Outside The Box 4.0

WantedDesign and Toronto Design Offsite Festival will partner up for the second year in a row to present Outside the Box. Collaborating with local correspondents, WantedDesign and Toronto Design Offsite Festival will bring specific creative vision from six US cities and five Canadian cities through an unexpected selection of objects to fit in unique boxes. The concept/theme “multiple” will unite the bankers boxes that each city fills with original works from local designers.

Check out the event photo album of Outside The Box event in Toronto in January 2016.

Between the mass-produced and hand-crafted, by Toronto Design Offsite Festival
Extending the theme of multiples to the extreme, Outside the Box – Toronto looks at forms and materials of mass-production, but from the scale of the hand-crafted. From acetate eyewear handmade near Corso Italia to iPhone cases printed with original artwork in the Junction, designer-makers in neighbourhoods throughout Toronto are innovating models of local production. The resulting work is playful, referential, practical, and will fit in your handbag.

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Toronto correspondent: Toronto Design Offsite Festival

“Houston box”, by Mike Garman
The idea of “multiple” can refer to an identical replication, as well as a varying iteration, of an individual element. This collection explores the concept of “multiple” in both of these senses, playing with repetition and variation of form, material, color, and function.

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Houston correspondent: Mike Garman

Designers:
Shop Evens: shopevens.com/
Kari Breitigam: karibreitigam.com/jewelry
Kathrine Zeren: www.kathrinezeren.com
David Tsai: www.davidtsai.net
Studio WAC: www.studiowac.com
Garman Furniture: www.garmanfurniture.com
Wyatt Little: wyattlittle.com

“Chicagoland” by Ben Stagl from Chicago
As a city defined by strong relationships that are built between designers and local manufacturing, the contemporary design hub show highlights the best cross section of upcoming American designers in the midwest region. Focusing on materials and fabrication techniques that are characteristic of the windy city, Chicagoland features design work in metal, wood, glass and plastic with the highest quality materials and craftsmanship.

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Chicago correspondent: Ben Stagl

“Edmonton box” by Chris Provins & Carmen Douville from Edmonton
In a city that is somewhat isolated, the local designers have pioneered their our own way of thinking, doing and making. This year’s theme, “Multiples,” represents the strong undercurrent of opportunity located in the prairies of Alberta.

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Edmonton correspondent: Chris Provins & Carmen Douville

“In Knots” by Breakhouse Inc from Halifax
Using pattern and repetition, “In Knots” conveys the complex feeling of living in Halifax, acknowledging the complex themes that arrise in with the objective of progress and gentrification. The exhibit is a conceptual piece made up of rope, knots, and beadwork to form a rope-quilt patterned map of Halifax’s historic & modern street network. As a tool geographic, it explores the points of tension in the city, physically and historically.

Halifax correspondent: Breakhouse Inc. | www.breakhouse.ca
Designers:
Breakhouse Inc. is represented by Margot Durling, Delaine Tiniakos-Doran, Megan Fildes, and Janine Basha.

“LA box” by Erin Brown, from Los Angeles
Home to a thriving community, Los Angeles designers are actively producing work rooted in nature with a nod to mid-century architecture and design. Key to the ‘multiples’ theme, these artists and makers are keeping material front and center, working in wood, iron, brass and concrete. The exhibition itself playfully explores a range of materials, exacting craftsmanship, curious handmade forms, and pleasantly unexpected forms.

Los Angeles correspondent: Erin Brown | www.eb-la.co

“Omniforme” by Zoë Mowat from Montreal
Bringing together unique works from designers and denizens of a vibrant and multi-faceted city, Montreal’s box “Omniforme” focuses on design elements to echo the dynamic layers of cultures, languages, seasons, and architecture. Through use of geometry, color, texture, and material, the curated objects use materials that are approached and explored in new ways: using crocheted metal, bent sheet brass, and pressed wood fibre, and so on.

Montreal correspondent: Zoë Mowat | www.zoemowat.com

“City in the Woods” by Sabine Modder from Ottawa
Known as the city surround by woods, Ottawa deals with extremes such as weather (temperatures that range from way below freezing to way above freezing) and geography (how to get from the deeps woods to the office building via bike paths and roadways). In response, multiples represent the multi-purpose items that enable multi-tasks that are necessary to Ottawa’s multi-faceted locality.

Ottawa correspondent: Sabine Modder | www.sabinemodder.com

Designers:
Warehouse | www.warehousebrand.com
Brendon Taylor & Laura Langford, Matchstick Design | www.matchstickdesign.ca
Sarah Dobbin | www.facebook.com/SarahDobbinCeramics
Emil Mateja | www.emilmateja.com
Workshop Studio and Boutique | www.workshopboutique.ca

“Photo Adventure” by MadeHere PDX from Portland
Portland’s lush landscape necessitates adventure and capturing those moments is precisely the reason why this box contains everything you need to need document the trip and and gear to sustain you along the way. From Portland made camera gear to snacks to keep you sustained, and a notebook to record the details of your trip, this collection is equal parts durable and adorable with objects like a backpack to hold it all, and a box that can be re-purposed as a stool, a table, or a tripod.

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Portland correspondent: MadeHere PDX | www.madeherepdx.com

“Seattle box” by Darin Montgomery from Seattle
In lieu of theme “Multiples,” multiple uses, pieces, and materials, are reprentative of the aesthetic styles special to Seattle. Inside the box, each studio has approached the idea in their own way, resulting in multiple interpretations. The diverse set of works represents a small cross section of what design looks like and how it responds to the Emerald City.

Seattle correspondent: Darin Montgomery | www.urbancase.com

Designers:
Fruit super Design (Joe Kent and Sallyann Corn) | www.fruitsuperdesign.com
Maiden Noir (Christa Thomas and Nin Truong) | www.maidennoir.com
Rachel Ravitch | www.rachelravitch.com
Small Craft Studio (Jared Randall) | www.smallcraftstudio.com
Darin Montgomery and Charlie Schuck | www.urbancase.com | www.charlieschuck.com
Grain (James and Chelsea Minola) | www.graindesign.com
Free Time Industries (Kate Bailey) | www.katebailey.com
Brian Beck | www.studioegallery.org/artists/brian-a-beck

“Dinner For Two” by Chad Phillips & Zoe Fisher from New York City
New York captures the hustle and bustle of a city like no other. Being one of the largest intersections of art and commerce, NY designers constantly shuffle between worlds of Fashion, Art, and Design with ease. The New York City designers chosen create products that live somewhere between these worlds. Unique forms and unique materials are combined to build a fantasy of dining in this set that speaks to the very nature of multiples in our daily life. Plates, cups, flatware, candles, and all the parts that go into a table setting are multiples we use daily—and are more fun with a friend!

New York correspondent: Chad Phillips & Zoe Fisher

Outside The Box is a program co-presented with

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