NYCxDESIGNx SOUVENIR
Industrial + Product Design
NYCxDESIGN x Souvenir
Partnered with Cool Hunting
NYCxDESIGN xSOUVENIR:
In partnership with Cool Hunting
Curation and Exhibition Design by Boym Partners
Since the beginning of modernism, souvenirs have been excluded from designers’ discourse, even though such figures as Charles and Ray Eames collected and displayed hundreds of souvenir objects in their own home.
In the digital world of the 21st Century, there is a renewed interest in physical objects that can keep memories and retain emotions. New technologies and materials now allow for customizable and limited-edition objects that reflect on social, political, and cultural events of every passing year.This special exhibition of the new souvenirs will be presented to an assembly of design professionals, manufacturers, and international press — a visual manifestation and a celebration of design that is all around us.
The 2024 NYCxDESIGN Souvenirs and Designers
Bronsin Ablon / Work At Hand
Bronsin Ablon is a furniture and product designer based in Brooklyn, New York. With eight years of experience designing furniture, lighting and hardware, Ablon enjoys experimenting at his studio, Work At Hand, in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Releasing new furniture and object designs on a regular basis, Ablon looks for new forms and details as they relate to fabrication methods, material, and what is possible and new in the scale of hand made.
Ablon is represented by Otras Formas gallery in NYC, works with designers to build custom commissions, and teaches production methods to college sophomores at Pratt Institute, his alma mater.
Design: The Moving Clutch
A small foray into handbag culture, The Moving Clutch is a play on the ‘Moving Truck’, where the bag takes the form of a box-truck. New Yorkers are constantly moving themselves and their things, catering both to our economy & also poor environmental conditions. As congestion pricing looms, how will the future of moving affect the ‘design-moving-industry’ for better or worse. I’ve chosen this form as my souvenir since most of the souvenir’s purchased in NYC are likely moved or trucked into the city for purchase before once again being driven or flown back out. As I design and make this toy-like fashion object, I wonder, what’s left behind in our city after the local lifecycle of the souvenirs we buy? And, what happens when we only move things we can carry in our hands, rather than in a truck?
Bronsin Ablon / Work At Hand
Harry Allen
Harry Allen established his award-winning, multi-disciplinary design firm, Harry Allen Design, in 1993. Although trained as an industrial designer, Harry achieved prominence in 1994 for his interior design of Moss. A multitude of interior design projects followed. Harry’s product design work spans a wide range, from furniture and lighting to packaging and accessories. His ‘Reality’ line of products for Areaware, including the ‘Bank in the form of a Pig,’ has taken on a life of its own. More recent projects include the ‘Apex Water Bottle’ for Built, ‘Arc’, an inflatable structure for InflateUK, and the ‘Applied Portraiture’ project launched at Design Miami in 2019. Harry’s work has garnered many awards and is in the permanent collections of many museums, including MoMA in New York.
From 2016 to 2019 Harry was Creative Director of Design Pavilion, and experiential design exhibition taking place on the streets of New York City.
Since 2020, Harry Has been teaching in the Graduate Furniture Design Program at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Stormy City
Rather than a static take away from New York, I wanted to ‘recreate’ a specific New York City phenomenon. I love when the Empire State Building demonstrates its heigh by disappearing into storm clouds. ‘Stormy City’ is meant to be a reminder of this awe inspiring New York event.
I have recently started slip-casting ceramics. The building in ‘Stormy City’ is cast from an actual souvenir. The cloud is cast from a cloud I formed using the foam packaging that the souvenir came in. Together they narrate a new tale about New York City.
Harry Allen
Nicholas Baker
Nicholas Baker designs objects that embrace a delightful future. Baker began his career in industrial design working on a wide range of products including pet toys, medical devices, exercise equipment, and neural interfaces. In 2017, Baker moved to New York City to start his design studio and pursue his passion for furniture. Today, Nicholas Baker Studio focuses on designing furniture, lighting, and everyday objects. Beyond the studio, Baker shares his thoughts on design, technology, and the future through his podcast and posts on social media.
Nicholas Baker
Emilie Baltz
Emilie Baltz is an experience designer and artist who explores how the human senses work together to craft perception and meaning.
Best known for her delightful, innovative work in food, technology & the senses, Emilie uses food as a medium (and metaphor) for designing multisensory experiences. With 20+ years of work in design, performance, events, hospitality, technology and new media, her fluency as a leader across diverse creative industries successfully embraces both analogue and digital experience. Her expertise lies in using the 5 senses to tell stories that deepen engagement through embodiment; inspiring wonder through invention; and fostering world-class teamwork through play. Her work has been featured in the Museum of the Future in Dubai, NEW MUSEUM, IDFA DocLab, Sundance New Frontiers, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, Liberty Science Center, Museum of Sex, as well as supported by patrons, brands and communities that believe that art, design and imagination can be used to positively transform society from the inside, out. She presently is a Creative Director for Digital Experience Design at Gensler, the world’s largest architecture firm, where she explores how immersive experience and integrated technology can transform the human relationship to space.
In NYC we experience the awkward, harsh and intense on a daily basis. Inspired by iconic experiences of the Big Apple, this collection of 4 perfumes plays with the way scent connects to place, memory and emotion. From the overcrowded, sweaty subway, to the sweet smell of success, each perfume is designed to transform the harsh quotidien experience of NYC into a luxury product that neurologically elicits an emotional “souvenir”, reframing our definition of pleasure.
Emilie Baltz
Gustavo Barroso
Gustavo Barroso (b. 1995) is a Brazilian artist & designer that seeks to embody the human experience by means of subversion and absurdism. While mostly known for his work with chairs, mediums of exploration include sculpture, fashion, painting and product.
Barroso’s work juxtaposes vibrant colors, whimsical forms, and pop culture iconography with familiar objects like chairs, tables, shoes, and even bricks. He acknowledges the mundane and subverts it to produce exemplars of absurdity through materialism and reference.
Barroso commonly repurposes and reiterates found objects. The result is a thematic vernacular that is innately regenerative and playful. As a creator, he leverages virtual reality and 3D-printing in tandem with mold-making, casting, and papier-mâché.
Barroso was born in Teodoro Sampaio, São Paulo, Brazil and raised in Nashua, New Hampshire. He earned a BFA in Industrial Design at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Gustavo Barroso
Danielle Begnaud – Benyo Studio
Danielle Begnaud is a designer, inventor and educator based in New York City. She is currently employed as a toy designer at Bark and as a visiting instructor at Pratt Institute. Danielle also founded Benyo Studio in 2020, where she uses the story-telling capabilities of objects in order to encourage gratitude, laughter, and light in the every day.
Spanning toy and game design, collaborative design practices, as well as writing and illustrating children’s books, Danielle’s work focuses on sparking imagination, creativity, and joy in others.
Laughter, gratitude, and imagination are tools that help us navigate difficulty and uncertainty, and she hopes to nurture these ideas and abilities in others, especially children.
Danielle has partnered with organizations in the United States, Canada, China, India, Vietnam, Poland, and England to design toys, products, and exhibits. She has also presented her work and design research in international forums in Europe and the United States.
Danielle has designed and facilitated collaborative design workshops, working together with children to design toys, games, and experiences. Sharing in the creative process and inspiring children to create fuels her work. She is currently working to extend these co-design workshops to school visits, museum programs, and online co-design channels.
Danielle holds a Master’s Degree in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute and a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin.
Souvenirs, especially those sold and purchased in New York City, focus on man-made landmarks and icons. What’s seldom recognized are the natural entities that have found a way to exist and even thrive in our concrete jungle.
Utilizing common souvenir typologies, Natural Icons is a set of four hard enamel lapel pins that celebrate the persistence of the natural world in a place where nature has been all but expelled.
