NoMad, Manhattan is home to a number of successful, growing businesses across a variety of industries. We are speaking with them about how they approach business, what fuels their success, and what they see as they look to the future. Business owners share thoughts and insights on their winning approach.

Jake Halper and Amanda Miller-Burg, business partners of Field Blend Selections are at the forefront of Polyculture with their unique approach to the wine business.

Field Blend Selections

Field Blend Selections imports and distributes wines from around the world. Founded in 2017 by Jake Halper, it is based in the St. James Building in NoMad, New York. They celebrate a tried and true agricultural tradition, polyculture, and aim to provide compelling diversity in their offerings. Many of the grapes come from working farms that grow a variety of vines co-planted with other crops, and also have sheep, chickens, and cattle. Polyculture is one of the best methods for enriching soil and reducing disease. Therefore, there is less need for herbicides or pesticides, and the grapes produced are naturally healthier. Field Blend Selections makes it a point to work with organic producers and emphasize diversity.

Keys to Success: the Ability to Pivot & Persistence

Halper believes the ability to pivot and persistence are two of the key attributes that contribute to Field Blend Selections’ current success. Field Blend Selections sells to restaurants and retailers. In 2020, during the beginning of the pandemic, half of their clients were shut down. This meant Field Blend needed to pivot and focus on expanding its customer base. Halper points out that during this time, wine-to-go was a lifeline for restaurants that did remain open (though currently, wine-to-go is no longer allowed).

As retailers and restaurants reopened, Field Blend made a concerted effort to send or drop off samples in person. Their pivot to an expanded customer base combined with personal persistence in servicing their clients as the world around them shifted, has paid off.

Trends in Business and Evolving Client Demand

Miller-Burg and Halper discussed trends in their business and how they are meeting the evolving demands of clients.

Organic Wines with Minimal Additives

Clients are paying more attention to what’s in their beverages and are looking for wines that are organic with minimal additives. This speaks to clients’ heightened desire for, and the pursuit of health in all things. While this mindset is not new to Field Blend Selections, they are well positioned to deliver on this growing demand.

Lower Alcohol and No Alcohol Wines

Lower and no alcohol wines and beverages are also becoming more popular. This meets demands for a possibly healthier, more moderate approach to drinking, without sacrificing the enjoyment or appreciation of a good bottle of wine.

More Adventurous Wine Choices

Although the pandemic brought significant challenges, one of its silver linings is that people became more adventurous in trying new wines. Unable to travel to new places, they explored varietals and vintners that were more exotic and less well known.

As more wines are being made in different parts for the world, Field Blend Selections has explored beyond the usual go-to regions (think France, Spain, Italy…) and offers distinctive wines from Soviet Georgia and Slovenia. They represent wines from Germany, Austria, Chile, Portugal, the United States, and more – and also offer wines made from lesser-known varieties.

Miller-Burg observed that at the height of the pandemic, some people wanted the familiar, but others wanted to experiment with what’s new. Field Blends offered both. And because people weren’t spending money on travel, they began spending more on wine.

What’s Next for Field Blend Selections?

Like many, Halper doesn’t love Zoom. However, it has allowed them to do more outreach with growers. They look forward to traveling to meet growers in person again – exploring new wines in Germany, attending a wine fair in France, venturing through Italy, and visiting several of the newer wine-growing regions that are cropping up around the world.

Business at Home in NoMad

When Field Blend Selections began, Halper worked from home. Soon it was apparent he needed an office and he started his search for a place to set up business. He explored WeWork type situations and an assortment of neighborhoods, but many “just weren’t my vibe,” says Halper.

Before long, it became clear that Field Blend Selections’ business felt at home in NoMad. “I loved the Madison Square Park area and remember when the stretch was a little edgier, which I liked.”

The office he found in Kew Management’s historic St. James Building was private and the right price. The history of the building and its surrounding neighborhood were appealing. Miller-Burg points out it’s convenient to access from all parts of the city, and several subway lines are close by. Customers can easily come for in-person tastings, which are essential in the wine business.

Miller-Burg and Halper host intimate tastings in their office and will use Kew’s conference rooms for larger tastings. Since moving in, their business has grown and they have taken over the space next door.

