidisciplinary structure is designed to reflect the collaborative and cross-disciplinary reality of creative practice today. Fashion designers collaborate with artists, beauty founders become entrepreneurs and product designers build global brands. The legal, financial and commercial challenges they face rarely exist in isolation, making access to specialist advice increasingly valuable.

'It's absolutely fundamental,' Mitchell says of the foundation's cross-disciplinary network. 'At one time or another, creative individuals and businesses will need legal advice, financial guidance, commercial mentoring and industry insight all at the same time. Plans are already underway to expand its network to include mentoring and coaching alongside legal and financial support.'

The foundation’s success will ultimately be measured by the strength of the community it builds. The ambition is to create a network of professionals who understand the unique realities of creative careers and are willing to share their expertise at moments when it can have the greatest impact. All of the professionals who’ve signed up to volunteer have done so because, like Devlin, they believe in nurturing young creative people and their ideas, preventing the horror stories so many in the industry have grown familiar with.

Designer Tracy Mulligan first met Hugh in 1997 and found his help invaluable on numerous occasions over the years. 'He helped me deal with a huge licencing disaster that I got involved with, and then he also helped us at PeopleTree when I was there to negotiate with designers. He was a true star. Hugh wasn't just a lawyer, he was a shoulder to lean on. As a designer, having your own brand, he gave you that confidence to speak up for yourself, and he would speak up for you too. Also he was a friend, and I ended up designing his wife's wedding dress and the uniforms for Withers as well, at some point.'

That sense of community was central to Devlin's work. As well as offering legal counsel, he was renowned for connecting people with exactly the right adviser, mentor or collaborator when they needed it most. Beyond his legal expertise, he encouraged creatives to recognise the true value of their work. And, as Mitchell puts it, 'their worth into the future.'

Welcome to our fourth annual issue dedicated to the US. As the nation turns 250, we reveal the latest instalment of the Wallpaper* US400, our roll call of those shaping the creative conversation – and you’ll meet many of this year's honorees in the issue.

For our cover story, we travelled to Taos, New Mexico, where artist Johnny DeFeo has fashioned a one-of-a-kind guest house in the form of a coyote's head – a self-described ‘silly' idea that nevertheless enshrines the sense of artistic and individual freedom that pervades this issue. Taos is also home to fellow honoree and jewellery designer Anna Sheffield, whose own artistic process has been reignited by a move back to her native New Mexico. And we head to the North Dakota Badlands to peruse the Snøhetta-designed Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, its low-slung silhouette and grassy roof beautifully photographed by Vicky Sambunaris.

In LA, we premiere Studio Muka's new base for boundary-pushing film production company Neon Rated, and tour the 1970s Owl House, a characteristically playful Mickey Muennig home renovated by the interior design studio of Nicole Hollis.

Exploring the ways in which métiers often traverse the globe to evolve in the hands of those similarly transplanted, we meet five design practices renewing their connections with Poland, Vietnam, India, South Korea and China, and we head to Italy's ‘home of glass', Murano, to discover how Peter B Staples, founder of Manhattan-based lighting design studio Blue Green Works, created a fitting memorial to his late mother.

Elsewhere, we examine the work of two artists contemplating either end of the societal scale: architect-trained Olalekan Jeyifous, creator of ‘protopias' – digital collages that propose alternative cityscapes – and Danielle Mckinney, whose canvases reflect the solace inherent in the domestic setting.

We also visit the San Francisco apartment of Ron Zuckerman, where every available surface is adorned with works chronicling two centuries of queer life, and we tasked writer and curator Lou Stoppard with analysing the simple pleasures of the swimming pool to introduce our portfolio of leading American image-makers.

Finally, by way of a salute to its ‘big birthday', we offer a miscellanea of our favourite American design motifs, a host of totemic, almost talismanic trademarks that we feel capture the country's longstanding creative and commercial kudos.

Bill Prince
Editor-in-Chief

Wallpaper’s August 2026 Creative America issue is available from 4 July, in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Over its three-century life, LSO St Luke’s has taken on many forms. Originally built in 1733 as St Luke’s Church, the building later fell into ruin before being restored and transformed into the London Symphony Orchestra’s headquarters in 2003. Since then, it has welcomed world-renowned artists including Elton John, Annie Lennox and Bruce Springsteen, while also becoming a valued community hub.

Now, following a multi-million-pound upgrade, the Grade I-listed venue has opened a new suite of facilities, giving one of the capital’s most distinctive cultural landmarks a new lease of life.

Inside the new LSO St Luke's

The works, led by Levitt Bernstein, build on the practice’s original transformation of the building in the early 2000s. Rather than reinventing LSO St Luke’s, the project carefully enhances its existing character. The qualities valued by the orchestra have been retained, while technical infrastructure, acoustics and public spaces have been upgraded to support a wider range of creative work

‘Every intervention has been shaped by the need to respect the historic character of the building while making it more appropriate for contemporary use,’ states Arts Studio Director at Levitt Bernstein, Mark Lewis

Central to the transformation is a new bespoke Audio Control Room, designed to meet the highest standards of recording, mixing and post-production. Featuring an impressive Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 reference monitoring system, ATC speakers and an Avid S4 console, the space gives LSO St Luke’s a world-class technical backbone.

Linked to every performance space in the building, the Audio Control Room allows the venue to accommodate a broad range of uses, from orchestral recordings and podcasts to broadcast projects and commercial content. The main Jerwood Hall has also been upgraded with new acoustic measures to significantly improve sound quality. Alongside this, the enhanced Clore Rooms and Master Control Room provide premium digital and broadcast recording facilities, including a camera gallery for high-definition capture.

‘We now have the facilities we need to support our work properly,’ says Managing Director of the London Symphony Orchestra, Kathryn McDowell.

Careful attention has also been given to how people arrive, move through and experience the building. The aim was to make the underground spaces feel more natural, warm and welcoming,’ says Lewis. Improvements include changes to the main entrance, enhanced external lighting to the façade, more accessible spaces and the introduction of gender-neutral facilities.

‘We wanted to make the building more appropriate for the needs of today,’ says McDowell.

For the managing director of LSO, these changes have shifted how the former church can be used. ‘The project has opened the building up in a completely new way, making it more connected, accessible and better equipped for the needs of artists, producers, and filmmakers’

With its historic shell, LSO St Luke’s is a striking music venue rooted in the past yet designed for the future. Like the London Symphony Orchestra itself, it brings together heritage and innovation, creating a place where history and music meet. ‘LSO is a historic orchestra with a contemporary heart and this building is exactly the same.’

If you love vintage furniture and British heritage design, this one's for you. Pre-loved furniture marketplace Vinterior is joining forces with British design house Liberty London on a five-piece capsule collection, launching today (1 July 2026), which pairs meticulously sourced midcentury and modernist furniture with fabrics drawn from Liberty's archive.

The collaboration is led by Liberty's head of design for home and interiors, Genevieve Bennett, who selected each furniture piece with specific fabrics in mind. The result is a tightly curated edit that bridges the design philosophies of both brands: Vinterior's commitment to circular furnishing and Liberty's century-and-a-half tradition of textile innovation.

Our favourite pieces from the collection include a ‘Cassina Maralunga’ two-seater sofa, originally designed by Vico Magistretti for the Italian manufacturer Cassina, now upholstered in Liberty's ‘Shadow Stripe Weave’ in ‘Amalfi’, a pattern drawing on Futurist and Vorticist influences. Equally covetable is an early 1970s ‘Alky’ chair, designed by Giancarlo Piretti and produced by Anonima Castelli, finished in Liberty's ‘Zig Zag Velvet’ from the ‘FuturLiberty’ range, a jacquard velvet referencing early 20th-century design and the energy of jazz-age dance.

