The Best of WantedDesign 2017

On an all-inclusive note that considers makers from all of New York City’s boroughs, WantedDesign continues to give design lovers not one, but two locales and experiences to visit during the NYCxDesign festivities. Each event in turn brings its own special flavor to the fair and exhibition mix. One fair, taking place in Wanted Design’s lovely headquarters in Industry City, focuses on the future and community: how has the current economic and political situation we live in shifted our perspective as designers? In what ways can designers around the world collaborate and communicate in order to create a better world? The Brooklyn respite included works from innovative students from around the globe as well as exhibitions organized by Oui Design, an organization dedicated to fostering great design between creatives in the US and France. The Brooklyn space also took some playful turns, even offering some delicious and unusual honey tastings.

On the other side of the bridge was Wanted’s Manhattan space, which honed in on the here and now by displaying beautiful renditions of form and function by working designers—the Manhattan fair offered up selections from small local furniture studios, a number of pieces featured in Salone’s Ventura Lambrate exhibit in Milan, as well as several interactive stations ruminating on topics such as immigration, news echo chambers, each one thought up by students in the SVA Products of Design Program.

WantedDesign Brooklyn

WantedDesign Brooklyn began with a nice spring opening party in the courtyard of their headquarters in Industry City.

Photo credit: Core77

WantedDesign Brooklyn

WantedDesign Brooklyn began with a nice spring opening party in the courtyard of their headquarters in Industry City.

Photo credit: Core77

WantedDesign Brooklyn

SVA’s MA Design Research Program manned a booth that visualized topics discussed in their recent thesis presentations. These Monopoly game pieces on display are part of graduate student Alexander Bevier’s research on the history of game design and how the objects and images them gain cultural relevance.

Photo credit: Core77

WantedDesign Brooklyn

For her thesis work, SVA MA Design Research grad Emma Ng’s looked at “food startups Blue Apron and Soylent, examining how their visions for food systems change filter down into the products, experiences, and social lives they design for their customers.” In conjunction with her research regarding food, her visual display at Wanted envisioned how a sort of apocalyptic survival cookbook of the future might read.

Photo credit: Core77

WantedDesign Brooklyn

The welcoming “Honey bar” run by Green Island at the entrance of the Wanted Brooklyn space was a hit. The booth offered tasting of local honey served in a variety of innovative ways (they had all kinds of interesting honey variations, including a sour flavor).

Photo credit: Core77

WantedDesign Brooklyn

The University of Oregon’s new Sports Product Design Master’s degree program just launched last year and debuted some of their final projects from the first year at Wanted (more details from this exhibit in a later post!).

Photo credit: Core77

WantedDesign Brooklyn

Outside the Box 6.0 was an exhibit at the Industry City space showcasing groupings of objects made by designers from specific geographic areas with prominent design communities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, New York and Montreal.

Photo credit: Core77

WantedDesign Brooklyn

Outside the Box 6.0 was an exhibit at the Industry City space showcasing groupings of objects made by designers from specific geographic areas with prominent design communities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, New York and Montreal.

Photo credit: Core77

WantedDesign Brooklyn

SVA’s Products of Design Program curated a speculative exhibition called “Coincident Times”, creating a number of conceptual products “for the present day that become catalysts towards their imagined futures.” More on what exactly they designed in a follow-up post.

Photo credit: Core77

WantedDesign Brooklyn

The SVA students created a fake news-esque newspaper brochure including future-gazing essays and images of their individual product designs.

Photo credit: Core77

View the full gallery here
Source: core77