North American Design: Look Book 2022 preview

(Credit image above: Levi Christiansen)

Look Book returns to WantedDesign Manhattan this May with an inspiring and diverse selection of North American-based studios and designers. From Ontario, Canada to Mexico City, Mexico, Look Book’s high-end design studios will be presenting their latest collections to architects, interior designers, developers and specifiers looking for original design and beautifully crafted pieces for their next projects. We are especially pleased to welcome back previous Look Book participants, including Anony, Brave Matter, Ian Love Design, Mary Ratcliffe Studio, Simon Johns and Sten Studio.

Launched in 2018, Look Book was conceived as an in-person portfolio for high-end design studios based in Canada, the USA and Mexico. WantedDesign co-founders Claire Pijoulat and Odile Hainaut are passionate about discovering and promoting North American design talent, with close relationships with DesignTO, the biggest design festival in Canada, and Design Week Mexico, and frequent visits to design studios across the continent.

When WantedDesign Manhattan made its Javits Center debut in November 2021, alongside the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF), Look Book participants benefited from meeting with a highly engaged industry audience, with interest and commissions for residential, commercial and hospitality projects.

Here’s a preview of just some of the 30 studios who will be showcasing their work at WantedDesign Manhattan in May 2022.

Anony, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Anony is a Toronto-based lighting and product design studio. Local manufacturing capabilities and the latest technology are elemental to their design process. They design products that last: All fixtures use dimmable LED technology & can be fully disassembled to change the light source, replace a part, or re-install.

Highwire Chandelier by Anony. Photo credit: Zach Hertzman

Brave Matter, Oakland, CA, USA

Brave Matter is an Oakland-based design initiative and atelier, creating objects for the interior with a focus on utility and desire. Helmed by Christina Zamora and Cathy Lo, Brave Matter brings Bauhaus attitudes toward materials, technology and human perception to their work, harnessing industrial disciplines and craft expertise to produce work that blurs boundaries between studio practice and mass production.

Ian Love Design, Long Island, NY, USA

Most of Ian Love Design’s pieces are hand sculpted, one-of-a-kind and made from wood that comes from trees that have fallen near Ian’s home in Long Island. His collection of design and functional art pieces include resin-filled burl sculptures and objects, large scale spalted wood dining tables, lighting and more.

Mary Ratcliffe Studio, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Focusing on longevity and timelessness, Mary Ratcliffe Studio’s designs meet at the intersection of beauty and function. Their ready-to-ship collection marries the craft and quality of their made-to-order pieces with the efficiencies of small batch production and standardized design; bringing beautiful pieces from the highest quality materials to wider audiences.

Simon Johns, East-Bolton, Quebec, Canada

Simon Johns is a fine arts-trained designer living and working in the secluded woods of East-Bolton. Illustrating a conversation between the fabricated and the elemental, Simon create s one-off and limited-edition pieces of sculptural furniture. His work is a product of observing and living with the pure and raw shapes of his surroundings.

Dolomite Table and Fracture Mirror by Simon Johns

Sten Studio, Mexico City, Mexico

Based in Mexico City, Sten Studio creates objects and furniture that feature minerals as material. Thanks to the unique nature of minerals, all pieces are one-of-a-kind, given the characteristics proper to each of the stones. The studio is born from the passion for geology and industrial design, which has resulted in the experimentation with rock crystals that are yet to be explored in the world of decoration.

Vulpe Works, Brooklyn, NY, USA

Vulpe Works introduces Siggi & Felix, an American-made pairing of metal and wood, designed and built in NYC. The collection comes from designer Andrew Pfeiffer McNay, founder of Vulpe Works and co-owner of En.Zo Metal, an internationally recognized design and fabrication studio in Brooklyn, NY. McNay’s experience in metal patina and fine woodwork leads to work that endures. Vulpe furniture is designed for everyday use, and each handmade piece will be more beautiful in 100 years than it is when you acquire it today. That’s what it means to see a hand-stamped VULPE on a finished work.