The collection also features two 1960s Vico Magistretti ‘Carimate’ chairs, sourced from Vinterior's archive and dressed in Liberty's densely embroidered ‘Mount Stitch’ fabric in ‘Acacia’, a woodland and mountain-inspired print that pops against the chairs' red frames. A 1960s Swedish ‘Lamino’ footstool is covered in Liberty's ‘Cravat’ fabric in ‘Scarab Lacquer’, chosen to complement its curved silhouette, while a vintage 1960s beech standard lamp is finished with a bespoke Liberty lampshade in ‘Ottoman Spot’ velvet, a design inspired by a 19th-century artwork unearthed in the Liberty archive.

‘[Liberty’s] designs have outlasted trends for over 150 years, and the pieces in this collection have done the same. That's the spirit this partnership is built on: timeless design, beautifully made, built to last,’ says Vinterior founder and CEO Sandrine Zhang Ferron.

‘We were naturally drawn to fabrics from our FuturLiberty and The House of Liberty collections, inspired by the same 1960s-70s periods as the selected furniture pieces – each fabric felt perfectly aligned in history and aesthetic,’ adds Bennett. ‘Sculptural, curved silhouettes juxtapose dynamic geometrics, charming scenic landscapes and bold textures.’

With just five pieces available, this collection is unlikely to stay on the market for long. Shop the furniture below for a rare opportunity to own a timeless piece of design history, reimagined for the present.

Shop the pieces

Dae Lim started his apparel and lifestyle brand Sundae School based on a cheeky proposition: ‘What if God was Korean and smoked weed every day?’

Eight years later, that concept – a label that would showcase Lim’s rich Korean heritage with an ethos that was equal parts streetwear and stoner – has evolved into a cult New York-based e-commerce brand, known for its distinctly-styled relaxed-fit hoodies, chinos, batik bandanas and, yes, mochi edibles.

The opportunity to open a bricks-and-mortar store offered something more: to cater to Lim’s community. ‘I knew [the location] had to be Chinatown,’ Lim says. ‘The Asian American diaspora started here. We wanted to plant a stake in the ground where our roots are.’

He found the perfect spot in a compact, 450 sq ft storefront on Hester Street, once home to the studio of minimalist artist Sol LeWitt. Conveniently, Dae’s husband Nohar Agadi is an architect, who cut his teeth at Foster + Partners before starting his own studio, Nohar’s Ark.

Much like the garments and accessories Lim and his team design (‘We’ve aimed to distill the hanbok costume tradition in wearable, modern uniforms,’ he says), the flagship is sleek and pared back, with selective embellishments. In particular, Agadi chose to reference the Haeinsa temple in South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea, a Unesco World Heritage List site famous for its collection of Buddhist writings, in his design. At the temple, 80,000 texts are kept in a wooden shelf system, an element Abadu referenced when developing the store’s modular aluminum display system.

The open structure, kit-of-parts seamlessly incorporates screw-in hanging bars and racks. Depending on the use of the flexible space – playing host to a community gathering, launch, or the screening of a World Cup football match – this solution can be easily reconfigured. Above, a grid of light-strip fixtures, developed with lighting designer Frank Favia, mimics the paper lantern canopies that cover traditional temple courtyards.

‘The interesting thing about [Korean temples’ spaces] is that they’re laid out to take visitors on a journey,’ Agadi explains. ‘A series of gates lead them from a secular into a spiritual and sacred world. Here, we're expressing this condition with a layering of different, carefully selected materials, helping people transition off of the street.’

While the room-within-a-room’s modular display system is made up of hyper-engineered aluminum components, the interior is wrapped in light pink (reminiscent of the Korean hibiscus flower) floor-to-ceiling curtains that also help to section off two changing rooms and conceal offices.

Lim, Agadi and co-architect Andy Kim tapped Seoul-based talent Hyunhee Kim to create a series of custom artworks, based on Sundae School’s logo, a clever amalgam of the Korean national emblem emblazoned with the word Ddul (weed in Korean). The insignia carries through the shop on from a large backdrop panel to a custom display table. The same five-petal shape adorns frosted acrylic panes inserted within the shelving system.

Reinterpreted traditional Korean doors imbue the store with an additional layer of architectural resonance. They also help to conceptually welcome in customers and visitors – creating a new type of sacred space for Sundae School’s thriving community.

Sundae School is located at 117 Hester St, New York, NY 10002.

At Wallpaper*, we’re constantly searching for the objects, homeware, accessories, fashion and tech that push boundaries. The Design Drop is where we gather the month's best finds – a running wish list for the design-obsessed.

This month's selection runs from craft with provenance – a hand-weathered bronze light from Original BTC and geometric jewellery from Shihara – to joyful accessibility in the form of Ikea's ‘PS 2026’ furniture collection and new Ilse Crawford lamps. Elsewhere: a Bottega Veneta fragrance, Polaroid's third-generation camera, and the chicest childrenswear of the season.

Read on to discover everything you didn't know you needed this month.

Since the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicked off, it is only to be expected that the world has gone a little football crazy. New York has become a new stomping ground for soccer fans, and to accommodate them, Crosby Studios has designed ‘Home of Football: Home & Away’ (tickets here), a pop-up exhibition created in collaboration with cultural platform Home of Football and arts collective Air Afrique. The exhibition is designed to serve as an interactive space that offers a new perspective on the sport’s enduring legacy.

Football memorabilia is reimagined in New York exhibition

Founded by Harry Nuriev, Crosby Studios is best known for championing a transformative spirit within spaces – from Clive Christian’s London flagship to a reimagined Parisian espresso bar. Located at High Line Nine in New York’s Chelsea Gallery District, the new exhibition is no different. Divided into six chapters, the showcase looks at the codes of sport, art, design, and fashion and how they intersect.

What marks out this exhibition from others is the new viewpoint provided. Designed through Nuriev’s architectural lens, the space is graphical, with acoustic elements to enhance the impact of the presentation. The colour palette alludes to a football field, with hues of mint green, while circles and curvatures integrated within the space nod to the shape of a football and the markings on the pitch.

Memorabilia was selected and curated by Air Afrique, with highlights such as Pelé's 1958 Brazil World Cup jersey and Ronaldo artifacts from Brazil's 2002 World Cup triumph. The presentation also includes more than 60 other match-worn jerseys, as well as trophies, and photographs of defining footballing moments.

Coupled with the display of archival pieces is a new retail concept, The Crosby Shop, a platform to present some of Nuriev’s favourite brands – among them Baccarat, Nothing, publisher Rizzoli, men’s grooming brand Obayaty, and olive estate La Terra Di Neena – including some that will be available in the US for the first time. The shop is also home to Balira Coffee, a café pop-up from former Real Madrid star Sami Khedira, a World Cup-winning player for Germany in 2014, who will make select appearances.

Says Nuriev, ‘This concept is about the clash between football, fashion, and art culture. It is a form of cultural transformism, translating the energy and visual codes of football into a new media format that feels open and accessible, not only to football fans, but also to people discovering this world for the first time. The green is a digital version of the football field colour, and the circles reference both the ball and the centre point of the field, becoming symbols of movement, gathering, and play.’