Thanks to our cliff-like skyscrapers, New York City is home to the largest urban population of peregrine falcons in the world. In Washington Square Park, you’ll find the oldest tree in Manhattan — at over 300 years old, “Hangman’s Elm” is older than the United States. The stretch of the Hudson River seen from Manhattan is actually not a river, but a tidal estuary. The mixing of seawater and freshwater make estuaries some of the most productive ecosystems on Earth. And lastly, there is no New York City without rats.
A mixture of native, adaptive, invasive and historical, these natural icons captivate tourists and locals alike.
Danielle Begnaud – Benyo Studio
Constantin Boym
Constantin Boym was born in Moscow, Russia in 1955, where he graduated from Moscow Architectural Institute. In 1984-85 he earned a degree of Master in Design from Domus Academy in Milan.
In 1986 he founded Boym Partners Inc in New York City, which he runs together with his partner Laurene Leon Boym. Boym Partners bring a critical, experimental approach to a range of products and environments that infuse humor and wit into the everyday. The studio’s designs are included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Boym Partners was a winner of the National Design Award in 2009. The studio is a recipient of eight I.D. Magazine Annual Design Awards, including the Best of Category in 2000.
A book devoted to the work of Boym Partners, Curious Boym: Design Works, was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2002. Boym’s most recent books are Keepsakes: A Design Memoir, published by Pointed Leaf Press in 2015, and Ecophilia, published in 2023 by Available Items.
From 2015 to 2022 Boym served as Chair of Industrial Design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, where he is presently a Professor of Industrial design.
New York City’s street art is known worldwide. Since at least 1960s, the walls and urban furniture of the city have featured a multicolored display of unconstrained artistic and political murals, tags, and street stickers. Now, tourists will have a chance to bring home an authentic memento of this creative activity.
To create Bits of New York, we placed a number of 12” x 12” steel panels in downtown Manhattan, attaching them to random street posts or scaffolding. In the course of two months, freshly painted panels turned into spontaneous collages of messages, icons, and signatures. Often cryptic and obscure in meaning, these expressive signs open a window into an alluring world of underground street culture. The panels, “harvested” from their spots for inclusion in this show, were composed entirely by anonymous (and unsuspecting) New York street artists, to whom we extend our heartfelt thanks.
Constantin Boym
Laurene Boym
Laurene Leon Boym received her education from School of Visual Arts, NYC, BFA (Bachelor in Fine Arts)1985. She graduated Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, MID (Masters in Industrial Design) 1995. Ms. Boym also has a Design Criticism Intensive certificate from SVA Design Research, Writing and Criticism, School of Visual Arts, NYC, Summer 2012. While at Pratt, on a institutional assistantship full scholarship, Laurene was a founder of The Association for Women Industrial Designers (AWID) and co-curated the exhibition Goddess In the Details at Pratt Manhattan Center Gallery. She was later recipient of a Graduate Merit Award. Her thesis project of Kitchen Products for Women became a critical component of the exhibition, Mechanical Brides: Woman and Machines from home to office, at the Cooper Hewitt and while the exhibition was up, Ms Boym served as Designer in Residence at the museum.
Since 1995, Ms. Boym has been the design production partner at Boym Partners Inc, the 2009 National Design Award Winner in Product Design from the Cooper Hewitt and the White House. Boym Partners is a multi-disciplinary design consultancy in NYC that has worked for an international list of clients, including Swarovski, Flos, Alessi, Vitra, McDonalds Corporation, Gourmet Settings and Gaia and Gino. Ms. Boym participated in many high-profile design and research projects as designer and researcher with a special emphasis on how consumer products are conceived, ideated, designed, manufactured and marketed to women.
Boym Partners has received many awards, notably the National Design Award Winner in Product Design, the top design award in the United States, awarded at the White House by Michelle Obama. She was also a finalist for the Wired Magazine Rave Award, Industrial Designer of the Year. In the I.D. Annual Design Awards, Boym Partners was recipient of Best of category and the I.D. Gold Awards in product and exhibition/display design. Additionally, they were recipients of the George Nelson Award from Interiors Magazine. The work of Boym Partners is part of the permanent design collection at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC (Use-it containers, 1995; Babel Blocks, 2007.) Their objects are in the architecture and design collection of SFMoMA; The Brooklyn Museum; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Institution; Museum of Art and Design in NYC; the Denver Art Museum and the Musee Des Arts Decoratifs in Montreal, CA. In 2023, Ms. Boym was named one of the most significant international female designers by Montreal Museum of Art. Laurene Leon Boym and Boym Partners’ project’s have been published worldwide and the studio’s Boym Editions are cherished by private collectors and sold for many times their original value at auction. A 5 minute documentary film was made by arte.fr about Boym Partners Buildings of Disaster souvenirs in the MUDAC (Lausanne) design collection in 2023.
Flaco the Owl is a NYC souvenir prototype that is made out of an orphan sock, rescued from the laundromat, a soft toy made in the USA out of 100% recycled materials. It is an easily manufacturable, very cuddly and cute plushie toy for kids and the young at heart. Based on the true story of the owl who broke out from the Central Park Zoo, who stole New Yorker’s hearts as he wilded around the city. When his cage in the zoo was vandalized in 2023, Flaco became an overnight cultural icon in the NY Metropolitan area with Flaco spottings frequently in the news. What was appealing about his story, was that he lived on the bleeding edge of the animal world and the human world. Flaco was one step beyond a domestic pet….and now as a figure of imagination he now can reside as the newest member of the family. A perfect companion for cuddles and naps!
Laurene Boym
Domingo Ceramics
Domingo Ceramics is an arts de la table project created by sculptor Ivana Brenner. It was conceived during her time as an artist in residency in Paris, when she experienced the art of hosting and setting a table to welcome family, friends, and lovers. Domingo means Sunday in Spanish, the day that in her native Buenos Aires people gather together with family and friends to share a meal. Produced in very small quantities with porcelain and 22k gold luster, Domingo’s tableware captures the artist’s creative universe in functional items.
For Souvenir, Domingo is presenting a special edition of its iconic Punk Cup , with a NYC 22k gold inscription at its bottom, for the user to discover as they finish their coffee. Like all Domingo’s pieces, the Punk Cup is handmade entirely by the artist in NYC, and it represents the city’s quintessential punk attitude.
All Domingo’s pieces are handmade entirely by the artist in NYC. Because of this, each piece is unique and no two pieces are exactly alike. Produced in very small quantities with porcelain and 22k gold luster, Domingo’s tableware captures the artist’s creative universe in functional items.
Ivana Brenner is an Argentinian artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Ivana has exhibited individually at Galería Vasari, Buenos Aires, and Alejandra Von Hartz Gallery, Miami. She has participated in several international group and two-person gallery and museum shows, amongst which Bronx Calling: the sixth Bronx Museum AIM Biennial at the Bronx Museum; Contemporary Clay: Seven New Voices in American Ceramics, at Emma Scully Gallery in NYC; A su lado, at Galería Vasari, Buenos Aires (2019); Le Dégel, at Julio Artist-Run Space, Paris; My Feet Have Lost Memory of Softness, at The Franklin, Chicago; Assemblage #1, at Galerie 0fr, Paris (2016); Romántico, at Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires, and Material Color at Hunterdon Art Museum, New Jersey.
Ivana earned her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a merit-based full scholarship. She was a 2022 Bronx Museum AIM fellow, was a 2020 Mentee and is a 2024 Mentor at NYFA‘s Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program. In 2015 she participated in the Biennale Internationale du Lin de Portneuf, Québec, where she was also given a two-weeks residency. She was awarded a 6-months residency at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2009-2010).
