5 Influential Women in the World of Modern Design

We’ve celebrated women all month long in our Friday Five column in honor of Women’s History month, but we didn’t want it to end there. While design has long been a male-dominated field, we’re finally seeing the balance shift with more and more notable women not just entering the arena, but taking over and permanently cementing their names in history. Today, we’re taking a look at five influential women in the world of modern design who deserve to be household names.

Photo courtesy of Cecilie Manz

Fresh off a Designer of the Year win from Maison&Objet 2018, award-winning Danish designer Cecilie Manz continues breaking the mold in the design world working with major brands, like Fritz Hansen, B&O, Muuto, Duravit, Georg Jensen Damask, Iittala, Fredericia Furniture, and more, creating everything from bathtubs, furniture, speakers, lighting, textiles, objects, and glassware. Her Scandinavian roots prominently show through in each of her designs with a clean, minimalist approach that brands and consumers both appreciate.

Beoplay P2 Bluetooth speaker for B&O Play

Caravaggio lighting for Fritz Hansen \\\ Photo by Christian B / YELLOWS

Aitio shelves and storage boxes for Iittala

Photo by Laurel Golio, courtesy of Metropolis Magazine

Japan-born, Brooklyn-based Nao Tamura brings a clean, serene aesthetic to everything she creates, no matter what material she’s working with. Whether it’s wood or glass, her thoughtful designs merge both her Japanese and New York cultures resulting in pieces that very easily fall into the category of art and not just product design. Along with many awards under her belt, the prolific designer works with a multitude of brands, including nanimarquina, Hem, Wonderglass, Established & Sons, HBF, Nikari, and Artek ,to name a few.

Quill rug collection for nanimarquina

Kanso Bench with Table for HBF

Flow[T] chandelier for Wonderglass

Photo by Evan Miller

Lauren Larson is 1/2 of the duo behind Material Lust, a New York City based design studio she co-founded with partner Christian Swafford. The pair met at Parsons The New School for Design where she earned her BFA and quickly got to work steadily building a diverse portfolio of forward-thinking work that redefines the dark side of design. Their bold work stands out for all the right reasons, leaving a majestic impression that you’ll never forget and never want to. From furniture, lighting, textiles, art, an experimental space named the ANNEX, and a side endeavor called Orphan Work, it’s no doubt that Larson, and Material Lust, will continue breaking the chains and leaving basic design behind.

Crawl Chair

Opioid Painting

002 Pendant from Orphan Work

Photo courtesy of Cristina Celestino

Born in Pordenone, Italy, Cristina Celestino first worked as an architect after graduation before changing gears to focus on interior architecture and design. She founded her design brand, Attico Design, in 2009 when she moved to Milan and since then has been designing for brands like Seletti, Fendi, Tonelli Design, Nilufar, Fujifilm, Bulgari, and Sergio Rossi. Her partnership with Fendi in 2016 led to The Happy Room collection, which made its debut at Design Miami/, featuring pieces that were indeed happy. She has a knack for the way she boldly uses materials and her unique color palettes, resulting in her interiors being as equally mesmerizing as her pieces of furniture and design objects.

The Happy Room for Fendi

Laguna glassware by Attica Design

Sergio Rossi boutique

Photo by Noah Kalina

Neri Oxman is an Israeli-born architect, designer, and researcher based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where besides founding Mediated Matter research group, she is also a professor at the MIT Media Lab. She earned her PhD in Design Computation as a MIT Presidential Fellow, coining ‘Material Ecology’ to describe the research she was doing. Oxman’s award-winning work can be found in permanent locations, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), the Smithsonian Institution, and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. She blends technology and biology in her work, a rarely occurring mix in the design world, pushing the boundaries of art and design and paving a way that’s never been seen before.