Favorite Part of NoMad: Madison Square Park

Without hesitation, both declared Madison Square Park as their favorite part of NoMad. “Plus, Rizzoli bookstore is downstairs.” They both appreciate the neighborhood’s growing emphasis on outdoor space, as the NoMad Piazza has come into being in recent years.

Miller-Burg elaborates on the appeal of NoMad, “Jake lives north of the office and I come from the south. He sees all of the new construction that’s happening in NoMad, which is exciting, while on my ‘morning commute’ I see the Flatiron, the Empire State Building, I walk by Eataly – what so many tourists come to New York to see.”

NoMad, Manhattan is home to a number of successful, growing businesses across a variety of industries. We are speaking with them about how they approach business, what fuels their success, and what they see as they look to the future. Business owners share thoughts and insights on their winning approach.

Founder Gaby Gargano and Partner Kyle McVey discuss the growth of Grisoro Studio, an interior design firm focused on residential design. The Studio was established by Gabriela Gargano in 2016, after having spent 10 years at Goldman Sachs as a Sales Trader. Gargano’s Art History studies at Brown University sparked an interest in Ottoman art, which has evolved into a passion for international artists and fabricators. The details and techniques of such works inform the Studio’s unique approach of combining textiles, vintage furniture, and art with contemporary pieces.

Keys to Success

Gargano and McVey feel there are several keys to the success of Grisoro Studio. At the core are respect, transparency, and a deep understanding of their clients.

Respect and Transparency

Gargano explains, “Grisoro is founded on respect and transparency.” This applies to everyone involved – clients and vendors alike. In today’s climate of supply chain issues and delays, managing the business with these principles at the forefront has helped to maintain good relationships across the board.

Deeply Understand Clients and Partner with Them

Gargano and McVey believe much of their success stems from their ability to deeply understand their clients and partner with them. Grisoro Studio brings its own design aesthetic and taste, but listening to what clients need and want enable them to deliver the goods. Through ongoing communication and partnership, they create interiors that fit how clients want to live and reflect the design direction they had hoped to achieve.

Expanding Business

A majority of Grisoro Studio’s projects are in New York, but they are expanding business to new areas. They just completed their first Miami project and they are designing a new project in Texas.

Gargano reflects back to 2019 when she moved her business out of her home and into its “first real office” in The Townsend Building at 1123 Broadway. Since then, the business has grown and moved to a larger space next door in the St. James Building. “It’s been awesome.”

Reflecting on how the pandemic affected business, Gargano shares that “a lot has changed, but a lot has stayed the same.” Working remotely for a year was a change, but certainly not as significant as having a child, which is growth and change of a different kind.

In the spring of last year, the firm came back to the office. The staff enjoys working together, especially in a business as tactile as interiors. “There is incredible value in being able to work together as a team – in person – to review materials and colors.”

At the beginning of 2021, as Grisoro Studio continued its growth trajectory, Kyle McVey became a Partner in the firm.

Projects have been successful and they are garnering more and more exciting projects. The quantity and breadth of work allows Gargano and McVey to grow as designers on an ongoing basis.

Trends in Interiors: Clients are Looking at Space Differently

The pair identifies two macro trends in interior design today.

Looking Beyond the Great Room

Pre-pandemic, bigger spaces and all-purpose rooms were all the rage. Now, clients are “looking for something beyond the Great Room.” They want and need more division in their homes, like separate offices or workrooms for each person. Areas that used to be all-purpose are less useful as the need for functionality and discrete space rises.

Dialing Up Home as a Reflection of Self

As clients spend more time at home, there is an increased desire to have their homes reflect themselves – even more than before the pandemic. Gargano astutely describes her clients’ relationship to home, “Their home is who they are. How they live. And how they wish to be.”

NoMad is the Best Fit for Business

Gargano, who lives in Nolita, knew as soon as she discovered NoMad, it was the best fit for the business.

“As a design firm, the office space needed to feel beautiful and inspiring.” Gargano points out that a nice, small office is hard to find. Kew Management’s buildings offered tall ceilings and large windows. She was taken with the history, nostalgia, and heritage of the Townsend and the St. James. “I wanted clients to walk in and feel comfortable immediately.”

Additionally, “It’s an easy area – not far from anything. A large number of [design] showrooms like Artistic Tile, Waterworks, and PID Floors are all close by.”