Domingo Ceramics
Steve Butcher
Steve Butcher (b.1958) graduated from Brighton Polytechnic in 1981 and almost immediately left for New York where he started painting. He has been living and working on the Lower East Side since. Involved in the downtown art scene of the early ’80’s, exhibiting in galleries in the East Village and SoHo – his first painting on canvas is now in the collection of The Eli and Edith Broad Museum while many others are in private collections both in the US and Europe.
Postcards, whether of a city, a monument or of an artwork are specific to a locality. As a consequence, these collage cards I made between 1987 and 2003 often have an autobiographical subtext as they reflected places that I had been, exhibitions I had seen – they are souvenirs of a particular time in New York. Being based in the city, using postcards of such landmarks such as The Empire State Building or World Trade Center was the identifiable constant. The inherent limitations of working with an X-Acto knife and glue brought a new depth and challenge to each collage. The results are sometimes witty, other times dark, a reflection of our political times.
Steve Butcher
Paolo Cardini
Paolo Cardini is a product designer who asks serious questions about how we live and answers them with whimsical and playful designs. He is currently Full Professor and former Graduate Program Director in the Industrial Design department at the Rhode Island School of Design. Cardini’s activities span from scientific research to design consultancies; he designs for various international firms and lectures at conferences and design schools worldwide, actively contributing to the field with papers and publications. His recent work focuses predominantly on the interplay between the global market, local identities, and products, examined through the lens of speculative and discursive design.
Queue Cubicles is a memento of a recurring NYC scene and a desktop stationery. Both objects and people are waiting for something to happen, frozen in a temporary stall. There’s a line around the block, you can decide if the waiting is for a product drop sale, a paycheck or an immigration visa. You can write on the city’s walls, be a shy activist who’s willing to share their rage from the comfort of their desktop. You can erase and re-do it. After all, doodling is a great way to kill time.
Paolo Cardini
Parsons & Charlesworth
Parsons & Charlesworth is an art and design studio that develops tangible worlds as discursive tools for critically appraising urgent issues. Co-founded by Jessica Charlesworth and Tim Parsons, the studio’s investigative, research-driven, speculative approach uses installation, sculpture, designed objects, writing, photography, and digital media to explore key social, ecological, and technological challenges of our time. Together, they develop new ways of understanding and interacting with alternative futures, addressing concerns such as the ecological crisis and the future of work through their collaborative world-building projects.
Their current project, Multispecies Inc., involves field research and in-depth conversations with specialists in biology, climate science, and climate modeling. This endeavor manifests as a series of narratives and objects around a fictional group of ecologists striving to cohabit with other species using advanced technologies. They are recent NEW INC members on the Creative Science Track as part of the New Museum mentorship incubator program.
They have exhibited worldwide including 17th International Architecture Exhibition- La Biennale di Venezia, Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Philadelphia Museum of Art, Piknik (Seoul), Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia (MAAT Lisbon), Science Gallery Dublin, Istanbul Design Biennial, the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), London Design Festival and the Chicago Cultural Center.
Recent honors include a 2022 Canada Council for the Arts Grant, a 2021 Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts Grant, support from the British Council, a 2020 Mitchell Enhancement Award from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a 2019 Canada Council for the Arts Grant. Notable artist residencies include the 2023 Artist-In-Residence Project Space at Headlands Center for the Arts, the 2019 Artist-In-Residence at Krems, Austria, the 2016 Residency at Kriti Gallery, Varanasi, India, Their work is featured in various private collections and in the permanent collection at the MAKVienna and DePaul Art Museum.
Future Climate Souvenirs of New York envisions scenarios where the city has established new nature reserves and regenerative schemes throughout its urban landscape, in response to the challenges posed by extreme climate change. Why not stroll through a cloud forest atop Midown’s skyscrapers, spot birds in the Lower Manhattan National Wetland, observe species migrations on Ellis Island, take a carbon sequestering boat trip in New York Harbor, or feed the dodos in NYC’s De-extinction Lab? These attractions are illustrated through a series of embroidered patches, one of which is sewn onto a cap.
Parsons & Charlesworth
Rio Chen
Rio Chen is a designer-researcher communicates through objects, graphics, and casual conversation. His designed objects take the shape of urban planning and architectural forms, he often refers objects as tiny buildings, it is the scale that breaks the preconceived notions of how we experience a space or an object.
As an iconic staple of NYC Delis, bagels hold a special place in New Yorkers diet. Whether you are a die-hard fan of the classic bacon, egg, and cheese (BEC), a connoisseur of bougie smoked salmon, or simply enjoy it with cream cheese, the versatility of bagels offers endless combinations to satisfy every palate.
The Bagel Bookend brings the ultimate happiness of enjoying a bagel right into your home. Let your selection of books enhance the playful experience of enjoying a taste of New York City with every bite.
Rio Chen is a designer-researcher communicates through objects, graphics, and casual conversation. His designed objects take the shape of urban planning and architectural forms, he often refers objects as tiny buildings, it is the scale that breaks the preconceived notions of how we experience a space or an object.
Rio Chen
Elan Cole
Born to a textile designer and a mechanical engineer, I was raised on a steady diet of MoMA visits and trips to the all-you-can-eat art supply buffet at the Sam Flax in Midtown Manhattan. As Executive Creative Director and Co-Lead for the award-winning Creative Content Team at New York City Tourism, I have the honor and pleasure of building stories, brand campaigns and films that draw the world in to the greatest city the world has ever known.
New York City is as welcoming as it is resilient. As worn on fingers that greet with a handshake and a hug, or that offers aid to and lifts up others, or that builds back after getting knocked down, these six rings are a souvenir of New York City’s essential character.
Elan Cole
cozzolino studio
Steve Cozzolino, an award winning and distinguished industrial designer, earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Industrial Design from the University of Notre Dame in 1993. Early in his career he worked on a wide range of consumer product, hardware, medical, and housewares projects including Proctor & Gamble’s original Swiffer and Wet Jet Swiffer. In 2001, Steve collaborated with Eva Zeisel on a collection for Nambe. From 2002-2006, Steve was Design Director at Karim Rashid Inc. where he worked on consumer product, cosmetic packaging, housewares, electronics, table top, furniture, and lighting projects.
In 2006, Steve launched cozzolino studio LLC, a full-service product design, strategy, and branding studio in New York City: www.cozzolinostudio.com Steve is a design judge and presenter on the highly acclaimed CBS Design and Innovation TV series, America By Design. Cozzolino Studio has been featured in The New York Times, Fortune Magazine, MOMA Design Store, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum and was honored by the City of New York with an “Excellence in Design” Award. Cozzolino Studio has repeatedly won “Red Dot” Design Awards, Global Innovation Awards, “Good Design” Awards, IDEA, Housewares Design Awards, and has received numerous design patents. Steve’s focus and design studio’s mission: “Disrupt the Present, Inspire the Future.” Steve believes that empathy is one of the most powerful design tools in developing relevant, compelling experiences for all. Steve strives to create iconic designs and one-of-a-kind solutions that engage and resonate with consumers. By bringing disruptive design and memorable experiences to market, Steve and team elevate brands and help grow businesses, connecting people to everyday objects and public spaces in a more meaningful way.
Design with a purpose.
cozzolino studio
Jonas Damon
Jonas Damon is an industrial designer, collaborating with companies through his New York City-based consultancy Office for Design. Jonas engages with a wide range of industries including technology, retail & hospitality, architecture, and food & beverage. He is interested in outcomes that explore aspects of discovery, engagement, and play.
Prior to Office for Design, Jonas held leadership positions at Starbucks, where he founded the company’s first internal industrial design team and Frog Design, where he led the firm’s North American industrial design and mechanical engineering teams.
