It’s not easy to break into the design world, especially not in this economy. So it’s encouraging when younger, emerging professionals not only have the guts and gumption to produce consistent work, but also to do so with strong, fresh visual identities. AN Interior selected a quartet of rising talents that each offer a distinct style but are united by an emphasis to rethink craft, either by repurposing waste or using traditional methods in new ways, and narrative design. The following are a promising collection of new talent in the industry.
Ingemar Hagen Keith
Based in Portland, Oregon, Ingemar Hagen Keith founded their furniture and object design studio, Marmar, in 2023 with a quest to animate the inanimate. Keith designs objects so that utility becomes an extension of character. With the Ibbit Stool, Keith deploys this ethos with playful results. The stool contrasts a baby blue corduroy seat with ash legs. The joinery between the two is left exposed, highlighting the duo’s juxtaposed connection. Meanwhile, carved textures on the top of the legs mimic the lined textures of the textile, finding unity between the two. For the next chapter of Marmar’s work, Keith is exploring the explicitly sculptural for their residency at Rex Hill Winery in Oregon. They will also design a permanent outdoor sculpture for the winery’s tasting room. The new work is sure to expand Keith’s warm and joyful style.
Lauren Goodman
Environmental consideration serves as the backbone of Laura Goodman’s furniture design and eponymous studio. In particular, this concern informs her choice of materials, many of which are sourced from regional waste streams. Her collection, Fresh Catch, uses derelict lobster traps salvaged off the coast of New England. Goodman deconstructs and then reassembles them into wired bookshelves and hourglass-shaped side tables as colorful reclamations of waste. More recently, the Montreal-based designer created a splayed vase, titled Desert, made from offcut leopardwood that’s then transformed into a veneer and laminated. The process uses pressure to reshape the material, which is typically brittle and prone to fractures, into gentle curves. In using the seemingly unpractical material for the sculptural form, Goodman meditates on notions of fragility and patience. The vase, like the rest of her work, meaningfully considers material in its relation to structure and place.
Yuxuan Huang
Based in New York and China, Yuxuan Huang is a furniture and lighting designer. Her work employs the use of found furniture, which she stitches and collages together. Dream Tower, for instance, was created by mending together wood salvaged from a 1800s chest of drawers. The stitches uniting the different pieces are left visible, exposing Huang’s detailed material and craft. The shades of the lamp are made from hand-painted Mashi paper and bamboo using traditional Chinese lantern and kite-making techniques. Huang continued this design at this year’s COLLECTIBLE New York. Her new iterations use Kozo paper to capture the dreamy hues of butterflies, swallows, and mountains—motifs in Chinese folklore. Huang’s work has already begun making the design fair rounds, even as she earned her MFA in furniture design from Rhode Island School of Design in 2024. Her poetic approach to salvaged materials is sure to evolve with each new piece.
Tiarra Bell
Tiarra Bell uses her belief in religion and spirituality to guide her furniture and lighting designs. Based in Philadelphia, the founder of Bellafonté Studio approaches her designs with the intimacy of personal diary entries. The Mountain Chair, a minimal piece of bent white oak veneer, was inspired by Bell’s moving experience of watching the sun rise over the Swiss Alps. Curving pieces of wood translate the experience, as well as the significance of mountains in the Bible. Other works, like the Bondage Pendant, serve as a testament to hold fast in her beliefs: Crafted from a wooden aperture with a gold leaf inlay inside, the hand-sculpted lighting illuminates a golden suspended halo, creating a visual reminder of faith. Bell’s designs reveal a personable and relatable vulnerability through formal purity and narrative concept.