'Home of Football: Home & Away' is located at High Line Nine, Hudson Yards, 507 W 27th Street, New York, NY 10001 ,until 19 July 2026. Tickets are available here

Robert Wilson was the ultimate nomad. The Texas-born, Pratt-educated artist and theatre-maker moved easily and always: between cities and continents, cultures and disciplines, the expressive and the elusive, defying boundaries through the force of his vision and a compelling charisma. And so it’s fitting that The Watermill Center, the laboratory for creative thinking that Wilson founded in 1992 in an abandoned Western Union building on New York’s Long Island and described as his 'greatest artistic achievement', was the setting for the first American edition of Nomad, the globe-trotting showcase for art and collectible design.

Nomad makes USA debut

Powered by extraordinary destinations, ranging from the Monaco villa once occupied by Karl Lagerfeld (another nomad par excellence) to the decommissioned modernist terminal at Abu Dhabi International Airport, nine-year-old design fair Nomad has emerged as the anti-fair. It doesn’t layer atop a site so much as nestle and immerse itself within it, soaking up the power of a place to illuminating effects.

The prospect of a stateside debut at Watermill, home to a year-round artist residency programme and funded in part by one of the most highly anticipated bacchanals of any summer in the Hamptons, was suggested to Nomad co-founder and director Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte by a trustee of the centre some years ago and ultimately blessed by Wilson in spring last year, before his death on 31 July 2025 at the age of 83. (An age at which, he’d told Wallpaper* in an interview at Watermill earlier that year, he had ‘more work than ever’, including an installation destined for Salone del Mobile.)

'I think Robert Wilson liked the concept of Nomad very much, because it aligns with his way of being interdisciplinary and combining different cultures. We have a lot of common ground,' said Bellavance-Lecompte, an architect and curator. 'It was a whole process to consider how we could come here without invading, to do it in a respectful way that could also support and promote his work, and now to expand his legacy.'

Art, design and architecture at The Watermill Center

An architect of time and space across hundreds of performances around the world, Wilson viewed The Watermill Center as 'my most concrete and accessible legacy'. He boiled down the institution’s mission to four foundational principles: honour the present, look to the past, support the local community, and support the global community.

Wilson first came upon the ten-acre property in the mid-1980s, drawn to Long Island’s East End by the beautiful light and a desire to trade Manhattan loft living for natural surroundings. In the crumbling, U-shaped industrial building – once a research hub that from 1925 until its closure in 1965 developed innovations including the high-speed fax machine – he discerned an appealing architectural simplicity and a beguiling surplus of windows.

Retaining the original footprint, he embarked on a 15-year project to rebuild it, inspired in part by the work of Philip Johnson, in whose New York architecture office Wilson worked as an assistant in the early 1960s. A barn-like artists’ residence, designed by Wilson in collaboration with the architect Roger Ferris, was completed in 2021.

Visitors to the inaugural Nomad Hamptons arrived at the centre as Wilson intended: by walking along a lush woodland path studded with monumental sculptures from his collection of more than 6,000 art and design objects, before ascending the stairs to reach what he dubbed the 'Knee building'; a zinc-sided structure that acts as a joint between the north and south wings.

With a floor lined in river stones, it is punctured by perpetually open doorways that afford a clear east-west view through the building. A veil of cherry red heralded Nomad’s four-day residency (25-28 June 2026), and in the trees fluttered American artist Rachel Hayes’ vibrant and dreamy textile collages, a special commission that also made for picnic blankets with a Rauschenbergian flair.

'The concept is always to dialogue with the architecture where we go to create an experience,' said Bellavance-Lecompte. In the Hamptons, that experience was shaped by a thoughtfully curated group of 32 exhibitions, each one unfolding in its own nook of the Watermill campus, including the third-floor eyrie that served as Wilson’s summer home. Opened for private tours guided by Noah Khoshbin, the light-filled space is a mesmerising mélange in which a petite René Magritte cloudscape can join a Bruce Nauman screenprint to float above a Navajo blanket, smoke-fired ceramic vessels by Bonnie Lynch, and a stainless-steel mesh chaise longue designed by Wilson in 1987 for his production of Parzival in Hamburg. And that’s just the first room. (Wilson furniture fans can find more in his self-explanatory 2025 book, Chairs.)

'Bob started collecting when he was 12 years old. The collection is a bit like Andy Warhol’s or André Breton’s in that all periods, mediums, and cultures are represented,' said Khoshbin, the centre’s curator, who also organised a presentation of works from Wilson’s vast archive in a lower-level space. 'His mission and his legacy for the artists who are in residence is that they have this collection as a resource – you can touch the works, move the works, have it in your studio or your bedroom.'

A visual tribute to Robert Wilson

The photography of Dominique Nabokov offered additional vantage points on Wilson’s singular approach to living and working (spoiler alert: the two were inextricable). Curated by Paris-based architect Sophie Dries, who instantly ingratiated herself to seasoned Wilson followers on the fair’s VIP day by toting a fluorescent Louis Vuitton handbag from the edition he designed in 2002 at the invitation of Marc Jacobs, the images were accompanied by Wilson-designed objects ranging from iconic chairs ('as important as a character' in most of his productions, he bristled when they were referred to as 'props') to striking glass works made in Marseille during his artist residency at CIRVA (Centre International de Recherche sur le Verre et les Arts Plastiques) that spanned 1994 to 2005.

Nomad in the Hamptons

For most exhibiting galleries, 'site specific' was the prevailing ethos. Cairo's Le Lab was given a room anchored by a massive wooden table that Wilson designed for, and built within, the space. 'This table will never leave this room. It’s here for good,' said Russell Piccione, who curated the presentation, titled 'Through a Collector’s Eye', with gallery founder Rasheed Kamel. 'Knowing that it was going to be in our room influenced a lot of decisions: materiality, surface, and depth, a certain soulfulness.'

Among the works orbiting the table were Ibriham El-Salahi’s Pain Relief Drawings, etched on scrap paper during the African artist’s 2016-18 incarceration in Khartoum, and a steel-framed louvered wall work by Betil Dagdelen, described by Piccione as 'a contemporary Turkish painter who happens to work in fibre'.

The centre’s serene sunken art library hosted Abby Bangser’s Object & Thing, which celebrated material experimentation and the collecting impulse with works that included a special Watermill edition of 'Disco Vision' upcycled-LaserDisc lamps by Christian Wassmann, who designed the library’s original shelves.

On the other side of the space, amid volumes dedicated to matters anthropological, theatrical, and sartorial, was the unmistakable work of Gaetano Pesce. Presented by Kalei NYC in collaboration with the designer’s estate, the forms of the colourful resin chair and jumbo throne were inspired by the frankincense trees native to Oman. More Pesce was on view in the centre’s kitchen, reimagined as a joyful haven for Italian Radical Design and spritzed regularly with a fragrance from Amouage – a precursor to the scent-embedded Pesce pieces slated to launch soon.

Other highlights included Tabayer jewellery, with finessed gold forms inspired by modernist sculpture and inlaid with otherworldly morsels of chrysoprase, blue chalcedony, and red jasper. At the Maison Gerard nook, Ayala Serfaty’s patinated bronze console, part of her new ‘Janus’ series, had the lightness of a lily pad and the organic intricacy of multiplying cells.