New York City’s list of charms is ready for updating with elements that, in recent years, have become more omnipresent than our well-worn icons. Adding to the time honored list of tall buildings, musicals, and hot dog carts are these highly visible aspects of Big Apple life: the unhoused, storefront vacancies, rats, relentless status seeking, random street violence, and too high a cost of living.
No Charm is a collection of souvenirs in the form of enamel charm keychains, bracelets, and necklaces that memorialize New York City’s more common, increasingly defining, and ultimately, charmless characteristics.
Jonas Damon
Joe Doucet
A designer, entrepreneur, inventor and creative director, Joe Doucet is one of the most sought-after
creative talents working in America today. After graduating from the Art Center College of Design,
Doucet quickly began exporting his vision into product, furniture, environment, and technology to
find solutions for daily and societal challenges through design. His work deftly hybridizes function and
visual appeal while conveying layers of meaning and message. Doucet believes that design and, more
importantly, a designer’s thought process can play a larger role in innovation and problem solving, as
well as aesthetics. He currently holds numerous patents for his designs and inventions.
Doucet’s work has been exhibited globally, including the London Design Museum and the Biennale
International Design in Saint-Etienne. He has received numerous international awards, including
a World Technology Award for Design Innovation and multiple Good Design Awards. He was also
named the only ever AvantGuardian for Design by Surface Magazine. Doucet was named the Winner of
the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award as Product Designer—the highest honor in his
field. He is also nominated as Designer of the Year by Dezeen, and a recipient of Fast Company’s Most
Important Design Companies.
Doucet is based in New York.
Joe Doucet
Scott Henderson
Scott Henderson is an American industrial designer, artist, writer, and curator from New York City where he has risen to the pinnacle of his profession as one of the world’s leading industrial designers.
Scott has designed iconic, best-selling products for companies including OXO, Microsoft, Krups, Intel, Skip Hop and Alessi, and over fifteen of Scott’s products have been best sellers at the Museum of Modern Art. Scott believes that the goal of good design is meet the mind of the user with unimpeded flow.
Scott has spoken about design throughout the world; he has won over fifty international design awards including a 2023 Red Dot Award, he has represented the United States as their Design Ambassador, he has chaired the International Design Conference, and his work is included in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Museum and the Alessi Museum.
The Yellow Taxi is an inherently positive icon for the city of New York. Since the days of the romanticized Checker Cab- a vehicle that has consistently graced Hollywood movie screens and helped to shape America film culture itself- the New York City taxi’s bright yellow makes us think of sun, health and the earth- and it can be seen dotting the NYC horizons and streets for miles in every direction. We watch and wonder to what exciting destinations they are heading and who might be inside. Medium of Scott Henderson’s “Yellow Taxi”: CNC Machined- yellow-anodized solid aluminum.
Scott Henderson
Loose Parts
Loose Parts is a furniture system designed to adapt to changing needs and environments. Based on an intuitive building system, the invitation to assemble, disassemble and reassemble drives our design process, with the goal of ultimately reducing furniture landfill waste, encouraging reuse, and inspiring individual acts of agency. Founded in 2019 by Jennifer June with the express desire to create sustainable and creative opportunities for people to engage with their interiors and the objects that fill their lives.
Trash has long been a pressing issue in New York City, with much discussion focused on how to manage waste once it ends up on the sidewalks. However, the real challenge lies in addressing the root cause – the designation of objects as “trash.” Waste is simply a system of failed relationships that leads to items being discarded.
The key is to reimagine our relationship with the things we own. Rather than tossing out “broken” items, we can explore ways to repair, repurpose, and reinvigorate them. TRASH STACK is a kit of parts made to look like broken possessions. Parts can be assembled and rearranged to make new combinations, inviting ad-hoc “repairs” that engender a sense of attachment and value.
This shift in mindset, from a linear “take-make waste” model to one that challenges the idea of brokenness is central to a more sustainable future (with cleaner sidewalks) for NYC.
Loose Parts
Karlssonwilker
Welcome to Karlssonwilker, a design and idea studio founded in 2000 with the goal to create unusual work for design-conscious clients. Today, we work with leading international commercial and cultural organizations—from our storefront studio in Ridgewood, Queens. Our collaborative design process is engaging, surprising, at times challenging, and always expertly guided by the founders themselves. karlssonwilker.com icecreamwindow.com kwotus.com
In a bid to keep a hyper-local design tradition alive, we teamed up with master woodgraining craftsman Ferdinand Tschinkel, the last standing artisan, who has furnished Ridgewood doors with their signature wood graining veneer for more than 30 years. Our collaboration includes a line of Ridgewood Door Jackets that pay homage to the faux wood pattern, a booklet sold in a neighborhood bookshop, and workshops where the artisanally inclined neighbors can learn this time-honored skill.
Karlssonwilker
Jason Lempieri
A self-described catalyst, Jason Lempieri investigates subversion, history, and collective memory in his work. He designs from the perspective that form follows meaning. He is the founder of RethinkTANKllc, a multi-disciplinary design and research studio that takes a macro approach to “post-industrial” design issues. Lempieri holds a B. Arch. from Pratt Institute and an M.I.D. from the University of the Arts. He is also the President of Tombino, a site dedicated to manhole cover art. His product designs reach a global market and his award winning residence was published in the Wall Street Journal and The Philadelphia Inquirer. In addition to his passion for design, Jason Lempieri is a devout urbanist and has a deep interest in contemporary art and photography.
Manhole Covers from around the world, hand drawn and handmade into functional art. Each cover is meticulously rendered and documented from site visits. Historically, manhole covers, whether for utilities or coal delivery, have done more than function as lids. With their raised, site-specific designs, cover illustrations of yore were gripping both to the foot and the eye. NYC has a long history with manhole cover design. The Croton Water is among the earliest examples of the vernacular art. There’s been difficult history as well given the power of the utilities underneath: A few people have permanent scarring from an “electrified” ConEd cover and one person died after a fall. Yet, if designed well, manhole covers can do their job while also benefiting the municipality where they sit as one more tourist attraction & social media post. This set celebrates the art that is often overlooked, but always underfoot.
Jason Lempieri
Joyce Lin
Artist and sculptural furniture maker Joyce Lin creates work that explores the connections between outer surfaces and the interior and the ongoing erosion of boundaries between our natural and artificial worlds, experimenting with a range of mediums including wood, fiberglass, plastics, paints, and found materials. Her cross-disciplinary interests led her to attend the Brown/RISD Dual Degree Program, where she studied Furniture Design at the Rhode Island School of Design and Geology-Biology at Brown University. She has since exhibited in notable galleries and institutions such as R & Company in NYC, the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and the Montreal Museum of Art, and has work included in various private and public collections such as the RISD Museum, The Mint Museum, Carnegie Museum, Houston Civic Arts Collection, and the New Orleans Museum of Art. Her work has been featured in numerous publications such as The New York Times, Paper City, Dwell, and The Architect’s Newspaper, among others. In addition to her art practice, she has also taught at Houston’s TXRX Labs makerspace as well as RISD, sharing her passion for craft and design with individuals of all ages and backgrounds. Lin currently lives and works in Houston, TX.
This whimsical sculpture mimics the form of a classic pretzel, crafted from fiberboard and painted with a faux wood graining technique. One end transitions into roots, while the other reveals a cross section of real pine wood. A testament to craftsmanship and an illusion of natural growth, it invites viewers to ponder the interplay between artifice and the organic world.
Joyce Lin
Giona Maiarelli – Maiarelli Studio
Giona Maiarelli is a co-founder and the Creative Director of Maiarelli Studio, a branding, design and communication studio based in New York City and working internationally.
