Graphic designer Lawrence Azerrad, a native of Los Angeles, grew up drawing pictures and fighting the inferiority complex that comes with being a “normal” in the city of stars. Since then he’s designed iconic album covers like Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, won a Grammy for the Voyager Golden Record: 40th Anniversary Edition box set, and authored & designed a book, Supersonic, about the fabulous style of Concorde. Turns out having his head in the clouds, playing amongst the stars, is right where he belongs.

Architect and founding partner of experimental design studio The Principals, Drew Seskunas grew up surfing, getting arrested for skateboarding and navigating the social divide between jocks and artists. In high school, a documentary on Frank Lloyd Wright piqued his interest and set him on course to architecture school. Within a decade, he was building a large public project in Berlin while struggling to argue in German. Now, he’s creating interactive and mind-bending environments that shift perspectives.

Designer, artist, author and influencer Justina Blakeney, spent her youth teaching art to abused/neglected teenage girls at a residential treatment program run by her parents, where she witnessed the healing power of art and kindness. After formative years in Switzerland and Italy, she settled in Los Angeles and harnessed the Internet to build Jungalow, an immensely popular lifestyle brand inspired by her travels and her multicultural background, fueled by a deep belief in the empowering magic of art and kindness.

Artist and designer, Chris Schanck, moved upwards of 22 times in his youth. He credits Uncle Rocco with firing up his creative engine at an early age, and an arts magnet school in adolescence with “saving his life.” That’s not an overstatement. Fast forward a few years and he’s developed a distinct visual language, has a solo show at a prestigious gallery under his belt, and critically successful body of work. Now, he’s built a life and studio in Detroit, where he is attempting to put down some roots.

Ingrid LaFleur is an artist, curator, pleasure activist, cannabis advocate and founder of Afrotopia, a creative platform that looks for ways to implement afrofuturist principles. She is also a very emphatic and supportive native of Detroit. In fact, in 2017 she ran for Mayor and created a plan of action that included radical thought, innovative ideas and solid brilliant logic. She’s doing the work, gently and joyfully crafting a future of conscious co-liberators, decentralized power and decolonized minds.

We teamed up with COS for this Clever Extra to celebrate the exquisite art of Dorothea Rockburne. Courtney J. Martin, Chief Curator of Dia Art Foundation, elaborates on Rockburne’s conceptual approaches and techniques while offering us a view of her curatorial methods in mounting a long-term exhibition of her work. Karin Gustafsson, Creative Director for COS, reveals how her admiration for Rockburne’s work - the lines, textures and simplicity of materials, inspired the direction of the current collection.

Furniture designer Maximilian Eicke grew up being schlepped around the world to galleries and and antiques shops by his art dealer father. All that input served to make him feel at home anywhere in the world and yet, in a quasi-rebellious sort of way, instilled in him the desire to create something original. His childhood was both blessed by love and privilege and cursed by bullying and attempts to invalidate his creativity—a recipe for gratitude, perspective, and turbo drive to disprove the naysayers.

Architect Barbara Bestor’s childhood memories involve Brutalist architecture and purple carpeted stairs. She divided her youth between the East Coast, Germany and the Midwest, before venturing to Los Angeles, the land of sunshine and smog, to make her mark. Over twenty years later, her studio is responsible for some of the most culturally relevant workplaces, hospitality venues and experimental residences in the greater Los Angeles area. Now she’s thinking a lot about urban density and the 2028 Olympics.

Industrial designer Ti Chang is co-founder and creative director of Crave, a start-up dedicated to innovative and elevated sex toys. Originally from Taiwan, as a child Ti moved with her family to the U.S. and grew up feeling out of place in small-town Georgia. Loneliness had its upside though; less friends, more creative time! An independent thinker and brave warrior for female empowerment, she’s on a mission to eradicate shame and guilt, and believes all women should own their pleasure. Amen, sister!

We teamed up with Tarkett for this Clever Extra to take a deep dive into Neoculture - a term coined to describe the way diverse cultures are coming together as never before to create entirely new cultures with new values. Suzanne Tick, a product and textile designer, and Chris Stulpin, Chief Creative Officer for Tarkett have done extensive research into the attitudinal shifts and megatrends that inform Neoculture, how it impacts the future of the built world, and why it matters to the design community.