NoMad Offers More

NoMad offers even more than the two expected. The NoMad Piazza combined with Madison Square Park is one of Gargano’s favorite aspects of the neighborhood. “It’s a perk I didn’t expect – it wasn’t on my list. But the ability to be near an open green space for mental clearing and inspiration is something I enjoy. It’s invaluable.” Having Eataly nearby is a plus, too.

McVey remarks on the excitement in NoMad, commenting on the strip of Broadway that has become the NoMad Piazza. “I love seeing new places opening up. It’s a lively neighborhood with unexpected things.”

As certain as NoMad will continue to thrive and bring excitement to New York, Grisoro Studio will continue to expand and bring their distinctive talents to more of the world.

LTL Architects, headquartered in Kew’s very own building at 227 West 29th Street, is one of many examples of our talented tenants who are at the forefront of their respective industries. The firm has just wrapped up a wildly successful year in 2019, as it was honored with several accolades and saw the completion of various major projects across the country. To highlight some of its most notable achievements, it was granted the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) New York State Firm of the Year Award, and its partners were inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame in homage to their lasting contributions to the design industry.

Throughout the firm’s prolific past, it has catered to a lengthy list of clients, among which are major universities, such as Brown, Cornell, Columbia, and NYU, museums including the MoMA and National Building Museum, state institutions like New York’s departments of design and construction, parks and recreation, and housing, and even retail companies like Urban Outfitters. Given the breadth of its clientele, it is unsurprising to find its portfolio of previous projects ranges from large-scale academic and cultural buildings to intimate interiors to speculative research projects.

Yet a firm is only as successful as the minds who built it. LTL was founded in 1997 by Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki, and David J. Lewis. All three men not only come from strong architectural backgrounds, as one would expect from work of their caliber, but also continue to mold the next generation of aspiring architects and designers by remaining active in academia. Paul, who received his bachelor’s from Wesleyan and his master’s from Princeton, remains a professor at the latter. He also heads New York’s Architectural League and is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome. Marc received his degrees from the University of Virginia and Princeton and is now an adjunct associate professor at Columbia while serving as the newly minted president of the Storefront for Art and Architecture. David completed two master’s degrees in art and architecture at Princeton and Cornell and now teaches at the Parsons School of Design.

The three men, who met while studying at Princeton, first began collaborating on side projects in their downtime while working for separate established firms (Diller + Scofidio, Joel Sanders Architect, and Peter Guggenheimer Architects) and teaching at universities. Their efforts were rewarded when the Storefront for Art and Architecture offered to display examples of their work in the gallery in the summer of 1997. The trio leaped at the chance and immersed themselves in creating “an illusory body of work” in a mere four months. Simultaneously, they fleshed out an accompanying academic theory that would come to underpin all future projects.

Impressive credentials aside, it is this creative philosophy that shapes their firm. They uniquely focus on “inventive solutions,” which entails capitalizing on a project’s challenges or limitations to produce stunning and resourceful design results. The partners quite aptly refer to their work as “a combination of pragmatism and invention” that ventures into “the imaginative, the extraordinary, and, in some cases, the surreal.” You can read more about their singular approach to design in their critically acclaimed published works: Manual of Selection, Intensities, Opportunistic Architecture, and Situation Normal…Pamphlet Architecture #21.

The final result of the firm’s vision is work that is far more than just functional, but rather valued for its artistic merit. Visitors to the spaces it crafts are often enchanted by their joyful, unconstrained, and deliberately contradictory spirit. These qualities are evident in its willingness to be unexpected and even, as David says, to appear to be “completely irrational” — a deceptive picture that ignores the brilliant and creative logic on which all of the firm’s projects are based. Examples of LTL’s past achievements are permanently displayed in the MoMA, San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art, and the Carnegie Museum of Art. It was even featured at the US Pavilion at the 2004 Venice Architecture Biennale.

One of its most recently celebrated works is the Poster House, which opened in June 2019 and earned the firm an AIA NY Honors Award for its interior design. The 14,500 square-foot space is entirely dedicated to displaying over 7,000 examples of poster art — the first of its kind in the US. Visit the stunning location to admire the works of Milton Glasser, Shephard Fairley, and other poster icons, set against the surprising backdrop of city streets brought indoors.