New York For Ever is the evolution of a 2020 Ode to NYC poster that was an affectionate message for a city challenged by the COVID19 pandemic and, at the same time, an homage to Milton Glaser and his iconic I Love New York logo.
Just like Glaser’s whimsical logo found its way to mugs, t-shits, hats and dozens of other cheaply produced souvenirs for tourists, I wanted to transfer this message of hope and resilience to a souvenir t-shirt for New Yorkers who want to declare their unconditional love for their city.
Giona Maiarelli – Maiarelli Studio
Sergio Mannino Studio
Sergio Mannino is an Italian architect and designer based in New York. After graduating from the University of Florence’s Architecture program, Sergio worked alongside renowned designers Ettore Sottsass and Remo Buti.
His passion for design led him to teach interior architecture at the University of Florence for three years. In 2001, Sergio relocated to New York and a year later, his furniture designs were showcased at the Memphis-Postdesign Gallery in Milan, curated by Sottsass himself. In 2008, Sergio founded Sergio Mannino Studio, an award-winning design agency known for its expertise in retail design. The studio has since expanded its reach, taking on residential, branding, and furniture design projects. Sergio and his team are dedicated to creating spaces that reflect the essence of contemporary society and their personal dreams.
Their work has been recognized and featured in various prestigious publications worldwide.
NYC Storyboard is an interactive souvenir that invites you to create a personal interpretation of New York City. It consists of a wooden board with slots for inserting simple replicas of iconic city symbols: The Empire State Building, The Big Apple, The Heart (I Love NY), The Statue of Liberty, and even a Rat (how can we not include the rat?). The board also has other thinner slots for personal keepsakes such as postcards, concert tickets, notes, or photographs—each a fragment of your experiences in the city. NYC Storyboard is designed to let you weave together a narrative that is uniquely yours, turning the piece into a living collage built with your memories. New York is the stage for millions of intimate stories, encounters, and experiences; we are here to celebrate them.
Sergio Mannino Studio
Antenna Design New York
Antenna Design New York was founded in 1997 by Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger. Antenna’s people-centered design work spans physical and digital spaces, considering object, interface and environment together. When addressing complex problems, such as technological change and the transformation of culture, public and private organizations value Antenna’s vision and approach to design, which is rooted in the belief that design is about shaping people’s behavior.
In the public space, Antenna has extensive experience ranging from the design of New York City and Washington DC subway cars to public information kiosks and automated ticket vending machines, such as the MTA MetroCard Vending machine, affecting the urban experience of millions of people daily. Antenna’s most recent subway car design for New York, the R211T, started passenger service in February 2024. On the commercial side Antenna works with corporations to help them identify and design new products and services. Antenna also has a long-standing relationship with office furniture company Knoll which started with Antenna’s eponymous office furniture system designed for emerging work styles.
Antenna’s work has won numerous awards, including the National Design Award in Product Design from the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in 2008. Antenna’s “Help Point Intercom” for the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The orange and white steam funnels are an iconic presence in the New York City streetscape. Spewing clouds of steam, they hint at a hidden archaic network underground. Our incense funnel suggests this anachronistic infrastructure in your home, evoking an underground presence wherever it is placed when the smoke rises from the funnel and bringing back a memory of New York City.
Antenna Design New York
LikeMindedObjects
The Everybuddy Bottle Opener is made of laser cut steel immersed in slumped recycled bottle glass. Beer brand names are obscured but familiar, as everyone has held these drinks intimately in their hand some time in their life. And then , after their ethereal short lived enjoyment , the bottle tops and bottles are discarded , best case scenario finding their way to the NYC recycling center, Sims, in Gowanus, where all the major sorting is done, 2% of that glass circling back into production.
LikeMindedObjects
McSwain Studio
Based in the New York City, McSwain is a creative studio renowned for its captivating storytelling through contemporary objects. We collaborate with brands, companies, and manufacturers, offering a spectrum of services from product development to exhibition design. With a firm belief in seamlessly blending digital and analog elements, our work has been showcased globally in galleries, museums, showrooms, and print. Under the leadership of Frederick McSwain and Jane Smarovozova, our diverse portfolio caters to a wide range of clients, from Fortune 500 companies to emerging tech startups and luxury manufacturers. At the core of our mission is a dedication to crafting authentic solutions and nurturing genuine connections between brands and their audiences.
Name: Keeper
Inspired by “Treasures in the Trash”, a collection of over 40,000 objects found & curated by a retired NYC Sanitation Worker, Keeper is a lighthearted nod to the art of the dumpster dive. Among towering piles of black bags & smelly corner bins, discarded treasures hide in plain sight. Also known as stooping, savvy pickers scan the grid with keen eyes, hoping to uncover that next shiny object. Questioning disposability, Keeper’s form riffs on the iconic slatted trash can motif while paying homage to Lady Liberty’s torch & copper plating.
When considering a NYC-themed memento, a decision was quickly made to include an olfactive component. Aside from the stinky New York memes & odor complaints, smell is more closely linked to memory than any of the five senses. With this in mind, Keeper was designed to house a single scented candle. McSwain partnered with proprietary fragrance laboratory, the Society of Scent, to a create an ever changing scent profile using only their discarded ingredients. Tentatively called “NY Tourist Season,” this formulation has notes of over-ripened Apple Peel, Hot Asphalt, Steam, Smoke, & a hint of Cannabis. Five senses, Five boroughs.
McSwain Studio
Victoria Milne, 6¢ Design
Victoria Milne is principal of 6¢ Design. Her firm improves the public sphere and other real estate through design. Recent projects include developing and directing the Times Square Design Lab which commissioned furniture from NYC designers for the Times Square Alliance, and overseeing a small real estate portfolio. She is a long-term member of the NYCxDESIGN executive committee which guides NewYork City’s design festival. She has taught at Parson’s New School in the Master’s program for Industrial Design. Prior to 6¢ she served as Director of Public Art and Design Initiatives at the NYC Department of Design and Construction where her many design policy projects included starting the Built/NYC program to commission custom furnishings for public capital projects. She also ran an award-winning communications and environmental design team for the City of New York, and her office managed a $10 million portfolio of percent for art commissions. Her career started in design criticism as editor in chief of Glass Magazine, and as NewYork contributing editor at Dwell and Blueprint and journalist for other publications. Prior to that she worked in contemporary art. She has a Masters of Industrial Design from Pratt Institute and her BA from Vassar College.
The object is two things, a living plant in a pot (a cactus) and a necklace pendant of the same plant in gold. (actually, a 3D print gold or brass-plated, for this model, but the ultimate souvenir would be a metal amulet.
Victoria Milne, 6¢ Design
Eric Moed, Office of Open Practice
Eric Moed’s practice exists at the intersection of public art, architecture and design, examining the relationship between memory, narrative and society. He has completed large-scale public art and design installations in the US and the EU.
In 2020 Eric founded transdisciplinary design studio Office of Open Practice. The studio designs & produces environments for learning, remembering and rethinking that are approachable, experiential and experimental. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Vogue, Archinect, Architizer, The Huffington Post, Artnet, NPR and BBC Radio.
He is also currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Pratt Institute School of Architecture, a Fellow at the Urban Design Forum and a Member of the Memory Studies Association. Previously, Eric was a founding member of the MIT Media Lab’s Poetic Justice Group and a member of the New Museum‘s cultural incubator NEW INC. He holds a Masters in Design Studies from Harvard University Graduate School of Design with a concentration in Art, Design, and the Public Domain (‘19) and a Bachelors of Architecture from Pratt Institute (‘12).
Eric Moed, Office of Open Practice
Karol Murlak
Karol Murlak is a designer, researcher and educator specializing in design for research and science. His practice centers around creation and application of materials.