Vespers mask \\\ Photo by Yoram Reshef

Mushtari 3D printed wearable \\\ Photo by Yoram Reshef

Ancient Yet Modern installation for Lexus Design Award

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A DesignMarch Recap + Five Icelandic Designers on Our Radar

Earlier this month we traveled to Reykjavik, Iceland to celebrate DesignMarch’s 10th anniversary and check out the latest and greatest on the Icelandic design scene. During these festival days, the entire city of Reykjavik was alive with excitement and pride as everyone (including the mayor of Iceland and Björk herself – true story!) traveled the design circuit to explore exhibitions, installations and showrooms. We came, we saw, we soaked. Here’s a recap of our favorite moments:

During DesignTalk, we listened to Dr. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg who just finished her PhD and wrote her entire thesis about the idea of better. She asks: “What is better? Whose better? And who gets to decide?” At a time when designers and companies are striving to innovate for the better, create for a better future, and better today’s environmental issues, she encourages the design community to dig deep and question whether a design truly is better. For example, is a ground-breaking technologic device made in factories of poor conditions and low wages truly better? If synthetic biology can help rejuvenate forests, can we consider the industrialization of nature better for the world? An insightful talk that ended on a hopeful note, we left feeling inspired.

Paper designer Bea Szenfeld gave a delightful presentation about designing for Lady Gaga and Björk and the challenges of working with paper to create her dresses and sculptures.

MUN Studio

We stopped by DesignMUNch, an exhibition celebrating Icelandic design. MUN is run by four female designers that focus on creating beautiful objects and furniture that are designed with intention. The brands are MUN are ANNA THORUNN, bybibi, FÆRID, North Limited and IHANNA HOME, with Studio Flétta participating in DesignMarch for the first time.

Designer Chuck Mack with his ARCO desk for Design House Stockholm

At Epal Design, a home + design store in Iceland, we checked out a showcase of popular design objects and furniture that were all created by Icelandic designers, like the Notknot, the original knot pillow designed by Ragnheiður Ösp Sigurðardóttir of studio Umemi.

Notknot cushion designed by Ragnheiður Ösp Sigurðardóttir of studio Umemi

PyroPet candles designed by Thorunn Arnadottir

Tree coat hanger designed by Katrin Olina Petursdottir and Michael Young

The Retreat at the Blue Lagoon

No trip to Iceland is complete without a trip to the Blue Lagoon, where we learned that the popular tourist destination is expanding! Opening in May with a soft opening in April, The Retreat is a new luxury hotel that’s built right into the volcanic landscape of the surrounding lagoon. The new expansion includes a new restaurant and a new spa area that offers a more private experience as you soak in the lagoon’s geothermal seawater.

The Retreat at the Blue Lagoon

Almost every hour of the three days we were at DesignMarch was spent discovering emerging designers or new Icelandic collections. Here are five of our favorites:

Founded in 2017, FÓLK is an Icelandic design and lifestyle company founded by Ragna Sara that works with progressive designers to create modern homewares, furniture and lifestyle products focused on sustainability, responsibility and transparency. The brand unveiled their latest collaboration with designer Ólína Rögnudóttir called Living Objects, which includes stacking glass vessels and metal + stone object that can be used as a candleholder or a vase.

USEE STUDIO is a conscious creative studio founded by Halla Hákonardóttir and Helga Kjerúlf that prides itself on its focus for sustainable, eco-friendly products that are also fun and create a feel good vibe. The studio won the Reykjavik Grapevine Design Awards “Product Line of the Year” for their USEE blankets.

Copenhagen-based Icelandic designer Dögg Guðmundsdóttir of Dögg Design experiments with asymmetrical folded forms using aluminum, metal and oak to create a modern take on traditional objects, like candleholders, wall hooks and storage containers.

Inspired by Iceland’s rugged but majestic landscapes, designer Hilda Gunnarsdóttir creates womenswear that is feminine, effortless and bold for her fashion label, Milla Snorrason. For each collection, she focuses on a specific place in Iceland that inspires the graphic prints and thus, names the collection after its origin. At DesignMarch she collaborated with ceramist Hanna Whitehead to create an exhibition that showcased both their talents. Hanna also had her own exhibition at the Iceland Culture House to show her latest ceramics collection, Another Dialogue.

Design duo Þórey Björk Halldórsdóttir and Baldur Björnsson of creative studio AND ANTI MATTER (&AM) explores the space between design and art. Their Modular collection puts the consumer in the designer seat by allowing him/her to create a stand/pedestal or a purely decorative object, showing that functional objects can be art and vice versa.