Aurèce Vettier (an art project founded in 2019 by Paul Mouginot and presented at Nomad by the Spaceless Gallery of New York and Paris) deploys algorithms to inform the creation of forms ranging from an Aubusson tapestry to a tree-like outdoor sculpture that evoked a glitchy mash-up of Claude Lalanne and Ingo Maurer. New York-based jewellery designer Ippolita Rostagno joined forces with Piotrek Panszczyk Burke on an installation of wearable nuggets of eroded gold, harvested from the Yukon using placer mining. 'Please touch them!' they encouraged.

Corporate partners were intelligently integrated. Sisley Paris tapped French-born artist Sydney Albertini, based in nearby Amagansett, for an installation of lively and large-scale botanical compositions that lined the walls of the centre’s dining room, while Giorgio Armani, a longtime Wilson collaborator, explored the connections between art, design, and craftsmanship with the help of commissioned works by New York-based artists Ariel Dearie and Jonathan Kline. Curated by Abby Bangser and inspired by the natural setting of The Watermill Center, the Armani presentation placed the new works in conversation with Armani/Casa pieces in Murano glass and Limoges porcelain.

Kline, a basket maker whose chosen medium is black ash, created a suite of wall-mounted open-weave grids using the inner layers of the tree, which are distinguished by their intriguing grain and irregular contour. His process shares elements prized by Wilson: slowness, contemplation, and the endless possibilities unlocked by the meeting of vertical and horizontal. 'With basket weaving, there’s a lot of time between concept and realisation. You often don’t really know where it’s going,' said Kline. 'Baskets kind of grow more than you create them. They give you time to ponder.'

A place to ponder when entering, exiting, or traversing the Knee building was created by 'Rooted Movements'. Developed with Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism, the presentation brought together the work of Emirati artists Afra Al Dhaheri, Zuhoor Al Sayegh, and Azza Al Qubaisi. 'Our objective is always to link the destinations where we go around the world, and it was important for us to bring a presence from the Middle East,' said Bellavance-Lecompte, who in 2011 founded Carwan in Beirut as the first contemporary design gallery in the Middle East.

Al Dhaheri, a native of Abu Dhabi and a 2023 participant in The Watermill Center’s flagship International Summer Program, created cotton rope installations that cascaded in banded, hair-like bundles from the industrial catwalk, their deliberately untwisted ends frizzled and pooled on the cool stone floor. The suspensions created arches to walk under, directing movement through a space infused with fragrant incense. Recalled Al Dhaheri, 'It’s like Bob used to say, “Interesting things happen when people cross paths”.’

We’ve all become very accustomed to a world where A hooks up with B to cross-pollinate their respective audiences, an ‘x’ association that goes beyond straightforward creative collaborations to tap into new revenue streams via a canny intersection of cross-demographic appeal and straightforward marketing.

On the face of it, 23-year-old American singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo is no more a collab queen than any of her peers, but that doesn’t mean she’s not busy; recent commercial and ‘ambassadorial’ tie-ins include Sony, Glossier, AmEx, Casetify, Lancôme, and even chunky cup maker Stanley.

This is a roundabout way of introducing Rodrigo’s new collaboration with Lego, five sets that mark a sea change in the way the Danish play specialist works with external creative forces, as well as a canny way of connecting the Californian songstress with her fans young and old.

Wallpaper* spoke to Amy Corbett, senior design manager at the Lego Group, about the origins and execution of the new collection, the first time Lego has ever worked with a contemporary music artist.

Rodrigo has been hot property for several years, following the success of her first two albums, Sour (2021) and Guts (2023), global tours, three Grammys, and appearances at Glastonbury, Lollapalooza and her own forthcoming all-female festival Daisy Chain Fields in California. This year saw the release of her latest album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, from which the singles ‘Drop Dead’, ‘The Cure’ and ‘Stupid Song’ have already been taken.

Diving into the infinite realm of the plastic brick might seem like an unusual creative decision, especially as Rodrigo has never said much – if anything – about her own Lego fandom. It’s not like she contacted the makers of her favourite childhood toy and requested they work together.

Instead, it was the canny marketing folk at Lego who recognised that the singer’s attitude, oeuvre, and personal style contained the perfect combination of powerful, playful and extensive reach. It's the perfect demographic split to tap into Rodrigo's legions of admirers, many of whom skew younger, with an added contingent of savvy adult pop fans who recognise a generational talent when they see one.

‘We look for passions,’ Corbett admits. ‘We look for what is going to drive our consumers to have a great building experience by creating something that they love. And, of course, music is a huge, universal passion.’ A Lego set requires a long lead time, from ideation and design through to manufacturing and distribution.

All in all, it’s a good 18 months of work behind the scenes before a set appears on the shelves. When the collaboration began, the third album was very much a work in progress. ‘We knew there was going to be something exciting coming,’ Corbett says. ‘Olivia is just a really creative powerhouse. She writes her own songs, she plays her own instruments and she’s such a great role model.’

The result is five new Lego Editions sets launching around the world on 1 August, and are already available to pre-order. Among them are Olivia Rodrigo’s Dual Guitar (43031), Olivia Rodrigo's Concert Moon (43029) and Olivia Rodrigo’s Flower Bouquet (11507).

The bouquet represents the first time the Botanicals series has included a collaboration. Introduced in 2021 as part of the Creator series, Botanicals became a standalone product line in 2025, neatly parlaying the themes of design, intricacy, and display into a series of sets that have become cult home objects among adult fans of Lego and tween builders alike.

The other two sets are Olivia Rodrigo’s Vinyl (43028), a 360-piece that serves as a portmanteau of hidden messages and callbacks, all of which will be seized upon by fans, and the 1,085-piece Secret Storage set (43030), a display item that includes a representation of her cherry red guitar (she favours both Fender Mustang and Jazzmaster, as well as a purple St Vincent-designed Music Master), the Guts tour megaphone and a lyric book.

There’s a high degree of fan-favourite winks and nods across all five sets. Whereas the more literal sets are rich with imagery and the all-important Easter Eggs, the 400-piece bouquet set is embedded with slightly subtler symbolism. Flowers and butterflies – an enduring Rodrigo motif – represent her mixed Californian-Filipino heritage, whereas the honeybee is a literal callback to the third track on the new album.

Lego's team searched high and low to find a flower with guitar-like petals for added authenticity, eventually settling on the African Daisy. Flower parts are also formed from stars and cupcakes, with a purple and pink colourway that also comes to the fore in set 43031.

This 1,228-piece set is a display model that mashes up an electric and acoustic guitar, unfolding to reveal a concert scene, with an internal pull-out dressing room (complete with burger). The set also includes two of the five unique Olivia minifigs that are being launched as part of the collaboration.

Corbett describes the collaboration as a three-way process, between Lego, Rodrigo and her legions of fans. To that end, the five sets tick off the tropes and lore that inevitably accompany contemporary global megastars, a mix of breadcrumbs dropped via social media, lyrical analysis and overt, in your face imagery.

The last naturally applies to Rodrigo's image and wardrobe, which is richly analysed and obsessed over. The five minifigs represent five different stage costumes, as evidenced in the Concert Moon set, which offers a recreation of the giant moon prop used during the Guts tour.

Rodrigo herself is happy to use Lego to continue playing a game she’s used throughout her career. ‘I’ve always loved hiding little details and meanings in my music and videos, so working with the Lego team to bring something that fans can actually build and explore together has been so exciting,’ she says. ‘There are so many pieces of my world inside these sets – little nods to songs, memories, outfits and moments that mean a lot to me.’