Currently employed as a professor at Pratt Institute, New York and as an associate professor at SWPS University, Warsaw and running his independent creative consultancy he has more than 18 years of academic and business experience. He has been working with universities, institutions and companies in Europe and America, including Deutsche Bank, Boston Consulting Group, Martinelli Luce, the Museum of Food and Drink and The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
He has designed over fifty projects creating innovative materials, products, furniture, exhibitions, and public installations. His work ranges in scale and complexity — from patented technology of expanding wood and devices bringing relief for patients with spine and foot conditions to musical installations showcased in the world’s busiest locations.
His projects have been presented at exhibitions in New York; Washington, DC; London; Milan; Berlin; Brussels, Frankfurt; Dresden; Budapest; Prague; Bucharest; Sofia; Ljubljana; Warsaw; São Paulo; Brasilia; Rio de Janeiro; and Toyama. He won recognized design awards and competitions such as the Design by… Competition, the Sanitec Koło Prize, and the Design Competition for the City of Łódź.
He graduated from the Spatial Design program in Falmouth College of Art in Great Britain. He also holds a doctoral degree in design and a master’s degree in interior architecture both from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland.
New York never sleeps, because it doesn’t want to or because it can’t? Is it the abundance of sensations or excess noise ?
“New York Lullaby” is a set of acoustic pillows capturing the soundscape of New York. The set plays the tones that accompany residents and visitors day and night: ambulance sirens, car horns, subway notices and fire alarms – sounds that are as bothersome, as they are characteristic.
Are you so captivated by the city’s sounds that you can no longer sleep without them? Take them home with you to lull you to sleep. Do you detest the noise because it keeps you from closing your eyes? Let the pillows remind you why you won’t miss this place. Use them as a set of three or four to fully immerse yourself in the experience, or choose one and explore your favorite sound.
Special thanks to Gustaw, Henryk and Marzena
Karol Murlak
Sabrina Merayo Nuñez
Sabrina Merayo Nunez is an Argentinian multidisciplinary artist based in NYC. Her eclectic background includes in bio-art, biomaterials, furniture maker, sculpture and history of design. Rather than using petroleum based resin, Sabrina developed a collagen based bioplastic that is biodegradable and speaks back to the mediation of matter. She is interested in examining and bringing together three axes in her work: the processes of nature, human capacity to control them, and the technology that have emerged as intermediaries between them. Her objects, always close to functional art and sculpture, are usually activated by motion sensors and contain microbiome bubbles that she develops under the concept of co-creation with nature. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Milan, London and New York Design Weeks, among others.
The Statue of Liberty is one of the world’s most famous and symbolic monuments of New york City It is also one of history’s most quoted, copied, and reworked.
The torch specifically represents the paradigms of progress and enlightenment that have some- how led us to catastrophic consequences for humans and the planet. This kitschy little souvenir makes the torch out of bioplastic and replaces the flame with a microbi- ome that floats on a magnetic field, planting new and more fruitful possible associations between human knowledge and nature.
Sabrina Merayo Nuñez
Matte Berit Nyberg
Based in Brooklyn, Matte Berit Nyberg is a maker and ceramicist, holding a Bachelor of Design in Architecture and a Master of Industrial Design. Matte’s work is an exploration of cultural behaviors, meticulously translated into the design of daily objects that challenge and redefine everyday experiences. Her creations not only serve their utilitarian purpose but also act as narrative pieces that reflect and critique societal norms and practices.
In this series, I capture the spirit of New York City through scale models of its iconic public benches, paralleling the Vitra miniature collection of celebrated furniture designs. These benches, commonplace yet pivotal, hold stories of everyday urban life. Inspired by personal experiences with my mother, who sought these benches as havens during our travels due to her mobility issues, each model encapsulates moments of rest and observation. This work celebrates the benches not only as physical structures but as intimate windows into the human condition, offering a deeper connection to the everyday life and spirit of the urban landscape.
Matte Berit Nyberg
Josh Owen
Josh Owen is an internationally renowned industrial designer, educator, and author. He is the president of his eponymous design studio, Josh Owen LLC, and is the Vignelli Distinguished Professor of Design and Director of the Vignelli Center for Design Studies at The Rochester Institute of Technology. Owen’s projects are produced by major manufacturers and have won many awards. His work is included in the permanent design collections of the Brussels Design Museum, Centre Georges Pompidou, the Chicago Athenaeum, the Corning Museum of Glass, the Denver Art Museum, the Musee des beaux-arts de Montreal, the National Museum of American Jewish History, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Red Dot Design Museum, and the Taiwan Design Museum. He is the author of the book Lenses for Design. Learn more at joshowen.com.
It is difficult to think of navigating New York City without experiencing the mark that Lella and Massimo Vignelli left. The Vignelli Token memorializes the dynamic duo’s impact by referencing the dimensions and materiality of the particular MTA subway token which was in circulation during the period that the famous identity and wayfinding system was implemented. As a souvenir, this item is made to be produced in a numbered sequence allowing those who purchase it to be part of a lineage, carrying the Vignelli x NYC ethos with them, forward into the future – by design.
Josh Owen
Rebeccah Pailes-Friedman
Rebeccah Pailes-Friedman is a design and innovation leader with extensive global experience in human interaction, wearable products, and smart textiles. As an industrial designer deeply immersed in understanding consumer behaviors, she brings a wealth of experience in leading cross-functional teams and overseeing strategic planning and consumer insight initiatives.
Throughout her career, Rebeccah held key design leadership roles at prominent companies such as Fila, Champion, and Nike. Additionally, she founded Interwoven Design Group, an award-winning interdisciplinary consultancy. She is also a founding partner in SEArch+ (Space Exploration Architecture), contributing to pioneering projects in extraterrestrial environments. Under Rebeccah’s leadership, Interwoven Design Group has received numerous design awards, including the IDEA Gold, Spark Design, Core 77, and the IDA award.
Rebeccah is also a Professor of Industrial Design at Pratt Institute, known for her research in wearable technology, design methodologies and smart materials. Her expertise is showcased through her authorship of ‘Smart Textiles for Designers: Inventing the Future of Fabrics’, recognized for its contributions to the field.
She is a sought-after speaker on international platforms, sharing insights on design, innovation, and the future. Her column in Innovation Magazine fosters ongoing discourse on emerging trends from the perspective of women in industrial design.
Beyond her professional achievements, Rebeccah actively champions diversity and inclusivity within the industrial design community. As the Northeast Representative for Women In Design Committee within the Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA), she advocates for women and non-binary industrial designers.
Her dedication extends to her ceramics practice, with a new collection of handmade tableware launching this spring. Rebeccah continues to contribute significantly through teaching, research, and design practice, emphasizing the value of diverse perspectives in the profession.
This ceramics collection pays homage to the storied heritage of Brooklyn’s brownstone architecture, weaving together threads of time and vernacular tradition in each miniature sculpture. Drawing inspiration from the intricate facades and timeless elegance of these historic buildings, I reinterpret them through the lens of contemporary design. Through the tactile medium of clay, I invite viewers to explore the delicate dance between preservation and innovation, tradition, and modernity. As an industrial designer with a passion for sustainable design practices and deeply rooted in the Brooklyn community, I strive to reconcile the dichotomy of old and new, celebrating the enduring quality of historic brownstones while acknowledging the complexities of gentrification. In capturing the essence of Brooklyn’s distinctive architectural language, my work serves as a testament to the enduring spirit of community and resilience, reflecting the unique character and identity of the borough’s-built environment.
