combining 3 smaller apartments into one at one of new york city's most coveted uptown addresses, we delivered a stunning new dwelling on the 61st floor of the metropolitan tower. every single room is constructed so that the postcard view of central park is the star. with a built-in wraparound sofa, a secret door in the solid walnut library and distributed surround sound all over the home, this project is an ode to the 80s during which the building was erected.

suited for a family of 4 with 2 children, the communal living spaces stands in between the master suite and the kids' rooms, hidden behind the aforementioned trap door in the library, thereby providing a buffer of sight and sound.

the kitchen and dining area is the only ones wrapped in waxed concrete thereby giving it a theatrical feel, especially when see from the rest of the apartment which is clad in bleached pine and subdued colors.

after almost 6 months of planning, the countdown finally came to a halt and we made good on delivering a world's first in the form of a new car model being dramatically unveiled at one of the world's premier shows. without a car. the pitch at the infiniti's nashville headquarters a few months again went a little something like this: "what if we welcomed people inside an empty tent!..." i said to a room full of executives. "what if we didn't and say we did? and actually what if you got out of this building and never came back?!" i was prepared to hear. but no, they listened, attentively, at the seemingly crazy plan we at theapt had devised while trying to outdo ourselves from last year's house of inspiration.
agencies like mine usually waltz into conference rooms like theirs arguing that positioning is the single most important part of marketing but we omit to make clear that saying such things positions us as "holders of a truth" for our clients. truth is a dangerous concept for a creative agency to lay claim to as it is one that, to paraphrase a great man, cannot possibly be written in ink, only found in nature. which got us thinking... truth only reveals itself when one gives up all preconceived ideas such as the ideal of a supposed infallible process to sell more cars. that is what we wanted to propose.

envisioned as a powerful and stirring experience, the infiniti journey of inspiration is emotionally involved within the world of the car company. welcomed into the tent, we are shown, not told about, the muses and motivations that have, over the past 20 years, guided the designers and engineers behind every single vehicle. we encounter face-to-face, not are simply presented with, the creativity and inventiveness with which problems are solved and opportunities taken. we, finally, are surprised and delighted by the revelation that infiniti has apparently given away the sources of its own inspiration. by way of a technology called mapping projection, invented and patented by our good friends at klip collective the guests will be surrounded 360° by visual and aural expressions of the brand in a way that has never before been achieved. the goal is absolute involvement. the goal is to tell the story of a myriad journeys taken in the cars. the goal is to invite and inspire.

and that is what we did.

a love story set in paris during the second world war, marguerite draws inspiration from one of the greatest of romantic novels, la dame aux camélias by alexandre dumas.

marguerite is the beautiful and notorious mistress of a high ranking german officer. armand is a young musician half her age who falls obsessively in love with her. their dangerous love story is played out against the background of occupied paris.

marguerite will be the world premiere of a collaboration between the creators of les misérables and miss saigon and the oscar award-winning musical legend michel legrand. we had the great privilege of being asked to design the branding and marketing materials for the season run in london's west end.

re-brand an iconic new york restaurant

the apartment designs event for infiniti car company in pebble beach

one bedroom apartment

it's not everyday you get the call to furnish a church for living. we jumped on a plane to london and dedicated ourselves to the task at hand by first looking at the fact that a family with two children would live here. this needed to be a friendly house as well as mindful of the once-sacred ground. by bringing in a lot of modern pieces of art, we subdued the seriousness while at the same time leaving the old stained glass windows intact so as to consider them as art objects as well. a color code was assigned to each room by way of solid rugs. simple furnishings were brought in as not to compete with the incredibly detailed shell.

small apartment renovation

after a while, even the best of intentions get old. that's exactly how we felt about our own identity, which had carried us from 2000 to 2007.

in the re-design of our identity, we choose a vernacular system that embodied the notion of commonality. as such, all print pieces (except envelopes) come packaged in bound pads of thin sheets of paper" reminiscent of classic writing tablets. the writing tablet symbology is extended to our new website where all information (studio projects, blog entries, etc.) is compartmentalized into dimensional modules designed to look like stacks of paper.

the new logo (featuring Lineto’s Akkurat) with its modified second t that has a serif-like ball terminal, was meant to evoke the considered combination of a neutral sans-serif typeface with decorative-like punctuation. the mix of styles also evokes an obvious comparison of contrasts, a common facet of our design practice.

all variants of identity , collateral feature an abbreviated list of tag categories derived from our cultural design portal, words that not only function to organize information on our website (for example, JESUS refers to all things religious), but also succinctly describes our cultural interests and informs our design practice. each business card tablet is a stack of 12 different cards (with different combinations of website tags) repeated 8 times (96 cards per tablet) as a consequence of the structure, individuals get a different card depending on the position in the stack.

except for the business cards, all print pieces also feature a digitized (set at 72 dpi) re-work of William Morris’ Acanthus wallpaper, a decorative element that stands in sharp contrast to the use of stark typography and not-so-subtly hints at an interior design element commonly found in an apartment.
winner design 100 step inside design magazine. self-promotion category:
http://www.stepinsidedesign.com/STEPMagazine/Article/28860/0/page/7

a series of magazines promoting theaptLIFE