Officially, these five collectible sets are pitched at nine- to 14-year-olds, but if Lego has learnt one thing in the nearly three decades since it signed the lucrative Star Wars licence, it’s that any form of collectability explodes the idea of age ratings.

Working with Rodrigo also opens the door to limitless future musical partnerships; the company can rightfully expect to be besieged by creative directors and merchandise managers. More importantly, for the Livies, it could be the start of a whole new obsession.

The Lego Editions x Olivia Rodrigo sets are available to pre-order now and will be released from 1 August 2026.
Store.OliviaRodrigo.com, @OliviaRodrigo, Lego.com, @Lego

RH has arrived in London, and it's done so in style. The American luxury home furnishings brand – formerly known as Restoration Hardware – has chosen 7 Burlington Gardens, one of the city's most storied addresses, for its new flagship.

The project marks RH's first London outpost, following its 2023 debut at Aynho Park – a 400-year-old landmark estate in Banbury – and subsequent openings in Paris, Milan, Brussels, Madrid, Munich and Düsseldorf. But London, it seems, demanded something different in scale and ambition.

The venue is Uxbridge House, a rare surviving Palladian mansion designed in 1721 by Italian-born architect Giacomo Leoni for the 1st Earl of Darnley. Restored and reimagined alongside three adjoining landmark properties, it now houses what RH bills as the largest curated collection of luxury home furnishings in the world. Working with Foster + Partners, the brand has unified four buildings – spanning five levels and over 5,000 square metres – into a single destination encompassing retail, dining, design and culture.

Visitors arrive through a Roman Doric portico into the Architecture & Design Library, where herringbone floors of European white oak and museum-style plinths frame a collection of rare classical books. The centrepiece is a 1521 first Italian edition of Vitruvius' De Architectura, a foundational text of Western architecture. Through Leonardo da Vinci's later interpretation, its principles of proportion helped shape the design philosophy that continues to influence RH today.

A scenic lift designed by Foster + Partners – its shaft clad in champagne gold-finished steel and glass – connects all five levels. The Wine Bar and Tea Salon, finished in Bronze Amani Spanish marble, sits nearby, while deeper in the mansion the former banking hall has been reborn as the The Dining Room: a 136-seat restaurant where champagne-lacquered Roman columns rise nearly eight metres to a coffered ceiling hand-finished in gold leaf, tiered chandeliers of hand-blown Venetian glass suspended from mirrored skylights above. The menu leans into British classics like rib roast and fish and chips, cooked on custom Molteni rotisseries.

Upstairs, the first floor's historic Piano Nobile state rooms retain their elaborately decorated 18th-century ceilings by master plasterer Joseph Rose, now framing RH Interiors collections. The second floor is arguably more dramatic still. Designer and hotelier Anouska Hempel has created two spaces: the The Perch at RH London, with its smoked-glass aviary canopy, blackened églomisé walls and bar of pure Absoluto Nero marble, which opens onto a terrace garden of laurel trees, diamond-laid marble floors with water rills and grand glass birdcages evoking the domes of Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan. Nearby, the World of RH Lounge is anchored by a 360-degree hologram floating within a case of bronze and fluted mirror.

The third floor, meanwhile, has been transformed into a sheltered garden oasis beneath a massive ridged skylight of triangular glass panels and hand-selected European white oak beams, housing RH Outdoor among fountains, pleached plane trees and open fireplaces.

Situated opposite the Royal Academy of Arts, between New Bond Street and Savile Row, the location is as deliberate as everything else here. RH London is a store, yes – but it's also a statement.

The boundaries between fashion, art and design can be blurry ones so it was no surprise when the Triennale Milano launched its own department dedicated to fashion in 2024, overseen by Luca Stoppini and former Wallpaper* Milan Editor Marco Sammicheli.

Established to research, archive and curate all things fashion-related, exploring the role it plays in the design world and promoting it in dialogue with schools and universities, the department’s latest project is a rethink of the Triennale’s uniforms in four key areas: for the cultural mediators who welcome visitors; for the security staff; for the team at Voce, the venue dedicated to music and sound; and for the staff at the two restaurants, Cucina and Terrazza.

To develop the creative side of the project, the Triennale brought on board former creative Gucci, Valentino and Tod’s creative director Alessandra Facchinetti, who took inspiration from workwear and the Bauhaus movement to develop a versatile, cross-functional design that fosters a sense of belonging, comfort and style.

‘My concept goes beyond that of traditional uniforms, which often lack identity and fail to create a cohesive image, in favour of a collection of garments and accessories aligned with the institution’s vision and values,’ says Facchinetti. ‘A uniform should not only identify the wearer, but also represent and strengthen the institution itself, striking a balance between function, practicality and aesthetics in a language that moves beyond role and becomes an everyday style code. The uniform serves as a visual and tangible expression of the museum’s identity, a recognisable and meaningful element that engages visitors and enhances their experience in shared spaces.’

Facchinetti chose to reflect on the very concept of the uniform, reinterpreting it to ensure recognisability without reducing it to a flat or generic design. Drawing on the geometric forms of the Triennale’s architecture, the visual identity of Cucina, with its Bauhaus-inspired graphic references, and the refined folding techniques found in traditional Italian table linens, the creative process gave rise to a distinctive signature triangular pleat that becomes the root of the uniform collection, appearing in pockets or on aprons.

The uniforms’ colour palette, meanwhile, nods to the tones of the Palazzo dell’Arte, the Triennale’s headquarters, ranging from the greys of the marble to the greens of the travertine. A burgundy vest was designed for the cultural mediators, with a colourful patch, in shades such as lime green and lilac, which can be attached to the pocket to identify different staff roles. Security staff uniforms are grey, as are those for Voce, though these also feature a fluorescent green print of the deconstructed Voce logo. The palette for Cucina is dominated by travertine green, paired with pearl grey, while Terrazza is dark brown, complemented by a warmer shade of grey. There are also separate designs for the catering and garden services.

The development and production of the uniforms was entrusted to Older Studio, the Danish-Italian company that specialises in forward-thinking uniform design. It translated the creative brief into the final product, overseeing the entire process from pattern making and prototyping to material sourcing and management of a fully sustainable supply chain. All materials used for the uniforms are woven and sourced in Italy, while each garment is produced in Europe and shipped in compostable packaging.

triennale.org

Larry Tchogninou is breaking away from the old ways of thinking. ‘At architecture school they basically taught us that everything has been done already, that it’s almost too late for new ideas,’ explains the Chicago-based designer. That’s why he started his own studio called Ruptur Vision, which marks a clear break from this mindset.

One of his recent pieces the ‘Knuckle Shelf’, which is currently on show at the Theaster Gates’s Stony Island Arts Bank, certainly doesn’t conform. Tchogninou brings a potent imagination to life: built out of necessity for more storage space, the form was inspired by the impression that books often leave on him.

‘There are some titles I’ve read that knock me out.’ Says the self-described polymath. ‘Oriki, by Nifemi Marcus Bello, or I make Shoes by Salehe Bembury.’ This sensation was translated into the shape of a knuckle duster. Constructed using Baltic birch plywood and aluminium sheets, the system features no hardware and uses friction-fit engineering.

Larry Tchogninou: one to watch

Born in 1998 in Cotonou, Benin, Tchogninou was drawn to architecture at an early age. ‘When I was around six years, old, my mum was building a house in the Cotonou suburbs; we would visit the site weekly and I was always in awe of how everything came together,’ recalls Tchogninou. After moving to Paris in 2014, where he finished his secondary school education, he went on to study at L’Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture Paris-Val-de-Seine. Four years later, he moved to Chicago to join his mother, and studied architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology.