Rebeccah Pailes-Friedman
Chad Phillips
With an impressive creative pedigree, Chad has left an indelible mark on retail and design. From reimagining museum experiences to shaping e-commerce platforms, his impact resonates widely. Beyond his professional ventures, Chad indulges in crafting unconventional art pieces and quirky lamps, channeling his passion for the eccentric. His journey includes pivotal roles in shaping Kidrobot’s early identity and establishing the “cool factor” for Fab.com’s design e-commerce iteration. Chad’s formative years at the iconic Moss design store further refined his expertise and aesthetic sensibilities.
Currently, as the proprietor of Available Items, Chad curates a space where imagination and innovation converge. His ongoing work underscores his commitment to nurturing the next generation of creatives and their endeavors.
As object-obsessed people, we mostly aren’t sports fans but we accumulate things, ephemera, products, and design. We see details and colors many others don’t. This is for us, the ones that are borderline hoarders, with our shelves full of knick-knacks.
Chad Phillips
Swati Piparsania
Swati Piparsania is a designer and educator whose work incorporates critical making objects through absurdity, body politics, and theatre practice. She is interested in understanding built environments shape behaviors esp. as a form of surveillance and oppression. She utilizes elements of sculpture, dance and theatre to research and develop a series of sculptural propositions that critique a body’s inherent design and its choreography in space. This inquiry through quotidian objects reinvents them, making anew ordinary social experience.
Swati (b. Bhilai, India) has worked as a furniture designer at two leading modular interior firms in India: Homelane and Livspace. She has presented her work at various venues including Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, PACT Zollverein in Essen, Kenyon College in Ohio, and School of Form in Poland.
She received her MFA in 3D Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art and BFA in Furniture and Spatial Design from Srishti School of Art, Design, and Technology. She currently teaches Industrial design as an Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute, NY.
This souvenir proposes a “People’s Ramp” over the iconic NYC stoop; a set of 11 steps that marks the typical entrance to a brownstone home in the five boroughs. A stoop is a social space for people to sit, hangout and enjoy themselves, but it is rarely recognized as a site of inaccessibility, alienation and exclusion of those who have mobility challenges. This souvenir represents an alternative to the typical stoop and an architectural design proposal. A ramp welcomes many to not only enter the building, but to lay, relax, and socialize outside their homes.
Swati Piparsania
Barent Roth
Barent Roth, director and co-founder of Circular Economy Mfg, is a designer, educator, activist and now entrepreneur dedicated to creating and teaching the importance of sustainable products, practices, and services. An design educator for 28 years, he recently completed his first year as Director of the Product Design program at Parsons, The New School in New York City. In addition to educating/ advocating about the urgency to transition to a Circular Economy, he works to continuously improve his own personal impact by supporting sustainable businesses and cooperatives, enjoying a vegan lifestyle, and purchasing renewable energy for his family.
In 2019 his design consultancy was selected as a winner of the NYC Curb to Market Challenge asking for ideas to turn New York City’s waste into products. This award enabled the launch of Circular Economy Manufacturing and the assembly of their first 100% solar powered MicroFactory now operating on Governors Island, recycling single use plastic into well designed durable products.
Circular Economy Manufacturing recycles single use plastic into well designed durable products using a 100% solar powered MicroFactory located on Governors Island, New York City. All of these products are made from High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) collected in Brooklyn and rotationally molded in our repurposed shipping container.
These products are just the beginning of what we hope will ultimately be a global transformation from a linear to circular economy.
Barent Roth
Isabel Rower
Isabel Rower (b. 1998, New York) is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Rower studied Furniture Design at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she began making work that operates as both furniture and sculpture. She has shown with galleries such as Fairfax Dorn Projects, Alcova Milano, Europa Gallery, and Marta Gallery and has been featured in The New York Times, New York Magazine, and Dezeen. Isabel has developed projects for Kanye West that have been featured in Architectural Digest. Working primarily with clay, Rower utilizes the forms of somewhat everyday objects to explore the transformative properties of material and the elements of nature; blurring the boundaries between practicality and adornment. Her work has recently been acquired by SFMOMA for an upcoming exhibition and her dish ware was featured in it’s own pop up shop at the Hammer Museum.
This souvenir captures the feeling of rebirth brought on by the first glimpses of daffodils, the city’s official flower, as they emerge into the grey New York landscape.
Isabel Rower
Spitfire Industry
Spitfire Industry is a Brooklyn-based design studio. We are a small, passionate team dedicated to creating thoughtful solutions to the problems facing our world. We believe that good product design puts people first and empowers innovation. We are committed to sustainability, smart manufacturing, and leaving the world more beautiful than we found it.
The MetroCard vending machine was introduced in 1999 and will be phased out by the end of 2024. A familiar sight for every New Yorker, these goofy-looking giants have become a familiar part of our day-to-day lives. In honor of its 25th anniversary, we commemorate the tactile nature and friendly aesthetics of traditional MTA machines, in the form of an interactive souvenir.
Spitfire Industry
Heinrich Spillmann & Evelyn Sherwood
Heinrich Spillmann was busy in the last 50 years in the exciting fields of design, architecture and art. Many institutions, such as the Brooklyn Public Library, the Brooklyn Museum, and Governors Island appreciated his most recent contributions.
Evelyn Sherwood was busy in the last 50 years in the exciting fields of design, architecture and art. Institutions such as dash design, Rockwell Group, and Stonehill Taylor appreciated her most recent contributions.
The Big Tinker will animate you to create your very own and ever changing universe, like millions of New Yorkers do every day. Long zoom meetings or a phone call with your boring aunt will become a new adventure while you dream away your dreams. Join the millions of New Yorkers who make the Big Apple happen every day.
The Big Tinker will have approximately 15 NYC iconic intersection knots to play with and build your own NYC universe.
Heinrich Spillmann & Evelyn Sherwood
Material Lust Corp
Dark horse disciples of art and design, Material Lust (Christian Swafford and Lauren Larson) abide by a Solitarian philosophy, wholly independent of trend, trajectory, or corporate system. Though their work draws on myriad influences—the guidance of their artist mothers; the old-world methods of the master artisans with whom they partner in Florence, Italy; and a will to upend the commercial and conventional—their intent remains sharply focused. Through preservation of time-honored technique and an uncompromising commitment to forward-thinking design, Swafford and Larson honor the dignity in the ominous, the grotesque, and the oft-forgotten; pushing the bounds of what deserves to be seen.
In spring 2016, Material Lust opened the Annex, a collaborative space that is an evolving extension of the brand’s vision to bring radical design to the forefront—and one that redefines the concept of a Total Work of Art. 2019 marked the sixth year for the studio in their work-live loft in Soho, New York.
In addition to furniture and textile design, the pair bring over ten years of experience to Creative Consulting, Art Direction, Product Design and Interiors, working regularly with clients seeking bold and unorthodox methods of developing their brands, products, or spaces.
Material Lust Corp
Marc Thorpe
Marc Thorpe earned a Bachelors Degree in Industrial Design from the University of Maryland, followed in by a Masters Degree in Architecture, with Honors, from Parsons School of Design in New York. Thorpe was awarded the Scholastic Award for Scholarly Pursuit by the American Institute of Architects and the American Architectural Foundation and received the Alpha Rho Chi medal for architectural leadership and professional excellence. He was awarded the Good Design Award and the American Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and Metropolitan Arts.
In 2010, Thorpe established New York-based Marc Thorpe Design, as an architectural and design studio. He has worked extensively in Europe, Asia and the US as an architect and designer, and continues to collaborate on projects with a wide range of partners. He has taught in the Architecture Department at Parsons School of Design and the Industrial Design Department of Pratt Institute in New York City.
