April and May Press Round Up

Phew things have been busy! April and May have been a whirlwind with Salone del Mobile and NYCxDESIGN. Thankfully, our clients’ great work has been getting plenty of much-deserved recognition.

In Milan Wolf PR worked with Herman Miller to unveil their brand-new Cosm line of office chairs at their exhibition For You Everyone. Unsurprisingly, Cosm was a hit and landed publication in Interior Design, Architect Magazine, Hypebeast, and others.

We hardly had a moment to breathe, with NYCxDESIGN following up right after Salone. For New York’s more-than-a-week design week we were happy to work again with Wolf PR’s very first client, Still House, for a successful celebration of Pat Kim’s Formations, which appeared in Sight Unseen and Curbed, as well as on Interior Design’s “What not to miss” map (along with new Wolf PR clients Next Level and Resident).

New Zealand furniture designer Resident’s Soho installation Traveling without Bags and the collaboratively curated show Next Level were big hits, appearing on roundups from, among many,  Architectural Digest and The New York Times. Resident also got some great press in publications like Surface and Wallpaper*.

Kikkerland had their own display during NYCxDESIGN, showcasing the winners of their latest design challenge at Wanted Design. They’ve also been getting a lot of summer love for their new collection in publications like House Beautiful and Vogue.

March Press Round Up

While we didn’t welcome in spring quite the way we wanted to this snowy March (and, it seems so far, April) we did get some fresh starts with Wolf PR’s newest client, New Zealand-based furniture brand Resident.

We helped Resident come on to the U.S. scene by scoring them a position in Sight Unseen’s Saturday Selects.

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Resident wasn’t the only Sight Unseen feature this past month. Canadian collectible furniture makers Claste also made Saturday Selects the week before, following on the heels of their first U.S. showing and the launch of their new collection, Tension 1.2, at Les Ateliers Courbet in New York.

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Kikkerland’s more rugged products made appearances in OFFGRID, the outdoor gear magazine with reviews of their Wood Axe Multi Tool and Key Tools.

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Kikkerland also got a bunch of love from Buzzfeed, popping up in lists with products ranging from pencils to playing cards to cold brew makers.

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October Press Round Up

Though winter’s fast approaching, Wolf PR’s designers show no signs of slowing down with features in T, Ravelin, Refinery29, and many others. Here are some of the highlights:

 

Claste – T Magazine

Even if the air is getting chillier, things were in bloom over at T Magazine. Claste’s How Fragile This Love looked light and airy alongside other clear furnishings for this “Full Transparency” photostory. Looks like millennial pink and blue are here to stay.

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ZigZagZurich – Ravelin

“Of all your possessions and all your linens, it’s your bedding that knows you the most intimately,” leads Ravelin’s interview Sunny Todd. Maybe this is why the amazing husband-and-wife duo created all their designs for their ZigZagZurich collaboration by hand — cutting and silk screening colorful patterns that were blown up for linens, duvet covers, and pillowcases. Sunny Todd chatted with Ravelin all about their process, their belief in the analogue in a digital age, and how a bold email landed them their partnership with ZigZagZurich.

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Action Method – Refinery29

And, finally, it’s not everyday a planner gets called “sexy.” But we’re glad to hear that some users, like Refinery 29’s Judith Ohikuare, find something “slightly erotic” in Action Method’s clever and elegant Action Book (no shame, Judith, we like it too). Guess it must be the sex appeal that ensured the Action Book made the cut of Refinery29’s “5 Awesome Planners to Help Keep Track of Your Life.”

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August & September Press Round up

Two months in one! August and September were exciting and, as always, busy months at Wolf PR. We welcomed two new employees Lauren Glazer and Drew Zeiba. We also added another great client, Action Method whose colorful notebooks are perfect for organizing ideas and inspiring productivity.

Claste – Editor at Large

In August, Katy B. Olsen interviewed one of Claste’s founding partners, Quinlan Osborne, for a feature in Editor at Large. In the interview Quinlan described Montreal’s small design community where everyone knows one another. Over several years Quinlan and the other two founding partners, Martin Poitras and Philip Hazan, collaborated on projects and traveled together to international design fairs before founding Claste. The trio continued to collaborate in their home city, “when we decided to start looking for manufacturers it was obvious to us that all the talent we needed was right here in our own backyard it just needed a little convincing that what we were asking them to do was really just a variation of what they had always done for us, plus they already understood our obsession with details and perfection from years of working together,” described Quinlin. After only six months since their launch in May, Quinlin looks forward to expanding their collection and continuing to build relationships in the design community

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Robert Hessler at Still House – New York Spaces

Known as one of the most thoughtfully curated boutiques on the Lower East Side, Still House features the work of early and mid-career designers and artists. Robert Helsser’s understated yet warm ceramic vessels fit perfectly into Still House’s mix of minimal and organic work. In September New York Spaces featured Hessler’s ceramics in “Flawless Perfection.” Describing Hessler’s work editor Nicole Haddad writes, “[his] hand-thrown, one-of-a-kind porcelain vessels are the result of 22 years of trial and error, exploration of shape and color, chemistry, and improvisation.” Even after 22 years Hessler is still delighted and often surprised with final results, explaining “there are always elements you can’t entirely control, the beauty lies in the imperfections and in the joy and excitement of discovery.”

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Claste – Interior Design Homes

“Two architects and a sales exec walk into a studio…” is the opening sentence in “A Delicate Balance,” a full-page article in the September issue of Interior Design Homes, which presented the work of Claste. But don’t let the first sentence or the apparent simplicity of Claste’s work fool you; Interior Design Homes’ editor describes how the first collection, Tension, was conceived “as a give-and-take between fragility and stability” and “constructed from a deliberately narrow range of materials.” The article includes Claste’s classic photos of their work resting on a snow-covered field or perched on a frozen lake…did we mention they are Canadian?