In 2019, Tchogninou participated in the NikeLab Chicago Recreation Lab, a summer mentorship programme led by the late Virgil Abloh. This is where he met his Points of Sail co-founder James Langford: together they design retail stores, both in Chicago and in Benin.

In the latter, they worked on a pop-up retail store called Tibi. ‘All the pieces that you see in that retail store are made in Cotonou. The silver stools are cast in aluminium,’ he explains. They were created by the same artisan that made his sand-casted citrus squeezer, ‘Beak’, forged in the shape of a swan’s neck and beak. ‘My favourite design object is the ‘Juicy Salif’ by Philippe Starck,’ he explains. Like ‘Juicy’, Tchogninou’s ‘Beak’ citrus squeezer is a conversation starter. ‘People don’t know what it is initially, but when I explain it to them, it sells like crazy.’

Tchogninou has an aptitude for the unconventional: when he worked with Serena Williams Design Crew in 2021 he created the ‘SWDC’ duffel bag, a soft lilac trapezoid sports bag, which collapses into a crossbody bag (it launched two years later).

In 2025, Tchogninou exhibited at the award-winning Benin Pavillion at the World Expo in Japan. Several of his creations featured, including an aluminium cast dish set, designed in collaboration with chef Philippe Sonou, who used it in the Masterchef UK finals. That piece was made in Benin, unlike the ‘Gbêhanzin’ egg holder Tchogninou makes himself in the US. ‘There’s a Chicago-based manufacturer called Sand Cut Sands who laser-cut the forms I then bend, break and rivet them.’

The egg holder is another item that people can’t always identify immediately, but this doesn’t scare Tchogninou, who believes that some pieces should be ‘disturbing’ as well as ‘comforting’. ‘We need both perspectives in design.’

Certain names have shaped the current of design across the last century – designers who propelled mid-century modernism and postmodern provocation to Scandinavian craft and Japanese experimentalism. Those names have been immortalised in monographs that function as both physical histories of 20th- and 21st-century visual culture and beautifully crafted objects in their own right.

The titles listed below are an invitation to spend time inside a singular creative mind; together, they form an essential library for anyone who wants to understand how design arrived where it is today.

Seven essential books on the giants of 20th-century design

Each year, the Serpentine Summer Party is a highlight of London's social calendar. Held to celebrate the newly unveiled pavilion while raising funds for the gallery's year-round free programme, the evening has evolved into an all-encompassing work of art in its own right.

This year's edition, which took place on Tuesday 23 June, marked a new chapter for the annual fundraiser, with the architects behind the 2026 Serpentine Pavilion, Lanza Atelier, collaborating with New York-based artist and creative director Laila Gohar – fresh from her vegetable merry-go-round triumph at Salone del Mobile – to shape the evening's creative direction. Together, they conceived an immersive programme spanning architecture, furniture, food and performance, extending the pavilion beyond its role as a backdrop into the heart of the event.

Behind the scenes at the Serpentine Summer Party 2026

The Furniture

At the centre of the collaboration was Lanza Atelier's Spiral Bench, a modular seating system composed of individual elements that can be stacked, rearranged and expanded. Mirroring the geometry of the Mexico City studio's brick-walled pavilion, the benches also became stages for Gohar's culinary interventions, including servings of esquites and elotes. 'Like the spiral itself, an ancient symbol of creation, transformation and renewal, the bench grows organically through movement and conversation,' said the architects.

Inside the pavilion, Lanza Atelier also unveiled a limited-edition stool inspired by the distinctive curves of the Coco de Mer seed. Crafted from natural materials, the collectible piece continues the studio's ongoing exploration of organic form, artisanal production and nature-led design.

The Food

Meanwhile, Gohar's culinary programme brought an air of mischief and magic, with food 'appearing unexpectedly' throughout the pavilion in a sequence of edible encounters featuring corn, mole and chocolate – the latter supplied by Mexican chocolate brand Casa Bosques. 'I've always been drawn to ingredients that carry entire worlds inside them,' she said. 'Somewhere between architecture, landscape, and banquet, the party becomes a living composition shaped by the people's movement.'

The party's guests – made up of leading figures from the worlds of art, architecture, fashion, design and beyond – discovered a corn station, mole and tamale bar, and chocolate bricks modelled on those used to construct the pavilion, alongside hibiscus, mango and guava sorbets. Signature drinks included ginger margaritas, Fire Palomas and jalapeño sodas.

Art Installations

Another highlight was The Weight of Air, a series of flowing silk fabric installations created by Gohar. Animated by the wind, the suspended forms echoed the pavilion's recurring spiral motif while introducing moments of movement throughout the site. 'Taking inspiration from the spiral and the serpentine line, the work uses fabric, air and motion to create a visual language of rhythm, movement and transformation,' explained Gohar.

Greeting guests on arrival, the installation acted as a welcoming gesture, accompanied by servings of aloo matar and warming chai, a subtle nod to Host Committee Chair Isha Ambani's commitment to championing Indian art, design and craft.

Continuing the playful mood, guests also got the chance to wander through the suspended yellow strands of Jesús Rafael Soto's Pénétrable BBL Jaune (1999; 2023 Edition). This immersive public installation by the Venezuelan kinetic artist is installed in the park next to the gallery and forms part of Serpentine's summer programme. 'It's everything Serpentine stands for: connecting artists, architects and audiences, here in the park, free and open to all,' said CEO of Serpentine, Bettina Korek.

While the pavilion architects have been increasingly involved in shaping the annual party, this collaboration marks the first time Serpentine has invited them to collaborate with an artist in bringing the Summer Party to life. In doing so, it further dissolves the boundaries between architecture, art, design and performance.

This is the latest instalment of The Inside Story, Wallpaper’s series spotlighting intriguing, innovative and industry-leading interior design.

Nestled at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains in Sierra Madre, a 1947 adobe home – a traditional building method using sun-dried bricks of organic materials – has been reimagined. Removed from the noise and polish of Los Angeles, this neighbourhood is shaded by California oaks, eucalyptus and pine, and shares its hillside with bears. It's an unusual setting for a design story.

The home’s transformation began with a fire that destroyed much of the structure, leaving only the original adobe brick wall standing. Rather than rebuild from scratch, designer Kirsten Blazek of A1000XBetter chose to work with what remained.

‘The overall vision was to maintain as much of the original character and style of the home as possible, while making it more functional for modern living,’ she explains. New rooms were added – a kitchen, a primary suite, a family room – though the expansion was restrained. ‘We worked mainly within the original footprint,’ the designer notes, ‘only adding a small amount of square footage for the primary closet.’

On the original adobe side, the layout was left untouched. The hallway windows, original to the 1947 build and ‘one of [Blazek’s] favourite features’, were preserved. ‘I wanted the house to feel like a modern California hacienda,’ she says of her guiding aesthetic, ‘and embraced that through every colour choice and finish.'

That palette draws directly from the landscape. Dunn-Edwards paints in warm, grounded tones – including an exterior shade named ‘Wild Horses’ – echo the surrounding terrain and scrubland. ‘I very much gravitate to an earth-based palette,’ says Blazek, ‘and the location at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains made that feel completely natural.’