Thorpe has been published internationally in design journals and texts including Wallpaper*, Elle Décor, Architectural Digest, Viewpoint, Surface, Interni, Frame, Domus and Interior Design to name a few. Thorpe was selected for inclusion in the text Ultimate New York Design, highlighting 50 of New York City’s top design talents and is one of the youngest signature designers for Italian design house Moroso. He was selected as the feature cover story for international design magazine Intramuros. His firm, Marc Thorpe Design (MTD) has worked with leading international brands including LVMH, Mercedes Benz, Under Armour, Stella Artois, Saatchi & Saatchi, Hearst, Cappellini, Tod’s, Acura, David Yurman, L’Oreal, Esquire, Moroso, Venini, Casamania, Davidoff, Infiniti and many more.
Congratulations on purchasing a piece of New York City’s architectural past. The bottle you have in your hands is filled with pulverized concrete, stone and brick from a demolished historical building. New York City issues an average of 1500 demolition permits a year, increasing 2% each year. Due to new building zoning regulation, the building code incentivizes the removal of existing buildings. This includes historically landmarked buildings such as churches, banks, mansions, warehouses and residential housing. Currently, there are over 37,800 landmark properties in New York City, many of which are located within historical districts. Dozens of these buildings every year are systematically demolished to make way for hyper luxury condo buildings and corporate “spatio-economic” towers designed exclusively for high-net worth individuals and companies to maximize profits and real estate investment. Many of these new buildings remain empty as they are designed, built and purchased as financial instruments with a total disregard for the surrounding neighborhood and supporting urban fabric. Should this continue, New York will lose its sense of historical cultural identity and erode into a sterile shell of what made this city great.
Marc Thorpe
Tucker and LouLou Viemeister
Father and daughter team of Tucker and LouLou Viemeister. Tucker is head of industrial design at Athlon.studo. He is most famous for helping to design OXO GoodGrips and being named after a car. Loulou studied ceramics at Pitzer College and is now an artist and a great cook based in NYC!
New York City is a network of sidewalks – that’s where the hustle and bustle meets the road. Some New Yorkers commemorate their name, draw a heart, or step in wet cement leaving a lasting mark cast in cement. However, the NYC Plate is meant to be taken home, a portable souvenir of New York high jinks.
Tucker and LouLou Viemeister
Mary Wallis Studio
Mary Wallis is a contemporary lighting designer whose lighting is an adornment to fine houses and private collections throughout the world.
Her work has been featured in Elle Décor, The New York Times, Architectural Digest, Wallpaper* Magazine, and Vogue. The Financial Times described her as ‘embodying what contemporary New York lighting design is about’.
Mary’s designs are known for their sophisticated combination of historical references, stylized natural forms, and materials layering. Her work is further distinguished by old-world artisanal techniques that yield heirloom-quality pieces.
Born in Australia, she began painting at four years old. For the next two decades, she studied painting with the same teacher, who emphasized cultivating chi (flow, or lifeforce energy) within artworks. Continuing her practice to this day, she paints almost exclusively with black ink on rice paper.
Her lifelong fascination with the orderly beauty of nature would lead her to study biology at the Australian National University and the University of Cambridge, receiving her Ph.D. in genetics in 2006. She then studied design at Parsons and at the Pratt Institute, and founded her studio in New York in 2012.
Mary has worked with some of the most sought-after talent in the industry, including AD100 designers Ken Fulk and Kelly Wearstler. Installation and exhibition highlights include Bergdorf Goodman, Yves Saint Laurent, the Salon of Art and Design, Wallpaper* Handmade, and Venice Design to coincide with the Venice Biennale.
As a glassblower and lighting designer, I’ve discovered working in the hotshop has been characterized by a spirit of collaboration and community. At the end of glassblowing residencies and workshops we often swap stickers – a tradition with roots in skater and street art counterculture.
You see stickers all over glassblowing studios: on lockers, benches and tool chests. They serve as tangible reminders of friends met along the way from all over the globe, and an analog map of our web of connection. By offering these stickers as souvenirs, I aim to extend this sense of community beyond physical borders, inviting visitors and fellow artists to carry a piece of our collective experience back home.
Mary Wallis Studio
Allan Wexler
Allan Wexler (b. 1949) has worked in the fields of architecture, design, and fine art for over fifty years. In the late 1960s he was an early member of the group of architects and artists who questioned the perceived divide between art and the design disciplines. They called themselves non-architects or paper architects. In 2017 Lars Müller published Absurd Thinking: Between Art and Design, a book on Wexler’s work and creative process. The book features projects developed across the artist’s career that mediate the gap between fine and applied art using the mediums of architecture, sculpture, photography, painting, and drawing. Wexler is represented by Jane Lombard Gallery.
Wexler earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts (1971) and his Bachelor of Architecture (1972) from RISD and his Master of Architecture from Pratt Institute (1976). He is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2016), is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and a winner of both a Chrysler Award for Design Innovation and the Henry J. Leir Prize from the Jewish Museum. He has executed public art commissions at several locations, including Hudson River Park at 29th Street (2006), Atlantic Terminal, Long Island Railroad (2009), and Pratt Institute (2008, 2012). He has exhibited nationally and internationally including La Arsenale, Biennale Architettura, Venice, IT; The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA; Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY; San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA; Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum, Hagen, DE; De Cordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA; The Jewish Museum, New York, NY; among many others. Wexler currently teaches at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
Scaffolding and props have been a recurring theme in my work which crosses boundaries between the Fine Arts and the Applied Arts.
Here external buttressing attempts to reinforce the current unstable condition of our American Democracy.
Allan Wexler
Adam Wrigley
Adam Wrigley is an industrial designer, engineer, and artist living in Brooklyn NY. His work has won IDSA, iF, CES, and NYC design awards. He is most known for appearing on American television show “BattleBots” and Chinese television show “这!就是铁甲” where he builds 250 lbs battling robots. Outside of television, his work can be seen inside homes, inside wallets, and implanted inside human skulls. Adam enjoys sailing, rowing, long walks across the Manhattan Bridge, spending time with his girlfriend Mary and their miniature dachshund Bella, and creating really weird objects.
Rats are independent, rough around the edges, and they somehow make it work livindg in the big city – also they take the subway a lot. What better souvenir for NYC than a plush rat? As with all NYC souvenirs and for extra authenticity – this rat was Made In China by the lowest bidder after contacting numerous vendors, and then dragged in grease from an authentic New York slice. Pictured alongside the plush is the original concept image sent out for bids.
Adam Wrigley
SUBJECT BUREAUX with WILLOUGH
Founded by Johannesburg-born and New York-based multi-disciplinary designer, Mzwakhe Ndlovu, SUBJECT BUREAUX is a design practice exploring the relationship between people, places and products.
WILLOUGH candles are derived from a collection of found city remnants and fragments cast in beeswax. Founded in Brooklyn in 2023 by Carolyne Loreé Teston and Ford Bostwick, WILLOUGH began as an evolving, collaborative love letter to New York City. All candles are made with premium natural ingredients and shipped in sustainable or reused packaging.
Seneca Candle by SUBJECT BUREAUX and Willough The story of Seneca Candle is the story of Seneca Village – a predominantly Black community, c. 1850s, positioned where the area between 82nd and 89th streets is today, on the West side of Central Park. It is an allegory of what happens when amnesia enacts itself, forcefully, in the public realm. The people of Seneca Village were the earliest weavings of the potential fabric that would be a new New York; a new State, United. It is from that imagined optimism, and the unknown memories of those displaced, that Seneca Candle became manifest.
The Seneca Candle is a form cast from remnants of Manhattan Schist found at the Seneca Village site today ─ a method true to Willough, as foragers of fragments of New York City that offer themselves to be cast into candles. The Seneca Candle is an ode to the conceptual and literal meaning of a souvenir. It is an object carrying a displaced memory, made from an object found in a place that itself holds displaced memories.
SUBJECT BUREAUX with WILLOUGH
