Must-see New York Design Week

Our friends at Sight Unseen spiced up NYC Design Week this year with the debut of a new exhibition called OFFSITE. The show featured some great independent designers, brands, and galleries, as well as a series of pop-up shops. Sight Unseen welcomed over 20 independent American design talents, including Rich Brilliant Willing, Grey Area, DAMM Design, Chen Chen & Kai Williams, AMMA Design, Matthias Kaiser, Snarkitecture, Fort Standard, and Katie Stout, among others.

The overall vibe was incredibly cheerful, and there were some fantastic standout presentations, including some great examples of the sort of bright, visual pop culture that we all seem to really respond to in this moment—super colorful objects and images, saturated eye candy that cries out to be instagrammed and shared (thus extending its life and overall cultural impact).

We especially loved this series of unexpected and refreshing kites, which took icons of commercial graphic design out of their normal context and transformed them into artistic motifs ready to fly in the sky. Their Thank You Thank You Thank You woven handbag was also a great hit. Similarly, Brooklyn studio Chiaozza’s surprising and quirky papier-mâché plant store was a ton of fun.

Congratulations to Sight Unseen founders Jill Singer and Monica Khemsurov, and all of OFFSITE’s participants!