Mool, Mexico City, Mexico

Mool is a Mexican company founded by Emmanuel Aguilar and Edgar Tapia. Their mission was to create original, high-quality furniture that combined expert manufacturing and materials to produce pieces that reflect purity, joy, and celebration of life. With more than 40 years of experience in furniture manufacturing, Aguilar and Tapia combine concepts, shapes, and materials in a unique way to construct pieces that demonstrate hard work, passion, and precision in every aspect of design. Color gives life, textures produce feelings, and compositions create atmosphere. Each piece is thoughtfully crafted to embody a lifestyle that speaks for itself.

OI Studio, Los Angeles, CA, USA

BOA is the founder and creative director of OI Studio. She studied graphics at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her passion for all things beautiful led her to the furniture/interiors industry after a past spent working in disparate professions. She has previously been a fashion model, furniture buyer, prop stylist, event producer, furniture sales rep, and importer-not necessarily in that order. She is a self taught furniture designer who, in the early 2000’s spent the first few years of her design practice evangelizing an industry-wide shift to green design, at a time when it was difficult to find materials, manufacturers, or clients that were open to making a change. BOA’s design aesthetic is an intersection of her reverence for nature, minimalism, and fine craftsmanship.

Manjiro Design, Brooklyn, NY, USA

Manjiro design is a small design/build shop based in Brooklyn that handcrafts fine furniture with a focus on elegant functionality and the use of repurposed materials. Implementing clean lines while pushing the intrinsic qualities of the material is part of the design/fabrication process that creates each Manjiro Design piece.

Forma Rosa Studio, Brooklyn, NY, USA

Forma Rosa Studio is a design studio, based in Brooklyn New York, co-founded by Maria Teresa Castillo and Santiago Braby Brown. The studio focuses on the digital design and sourcing of limited edition, hand crafted objects for you and your home. These functional artworks draw heavily on natural phenomena, as the studio co-founders find inspiration in the environments that they grew up in; Lima, Peru and Bellingham, WA. Digitally grown and handcrafted; the Collections featured in Look Book return to the physical world from a place of technology and blur the boundaries between the two.

Crosland + Emmons Sculptural Lighting, Atlanta, GA, USA

It’s all about the uncomfortable connections, the rough edges- the way something hangs slightly off-balance. The intentional void of color. Crosland + Emmons creates sculptural lighting from stoneware and porcelain, hand built in our Atlanta, GA studio. Predominately all white, our collection plays homage to the simplicity of the materials. Each light is assembled with organic pieces combined to create a functional sculptural light. Made with several white clay bodies and white glazes, gives depth and complexity to our work.

Ayumiya, Providence, RI, USA

Ayumiya is a creative home for two sisters, Ayumi and Miya. The “-ya” in Ayumiya translates to “dwelling,” a place where object, space and experience are brought together. Drawing from profound life moments–a grandmother’s love or a health crisis that brought complete submission to the body’s limits–Ayumiya carries a core ethos: to listen to the material first. Whether it be a hand-sewn rug that allows for coiling of the soft wool, or a sand cast glass lamp that is excavated from its cast, each design process is derived–never prescribed.

Levi Christiansen, Tuscon, AZ, USA

Levi Christiansen is a self-taught furniture designer who seamlessly blends style with functionality, reimaging exceptional materials and thoughtfully elevating their inherent beauty in his meticulous compositions.

Register to attend and meet all the Look Book participants in person May 15-17, 2022 at WantedDesign Manhattan, co-located with the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) at the Javits Center.

Full list of Look Book 2022: Alfonso Verduzco Design, Anony, Ayumiya, Brave Matter, by Alejandra Design, Caleb Ferris, Cofield, Concrete Poetics, Crosland + Emmons Sculptural Lighting, Eric Pierre Atelier, Forma Rosa Studio, Hamilton Holmes, Ian Love Design, Kainan Liu, Levi Christiansen, Malcom Majer, Mana Sazegara, Manjiro Design, Martin Zelonky, Mary Ratcliffe Studio, Material Furniture, Mool, NJ Roseti, OI Studio, Simon Johns, Sten Studio, Studio Ocho Cuartos, SYNECDOCHE, thehighkey, Vulpe Works