Recreate the mood

The interiors, meanwhile, speak to a lifelong passion. ‘I have a deep connection with the American Southwest and have long collected Native American and western-influenced art and objects,’ she says. Yet the rooms never tip into pastiche. Midcentury furniture – sourced from MidcenturyLA, Amsterdam Modern and Lawson-Fenning – grounds the collected pieces with clean, modern lines. Rugs from Pampa and Salam Hello add warmth underfoot; drapery by Zak and Fox frames the windows. ‘I never want my work to feel too referential,’ Blazek reflects. ‘I love midcentury lines, so there's a pleasing blend of both genres throughout.’

Among her favourite moments is the dining room fireplace – original to the house, but updated with dimensional tile from Lofa Tile. Nearby, a framed print by artist Mark Maggiori anchors the wall. ‘It's one of my favourite pieces,’ she says. ‘I was grateful to finally find the perfect place for it.’

Between the ancient craft of adobe and the clean geometry of midcentury design, this renovation represents both preservation and reinvention – a modern hacienda rooted in its land, its past and the strength of Blazek’s vision.

It has been 11 years since Ilse Crawford launched her first collaboration with Ikea, marking a new chapter in the Swedish retailer's relationship with independent designers. Called 'Sinnerlig', the collection of cork and natural-fibre homeware translated Crawford's human-centred design approach into products available at Ikea's scale, and scooped her a 2016 Wallpaper* Design Award in the process. While some pieces from that first collection remain in production – including the popular bamboo pendant lamp – many sold out quickly, becoming collectors' items that now command several times their original price on resale sites.

Now, Crawford revisits the partnership with ‘Halgatt’, a pair of table lamps made from ceramic, linen and brass. Rendered in the earth-toned materials Crawford describes as 'classic', the designs embody the visual warmth and tactility that have long been hallmarks of her work.

One comprises a white stoneware block with a matching linen shade – square and architectural, tone-on-tone. The other pairs a dark cylindrical ceramic base with a beige linen shade. Both feature neat brass dimmer switches on their side. It’s the sort of understated design that you can imagine fitting into any interior, which, as Crawford explains, was her intention.

‘When I design lamps, I want them to bring warmth and life to a room,’ the designer reflects. ‘The challenge is to capture a classic's qualities – the right proportions, choice of materials and shade, and a timelessness that makes the lamp always feel relevant. My inspiration for “Halgatt” comes from how we live our lives. The lamps have a versatility that supports the decor rather than dominating it – and are just as suitable in the living room as in a dining room, a bedroom or a work area.’

Crawford, who began her career as the founding editor of Elle Decoration before establishing Studioilse in London, has built an international reputation for designs that prioritise human experience. From furniture collections and homeware to hospitality projects including Cathay Pacific's acclaimed airport lounges, her work is guided by a belief that good design should support everyday life through care, comfort, trust, soul, dignity, generosity and resourcefulness.

Writing in Wallpaper's February 2025 issue, Crawford reflected on these values: 'We believe that design is a tool for building new and better models for life and living. In the studio, we think about how we can “elevate the elemental”, by which we mean prioritising the tactility of the things we touch daily, optimising natural light and celebrating natural materials to support humane experiences.'

The Ikea x Ilse Crawford ‘Halgatt’ collection is available online and in UK stores, with the beige/brown ceramic lamp retailing at £35 and the white ceramic lamp retailing at £25.

A few short years ago, the industrial district of Certosa was one of Milan's forgotten corners. A neglected neighbourhood on the city's northwestern fringe, it was a landscape of former factories, warehouses and industrial buildings. But in a metropolis developing as rapidly as Milan, few areas of the city and its immediate outskirts have remained untouched. Today, thanks to an ongoing wave of regeneration, the post-industrial district is home to newly built offices, hip cafés and restaurants, and, most recently, the latest addition to Milan's burgeoning nightlife scene: Duro Club.

Duro Club, Milan's latest nightlife opening

Housed inside a former cement factory, the club was designed by Gianluca Bocchetta and Rosella Castagnotto of Turin-based Velvet Studio. Their aim was to 'preserve the building's original Brutalist character,' says Castagnotto, 'while completely rethinking the existing layout and circulation.' Fortunately, the brief from the owners was largely logistical. 'They told us how many people the club needed to accommodate, that it required a chill-out area and an outdoor smoking terrace,' she says. 'Beyond that, they gave us complete freedom.'

The pair drew heavily on the building's industrial past, retaining much of the exposed concrete while introducing stainless steel, coloured tile and mirrored surfaces. The mirrors are concentrated along the central corridor that runs the length of the building, punctuated by porthole-like openings that offer glimpses into the main dance floor and the adjoining aubergine-coloured lounge. 'We wanted to play with viewpoints,' says Castagnotto. 'The mirrors and openings create this interesting "see-but-can't-see" effect.'

At the end of the corridor lies the dance floor, an expansive room with warm parquet flooring inset with white squares that echo the colour-block lighting installation overhead. 'The white squares make it feel as though the light is projected onto the floor,' explains Castagnotto, who collaborated with ILTI Luce on the lighting design. 'But we didn't want the lighting to dominate. It had to be more about shadow than illumination.'

Near the far end of the room, a rectangular concrete-and-stainless-steel island serves as the bar — a monolithic centrepiece surrounded by built-in benches that provide a moment of respite without disconnecting from the energy of the dance floor. Opposite, the DJ booth appears to have been carved into the wall like a bunker. A projecting steel frame forms a rectangular aperture from which the DJ surveys the scene below. On either side, a pair of semi-private booths offer more intimate vantage points while remaining partially concealed from the crowd.

Duro Discoteca is the latest venture from brothers Marco and Riccardo Augeri, the entrepreneurs behind Da Orient, the vintage store-turned-cocktail bar in Milan's Chinatown. While Da Orient has become synonymous with the city's aperitivo culture, drawing crowds of stylish young Milanese onto Viale Montello each evening, Duro is conceived as a destination for late-night dancing and experimental electronic music.

'It has a Studio 54 spirit,' says Castagnotto of the club, which opened in April. 'People arrive dressed up and aren't afraid to be extravagant. It's not the typical Berlin club where everyone wears black from head to toe. Here there's colour — it’s very refined.’

It’s exactly a decade since the epic foot-shooting exercise of Brexit was set in motion. A new design exhibition, ‘The Other Side: Ten Years after the Referendum’, features the work of ten creative practitioners, including graphic designers, type designers, artists, architects and product designers, offering up a graphic view of the current state of play.

Curated by GraphicDesign& and designed by LucienneRoberts+, a team consisting of Lucienne Roberts, John McGill, Rebecca Wright, the show is at Pentagram's Osh Gallery in London’s N1 until Friday 26 June 2026.

The raw material is of particular interest. As Lucienne Roberts explains, ‘In 2020, GraphicDesign& published The Other Side: An Emotional Map of Brexit Britain. The book reads ‘Remain’ in one direction, flip it over and the focus is ‘Leave’. Included are the voices of 26 Leave and 24 Remain voters from throughout the UK. Every MP received a copy.’

It’s safe to say the publication didn’t rock nearly enough boats. Hence the existence of a number of unsold copies. ‘Our distributors got in touch, asking if we would like the few remaining copies of the book pulped,’ Roberts continues. ‘[We decided] we’d like them to become something new. Here are the results of this decision. We sent ten designers, ten (or more) copies of the book, inviting them to make a personal response to this poignant anniversary. “Feel free to draw or write on them,” we said. “Do cut, shred or pulp them.” Here is what happened next.’

