ICFF Cometh! Stylus, Bernhardt Announce Winners of Inaugural American Design Honors

Emerging Designer of the Year Jonah Takagi of Washington, D.C.-based Atelier Takagi and his “American Gothic” table

The International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) kicks off this Saturday at New York’s cavernous Jacobs Javits Center, and our UnBeige mailboxes (real and virtual) runneth over with exciting news, events, and promises of fresh-from-the-studio furniture and objets. We’re particularly excited about the American Design Honors, a new annual award program sponsored by Stylus (a forecasting service for the interiors, design, and lifestyle industries founded by WGSN’s Marc Worth) and Bernhardt Design, whose Fabien Baron-designed B.1 chair is a coveted perch at UnBeige HQ. Developed to support the future of American product design, the American Design Honors will provide both exposure and financial support to young designers. The inaugural honorees are Jonah Takagi of Washington D.C.-based Atelier Takagi (Emerging Designer of the Year), and Ini Archibong, a student at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena (Student Designer of the Year). Both honorees will be hosted by Stylus and Bernhardt Design at ICFF and will each receive a cash honorarium. A short award ceremony will take place on Saturday at 4 p.m. at the Bernhardt Design booth.

Born in Tokyo and raised in Connecticut, Takagi is a 2002 graduate of RISD. He founded Studio Takagi in 2005 and made a splash at last year’s ICFF with his “American Gothic” table, inspired by the irresistable combination of “Tinkertoys, Windsor chairs, and wayward Puritans.” His milk-painted “Leafy Green” stool riffs on “milking stools the world over, standing tall in maple socks.” Worth describes Takagi’s work as “demonstrat[ing] the hallmarks of American design: economy of materials, restraint of line, authenticity and simplicity, and practicality coupled with a strong sense of optimism.” Student Designer of the Year Archibong was born and raised in Pasadena, and is an undergraduate in the Environmental Design Department at Art Center, where he first came to the attention of <b<Jerry Helling, president of Bernhardt Design. “Ini has the potential to become one of America’s design ‘storytellers,’ where product and narrative share equal billing.” Archibong, who has interned at the New York and San Francisco offices of Eight Inc., points to Alphonse Mucha, Santiago Calatrava, and Buckminster Fuller as his greatest influences.

Student Designer of the Year Ini Archibong, a junior at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena

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