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Podcast 144: The Difference Between a Work Vacation and a Family Vacation

In March, I was lucky enough to have two vacations! I took a work vacation by myself in the mountains, and I took a vacation with my family to Turks and Caicos. The work vacation was meant to help me focus on work and accomplish as much as I could in a couple of days. The family vacation was meant for me to have fun and not think about work. Both vacations were awesome, and both were great for my business, even though one is all about business and the other has nothing to do with business. You can listen

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Fresh From The Dairy: Going Green

One of my resolutions this year is to change my black thumb into a green one. With spring officially here (according to the calendar, not the temperature), I’ve been researching all the easiest plants to take care of because there’s so much to know! At least with these prints from Society6, I’m guaranteed that these plants will never die… here are some of my favorites that add a grounding, serene feel to any wall:

Cat in Potted Jungles art print by Ambers Textiles

Tropical green leaf art print by Art by ASolo

Monstera, Green leaf, Leaves, Plant print, Trendy print art print by Julia

Palm Leaf II art print by Orara Studio

Kate Spade Garden art print by Isabelle Feliu

Hosta Detail art print by leeannevisuals

cats in the interior pattern art print by Anyuka

Big Leaves – Tropical Nature Photography art print by Color and Patterns

Fern art print by Tamsin Lucie

Perceptive Dream art print by 83 Oranges®

In an ongoing effort to support independent artists from around the world, Design Milk is proud to partner with Society6 to offer The Design Milk Dairy, a special collection of Society6 artists’ work curated by Design Milk and our readers. Proceeds from the The Design Milk Dairy help us bring Design Milk to you every day.

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Ask Yourself These Six Questions: Branding with Steph Zangeneh Azam & Squarespace

The following post is brought to you by Squarespace. Our partners are hand picked by the Design Milk team because they represent the best in design.

A brand is more than a logo, color palette, images, and typefaces. A brand is a feeling and a mood it’s your WHY. It’s the message you convey every time you post or speak about your business.

Graphic designer Steph Zangeneh Azam, of Mighty Within has some first-hand experience with branding or rather rebranding. She’s rebranded her own company eight times. So she knows a little something about transformation and the power that great design can have in articulating the meaning and message behind your brand. That’s why she uses Squarespace for her portfolio website—it allows her to beautifully display her brand while being flexible and easy to update. She believes that the most critical piece of getting it right is to understand your brand, what it stands for and what makes it unique.

Six Questions to Ask About Your Business Name

• Can I trademark the name?
• Is it unique?
• Does anyone else use the name?
• Can I get the url and the social media accounts?
• Where do I show up on Google searches?
• Does it really say what I want it to say?

Steph went through these questions with her own studio, and realized that not only was her current name (Wild Within) not unique, but it didn’t really get at the why behind her studio. Her real brand message was about tapping into POWER within. So after some soul searching, Steph changed the name to Mighty Within. And her answers to the questions changed.

• Can I trademark the name? Yes, in the process now.
• Is it unique? Yes.
• Does anyone else use the name? No.
• Can I get the url and social media accounts? Yes and I got the .com too!
• Where do I show up on Google searches? Yes! #2 on page 1!
• Does it really say what I want it to say? YES! Mighty is our strength and power within but it also encompasses the wild within too.

Getting at the why has been a game-changer for her personally, and so it’s a process that she shares with her clients. If a client is unclear about why their business exists and its mission, then it’s hard to design a logo that has any meaning. When there is clarity about the message, everything else falls into place.

Steph currently uses the Five template for her own site. When choosing a template for clients, she likes to mix it up. She’s used Bedford, Montauk, Hayden, Avenue, Pacific, Sonny, Native, Fairfield, Aviator, Bryant, Basil, Ishimoto, and Tremont.

The Tools

When it came time to translate that ‘why’ into an actual design, Steph turned to Squarespace. “I’m not a developer or programmer and found myself constantly frustrated trying to “Frankenstein” bits of code to build sites on other platforms,” Steph explained. “Squarespace changed all that with its user-friendly drop and drag system.” Once she learned the ins and outs of building a Squarespace site, Steph began offering website design as part of her branding package. “Squarespace has been an instrumental part of building my business.” Not only has the platform allowed Steph to expand her offerings to include website design, but it has also allowed her to showcase her own work in a cohesive way.

How important is a logo for a brand? For some people, it’s probably last on the to-do list. 

There are different elements that make up a brand but the heart and soul of any business is the WHY and the logo. The logo is the “face” of a business and it can either repel or attract ideal clients and customers. So it’s important to have a well-designed logo that connects people to the brand because it says “we put time and care into what we do/make/sell/offer.” It builds trust and recognition.

When it comes to designing a logo for your brand, what are some considerations that everyone should think through?

Less is more.

— Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Keep it simple and make it memorable! A long name, wordy tagline, trendy fonts, and detailed graphics can overcomplicate a design. Think about the different ways in which the logo will be applied since that will affect the font choice and color. Logos need to be legible across all platforms and applications when scaling up and down. Every design decision should have a reason and be connected to the “why” of the business.

Can you talk about using symbols or illustrations as well as only text?

I like developing logos that incorporate symbols and/or illustrations along with text. They add a unique personality and connection to the brand. But sometimes, the right symbol or illustration takes time to uncover.

When I designed the logo for LIONESS I was stuck on the idea of using a lioness as the symbol. Revision after revision it just wasn’t working. It was too literal and it didn’t depict the essence of the brand: a leadership & change agency for women rising.

My client wanted a powerful (yet feminine) symbol and had mentioned in the beginning that she felt connected to the crescent moon. So I revisited that idea and pulled out the original moon sketches I’d never shown her. I had replaced the “O” in LIONESS with the crescent moon and flipped it upside down to represent women rising.

After looking at it again I realized how powerful it was and how truly connected it was to her brand. So I ended up showing her and all she said was THAT’S IT!

Can you tell us about your design process? 

I’m a creative who needs a lot of “think time” so I don’t immediately sketch or jump on the computer. For me, the most important part of designing a logo is understanding the business. So I dive deep into the branding questionnaire and ask questions. I want to know the essence of a business and what makes it unique.

I research what competitors are doing and see what elements work and what I want to avoid. Let’s say I’m working with a yoga studio and 85% of other yoga studios I research are using a lotus flower. Then that would be something I’d try to avoid in my designs.

Once I’m ready to design I’ll either sketch ideas in a notebook or jump straight into illustrator. Sometimes I know exactly what I want to design and other times I need to play by mixing and matching elements. Once I have 3 or 4 strong concepts I’ll refine them further and then present them to the client.

How important is scale when designing a logo and how do you play with that?

Scale helps me when I’m stuck on a concept that isn’t working. I can blow the elements up large or make them tiny which changes the mood or feeling and gives me a new perspective to work from.

When I designed the logo for SACHA I didn’t want the triangles to overpower the text and vice versa. I wanted SACHA to be the focal point yet feel balanced within the triangles and other text. So I played a lot with the size of the triangles and the kerning of the letters to find that happy balance.

How do you test a logo?

I look at how it translates horizontally and vertically, in color, black and white, grayscale, and reverse? I’ll print out different sizes ensuring it scales up and down with clarity. I make sure it’s legible when overlaying images and textures on different screens and in different applications.

Ready to get to work on that branding? Take the first step with a Squarespace website. Use coupon code DESIGNMILK at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.

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The Risks of Buying Houses Sight Unseen

I have bought many houses without seeing the interior before I closed on the deal. When I first started flipping houses, almost every house we bought was from the foreclosure sale. When you buy houses from the foreclosure sale, you often do not get a chance to see the inside...

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Podcast 143 What is an Automated Investment Fund? With Ray Sturm

On this weeks episode of the InvestFourMore Real Estate Podcast, I interview Ray Sturm who was one of the founders of Realty Shares and is the current CEO and founder of Alphaflow. Alphaflow is a company that brings a brand new investing concept to the market. They invest in hard...

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Welcoming a New Season with Society6

Spring is finally and officially here. You either fall in a few camps: 1) excited that winter is over and warmer temperatures are on the horizon, 2) still experiencing Winter and awaiting the day when the snowstorm passes, or 3) dreading allergy season. ;) Regardless, the turn of a new season means a fresh wardrobe + new color palettes. Here are a few things I’m eyeing to get from Society6 to invite Spring into my own home:

Red flowers notebook by Designlovelab

OK throw pillow by Anna Dorfman

Sweater Struggles framed art print by Rebecca Flattley

Yellow Wildflowers comforter by Nadja

Wont waste another day rug by Hanna Kastl-Lungberg

Don’t forget to have fun art print by Helo Birdie

Wave Your Hands framed art print by Hands-On!

Soul wall clock by LEEMO

In an ongoing effort to support independent artists from around the world, Design Milk is proud to partner with Society6 to offer The Design Milk Dairy, a special collection of Society6 artists’ work curated by Design Milk and our readers. Proceeds from the The Design Milk Dairy help us bring Design Milk to you every day.

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