Here are the results, and the creatives’ personal insights on Britain ten years post-Brexit.

‘The Other Side: Ten Years after the Referendum’

Hugh Miller: The works draw on post-Brexit financial data, referendum statistics and political contradiction to explore the consequences of separation and nationalism. The paper suit is made in collaboration with Harris Elliott – it’s a symbolic stand-in and a surface for statistics, headlines and contradictory political narratives.

How do I feel about Brexit now? Brexit still feels like a bad dream come true. A decision shaped by false promises that left us worse off, still burdened by red tape. It exposed the corruption of those meant to serve us. In today’s political landscape, hope and optimism feel increasingly distant.

Michael Marriott: [My work is] a small side table for a cup of tea / glass of wine / etc. My first thought was how to make something useful, something that would extend the life of the book, too. A small side table seemed like a good idea. It’s made using offcuts that I had in the studio already, so it’s all 100 per cent recycled – which is more sensible than Brexit!

How do I feel about Brexit now? Still amazed it was seen as a reasonable thing to do. Still annoyed by the complete stupidness of it.

Stefanie Posavec: For Leavers, achieving Brexit must have felt like birthday and Christmas rolled into one. Riding high on hubris and fantasies of ‘British sovereignty’, everything seemed possible. Ten years on, reality has set in and the party’s over, leaving the rest of us (and future generations) to clean up the mess.

How do I feel about Brexit now? I became a UK citizen only four years before Brexit began. I still have a red EU passport (my first UK passport) and, when I look at it while waiting in long EU border queues, I feel both bereaved and cheated.

Lucienne Roberts, John McGill: Our ten books carry the message ‘HELLO HELL’, legible from both sides of the table. The incisions into each book reveal some of the more poignant pages within. Glimpses of Farage, Boris and an SOS projected onto the White Cliffs of Dover, trigger feelings as powerful now as they were then.

How do we feel about Brexit now? We felt sad then and even sadder now. In the book, writer on human behaviour Ian Leslie describes the vote as akin to a marital breakdown, with neither version of the UK hearing the other. Ten years later, no one is unscathed and, if anything, miscommunication prevails.

STORE: With this work, we represent those too young to vote in 2016. Facilitating in-depth conversations with other young people, we want to give them a voice. We are exploring paper pulping and paper pressing to construct spaces that can facilitate these conversations. Shown here are seats used to give voices and space to this overlooked group.

How do we feel about Brexit now? In the last ten years, three million people have become eligible to vote. We are three of those people. Our opinions weren’t sought at the time of the vote. Now, we face the repercussions of Brexit and the disproportionate effect it will have on our lives.

Sarah Boris: Remain Together is a series of ten artworks using the words ‘Remain’ and ‘Together’ found in the books. The pages are painted in colours from various European flags, leaving only the chosen words visible. These pieces act as tokens of hope in these divisive times.

How do I feel about Brexit now? I was born in London to French parents, so I feel European. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the EU stood for peace and togetherness. The UK left, nothing positive materialised, division grew. Now, we must listen to each other and vehemently oppose the far right.

Marianne Mueller, Mia Mueller Kneer: Eurotrash shows the five prime ministers connected with Brexit operating a standard office shredder. Like these pieces of legislation, The Other Side’s deliberation – to remain in or leave the EU – has become redundant in the face of ‘Brexit done’. Reduced to shreds, the remains of the books now lie discarded like trash on the gallery floor.

How do we feel about Brexit now? Brexit has affected us deeply, both personally and professionally. It has been a catalyst for many significant shifts, from becoming dual nationals to moving countries, opening a new office and shifting school systems to remain within the EU. For us, Britain was the ultimate model for a cosmopolitan society, a sentiment spoiled by Brexit.

Ella Krispel: I use weaving to reinsert what has been lost, or deliberately stripped away, from charged subjects like Brexit. For this project, I wanted to explore the aesthetic attributes of historical artefacts, of relics from another time. As it developed, I wanted to situate Brexit in history, to see it at a distance. The imperfect documentation, fragmented narratives and incomplete framing of the piece mirror the fragility of memory and knowledge over time.

How do I feel about Brexit now? I challenge people when they claim Britain has been harmed by immigration. The response is often, ‘But you're not an immigrant!’ They are unaware this reveals misguided beliefs about the identities of immigrants and definitions of immigration. Brexit didn’t create such views, but it did solidify them, with current media and policymakers deepening the damage.

Rebecca Wright: Using the cut-out letterforms from HELLO HELL, the companion piece by GraphicDesign&’s Lucienne Roberts with John McGill, I have sought to take something left behind and turn it into something hopeful. Brexit changed how I felt about and understood my sense of home. It shattered my belief that we were a country where all of us could feel welcome and where we were welcoming to others. But, ten years on, despite everything, a stubborn hope of home remains…

How do I feel about Brexit now? Still sad but also determined. I do not believe that Brexit accurately reflects or should define who we are as a nation, or our core values.

YiMiao Shih: I wrinkled pages [of the book] with watercolour – a literal soaking – as I depicted a variety of British scenes. Then I used torn pages to make paper pulp reliefs embedded with stitched imagery. In these, I revisited the fictionalised Rabbit Referendum of my project Rabbrexit Means Rabbrexit (2019), tiny embroideries that draw on myth.

How do I feel about Brexit now? My version of post-Brexit reality doesn’t scream positivity. In the aftermath, the right wing gathered traction. I fear they will continue to stoke division, while differing echo chambers deepen it further.

‘The Other Side’ runs until Friday 26 June 2026, 11am-4pm, Osh Gallery, The Old Sorting House, 46 Essex Road, London N1 8LN

@oshgallerylondon, graphicdesignand.com, @graphicdesignand_, luciennerobertsplus.com, @luciennerobertsplus_

Ikea just launched its latest PS collection, and it's full of playful surprises. An initiative started in the 1990s, PS is Ikea's way to engage with experimental design within the domestic realm. 'We decided to take a long hard look at ourselves. Sure, we made furniture, but was it design?' Reads a note introducing the concept. 'The world around us had started making interpretations of Scandinavian design, but with ridiculously high prices. Wasn’t it time to make Scandinavian design accessible to a lot more people than just those with really fat wallets? This was our opportunity.'

What followed were three decades of experimenting with the possibilities of affordable furniture within the home, with concepts including 'The Democratic Home', 'Inspired by History, Designed for Today' and the latest iteration, 'Playful Functionality'.

Ikea furniture is here to play

'Central to Ikea PS is the idea that simplicity doesn't have to be boring, but that it can reveal design in its purest and most engaging form,' says Maria O'Brian, creative leader at Ikea. 'My hope is that through interaction and surprise, this simplicity gives way to discovery, with objects that have multiple functions and unexpected details that make people happy.'

Happiness seems a thread running through the collection, with pieces designed for interaction and smiles. From a rocking bench to an inflatable armchair, masks for your wall and adjustable furniture, there is a lot to like in this colourful and carefully conceived series.

'Too much design is treated as precious and untouchable,' says Ikea designer Mikael Axelsson, the mind behind the cleverly conceived inflatable chair. 'I wanted to create the opposite response, with something that engages your interest and curiosity. When furniture invites play like that, it becomes something you use and live with fully, that brings joy into the everyday.'

Here are some of our favourite pieces from Ikea's new collection.

Ikea Play: Wallpaper* favourites to buy now