Category: Design

Since time immemorial, humans have sculpted sacred symbols into stone or formed them from clay. Expressing beliefs, worldviews, and spirituality in physical objects like votives and shrines is a way to imbue power and venerate deities and the natural world. For artists Chenlu Hou and Chiara No, ceramics is an enduring conduit to explore spirituality…

While Coca-Cola decided to run with generative AI for its animated Christmas ad—a holiday tradition the brand is known for—Apple leaned into the world of practical effects with a troupe of woodland puppets. Titled “A Critter Carol” and featuring the latest iPhone model, the short film takes its cues from compassion, creativity, and community. The…

Taken from a vertical perspective, Kevin Krautgartner’s photographs of crashing waves conjure the power and beauty of our oceans. Captured along the coast of Western Australia, the images revel in the clarity and textures of the water and shoreline, where “wind, swell, and underwater topography creates some of the most powerful and visually striking wave…

It’s the time of year when best-of lists make their rounds. As usual, we’ve deliberated and selected some of our favorite monographs, surveys, and whimsical tomes published in 2025. Several of these titles were also reader favorites and flew off our shelves as quickly as we could stock them (ahem, Dog Only Knows!). You can…

Order up! The only two words you want to hear when you’re ravenous and seated at the laminate counter of a roadside diner. Artist Adrienna Matzeg takes this highly anticipated call as the basis for a new trio of punch-needle works. Through nostalgic embroidered tableaux, she whips up melty grilled cheese, waffles with a pat…

From pieces of everyday white paper, a series of delightful stop-motion animations illuminates how a simple material can be transformed into a sophisticated design. Created by Japenese designer Tomohiro Okazaki, who runs a studio called SWIMMING, “Paper Study” is a series of short intervals in which pieces of cut, folded, and sculpted paper appears to…

Enigmatic landscapes and metaphysical scenes unfold in the work of Gideon Kiefer. On canvas and panel, the artist paints countrysides dotted with small fires, pensive figures, and natural phenomena seemingly detached from reality by varying degrees, such as a wave crashing inside of an architectural enclosure or a chunk of purple-tinted landscape floating inside of…

From a variety of natural colors of clay, Léonore Chastagner sculpts tender representations of the human form. She details the wrinkles on one’s knuckles, the creases in a pair of denim jeans, and the intricate layers of a loosely folded T-shirt. “I use clay as one uses a diary: to record the feelings of daily…

Through large-scale tapestries of fringed strips of fabric, Abdoulaye Konaté explores the contemporary relevance of ancient signs and symbols. The Malian artist began working with textiles in the 1990s, when it became clear to him how prevalent they are in our everyday lives, from clothing and home goods to tools and more. This early interest…

“I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that our perceived reality is shaped by our minds and reflecting our inner world,” says artist Michelle Blancke, whose ethereal photographs of trees, glens, and foliage invite us into a familiar yet uncanny world. Her lens-based practice explores themes of interdependence, consciousness, and concealment, especially through the subject…