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ZigZagZurich – Interior Design Homes

In the spirit of the end of summer, which we always hate to see go, Interior Design homes featured the collaboration between ZigZagZurich and Sunny Todd Prints. Aptly titled wildest dreams, the article included colorful top-down photos of unmade beds that look like they were plucked straight out of a chic but fun beach house, each bed adorned with a different striped or polka-a-dot pattern. And, yes, we have imagined the beautiful pillow fights.

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Action Method – Fast Company Design

With almost ten years in the business Action Method notebooks have stood the test of time, particularly with artists and designers. Each page of the Action Method notebook is graphically divided into four categories: action steps, focus points, back burner, and general notations. In “A New Notebook for the Multi-Tasking Generation” Fast Co Design introduced the Reduced Action Book, “a monochromatic, branding-free take on the original, colorful notebook” launched by Ghostly. Ghostly founder Sam Valenti IV describes the creation of the updated notebook, “we wanted to see how far the design could be reduced while maintaining what is exceptional about the product: the materials and their intention.” How very Dieter Rams of them!

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July Press Round Up

We admit that we are a little late on the July press round up (sigh, it’s already September)! So without further wait…
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TL magazine highlighted Claste for their “New Brand Alert” feature. The piece showcases the studio’s first collection, Tension, and the editor Rab Messina describes why that moniker is so well suited to the work, saying it’s “basically as a game of tension between technical craftsmanship and artistry, glass and stone, lightness and sturdiness, fragility and stability.” The featured work includes a quartzite chair and pedestal console that appear to float on triangle bases, clear glass and pink onyx lounge chairs and bench, and a table lamp in pale green onyx. Discussing the creation of these unique pieces, founders Philip Hazan, Quinlan Osborne and Martin Poitras note,“we are fairly certain that this process of adhering stone to glass is the first time anyone has ever used this procedure.”
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In episode thirty-six of the Design Milk produced podcast Clever, Kikkerland’s founder Jan van der Lande tells the story of the company and his own journey, which started with an offbeat American mother raising sons in a rural area of the Netherlands. This now twenty-five year old company got of the ground after Jan moved to New York and began importing handcrafted products from the Neatherlands, which he then packed in his satchel and biked to shops around the city. Now available in stores across the globe and online, Kikkerland still produces all its products and is steadfast in its dedication to the lighthearted and quirky side of design. In the podcast, Jan describes an one of his biggest “ah ha” moments, when he was sourcing parts in China and a potential partner only filled orders of 200,000 or more (a full shipping container)! Never shy to a challenge, they placed the order and the huge-scale Kikkerland we know today set course.
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Most well known for their gem-like lighting, design pair Gabriel Scott also makes simple yet still decidedly architectural coffee, side, and dining tables. Their Tensegrity coffee table was included in Interior Design’s article “8 Sleek New Tables With Angular Bases.” Handmade in their Montreal Studio, the table is constructed with two principal materials, a ½” tempered smoked-grey glass top and satin copper finish base and fittings.
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May Press Round Up

At Wolf PR, we are always excited to see May come, the anticipation of pop-up installations, launch parties, closing parties, lacquered disco parties, sound bath parties… and the Javits center filled with exciting design work from around the world. However, now that design “week” has slyly taken over the whole month, with exhaustion we welcomed the first of June. Wolf PR hit the ground running in May adding a great new client; Montreal based Claste, whose inaugural collection Tension debuted at ICFF against the backdrop of a white fur wall.

Claste in Wallpaper*

Post ICFF 2017, Wallpaper* published a distinctly home-focused review of design week recounting the residential, intimate, and interior nature of much of the work. In contrast to this largely comfy and nostalgic vibe, Julie Baumgardner highlighted Claste’s lounge chairs How Fragile This Lovewriting: “Newcomer from Montreal, Claste debuted at ICFF a seriously sexy line of ‘pure material’ chairs in glass and pink onyx that gave a ‘slight sense of unease’, tells studio co-founder Philip Hazan.” We were thrilled by the great reception of Claste’s minimal and architectural collection, which was also featured in ICFF reviews by Sight Unseen, Apartment Therapy, and Homedit.

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Kikkerland in Entrepreneur Magazine

Always testing the edge of what’s new, quirky home-goods design giant Kikkerland has sponsored a student design challenge since 2009. The June 2017 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine featured a full-page article on Kikkerland’s 2016 challenge. The article title fits last year’s outcome, where the results were just as much of a challenge for Kikkerland founder Jan van der Lande as the design call was for participating Rhode Island School of Design students – “Cast a Wider Net for Great Ideas…But Don’t be Afraid to Embrace the Bland Ones.” The winning project, a highly functional cord organizer, selected by partner retailer the Container Store didn’t embody the offbeat sense of humor Kikkerland is know for. But as Entrepreneur editor, Stephanie Schomer noted, Cable Loft’s huge retail success gave van der Lande pause; bland ideas can be great ideas too.

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Gabriel Scott in Design Milk

Design team Gabriel Scott’s major inspirations – architecture and jewelry design – were artfully merged in their two new collections Myraid  and Briolette, unveiled at Salone in Milan. In May Design Milk published an image rich piece that featured close up photographs highlighting the gem-like facets and connections reminiscent of jewelry settings embodied in Gabriel Scott’s two newest collections.

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