The firm admits to a particular fondness for designing these communal spaces that play with the public and private, or interior and exterior. Other standout projects in this genre include the Helen R. Walton Children’s Enrichment Center and HighQ Education Center in Arizona, which the firm professes to be one of the healthiest early childhood learning facilities in the country; Upson Hall, a sleek, energy-efficient new research laboratory for Cornell’s engineering school; the renovated Contemporary Austin-Jones Center for art in Texas, which is a popular social space as much as it is a museum immediately recognizable from its elevated aluminum canopy; and Columbia University’s redesigned, adaptable Joseph D. Jamail Lecture Hall, highlighted for its suspended ceiling complete with custom panels that allow for optimal lighting, mechanical systems, and acoustics in the multi-use space.

Eleven new projects are reportedly already in the planning stages, soon to join the ranks of the roughly 130 completed works the firm’s remarkably small twelve- to twenty-person office boasts. Far from resting on its laurels, we expect LTL to continue to produce stunning projects that shine a spotlight on NoMad’s boundless potential in the art and design world.

For the 125 years that the Townsend and St. James have stood, they have hosted the offices of some great names in architecture and interior design.  In the beginning, the famous architects who designed the Townsend and St. James, Cyrus Eidlitz and Bruce Price, respectively, had their offices here, along with Daniel Burnham, the architect of the nearby Flatiron Building and the World’s Columbia Exposition, and many others.

Today is no different, with well over 100 architectural and interior design firms, the buildings maintain their past heritage.  There are dozens of prize-winning firms here, and a few years ago, NYC&G focused on more than 21 in a two-page spread, which showed the wealth of popular designers in 1123 and 1133 Broadway.

Recently, Architectural Digest ran another article on 1133 Broadway “This Building Has Been a Design Hub for More Than a Century.  Meet its Tenants.” . The article provided insights into a small group of interior designers with offices here, including: Emily Butler, Bachman Clem , Robert Stilin, Alberto Villalobos, Josh Greene, Young Huh, Danielle Colding, and Shawn Henderson.Read this article and learn about your fellow tenants’ ideas, their designer heroes, where they source their projects, and what work they are most proud of.  Our particular favorite set of responses are the answers to “The designer you would like to meet, living or dead” and “The trend you hope will die.”  We think you’ll find them intriguing and entertaining, too.

Ultimately, the reporter was looking for an answer as to why the buildings have been a design center for generations.  As one goes through the answers provided by these current tenants, one realizes that it probably comes down to three factors that have always been here and one relatively new one:

• Lots of great natural light
• Fellow professionals that challenge and excite
• Classic Gilded Age buildings with enriching detailing
• Nearby access to a huge and diverse collection of showrooms for sourcing

Don’t miss the profile of these exciting designers; you’ll find their views fascinating and their work beautiful.  To learn more about them, visit their websites and enjoy looking at their stunning work.

Cochineal Design, in Kew’s building at 1133 Broadway, is bringing modern simplicity to commercial and residential spaces. Sarah Mendel founded the firm in 2015 and has since amassed a portfolio of high-profile projects in New York, New Jersey, and California.

We sat down recently with Sarah to discuss the quick rise of her interior design firm, the driving principle of her work, and how Cochineal fits into the Kew community. After spending time with Sarah, we recommend you drop by and engage with her—she’s bright, enthusiastic, and fun, with an informing design vision that comes straight from her personality.

Cochineal’s guiding principle is simplicity, and its streamlined and modern interior designs bring a richness of elements, materials, and colors into a focused whole. When we asked about her style, Sarah says simplicity isn’t so much style as an extension of who she is. It is obvious when you meet her that she has a rich life, but her focus and organization are evident in her behavior, dress, and manner. It is easy to understand how Cochineal’s simplicity isn’t evident just in the final design results, but in the efficient and effective execution of every aspect of the company’s workflow, project process, presentation, and problem solving.

A Quick and Unusual Route to Interior Design Success

Sarah, founder and principal designer of Cochineal, interned in real estate development while working toward her undergraduate degree at Colgate.  It made her realize that she was drawn to the design and architectural aspects of the real estate development process.  Upon graduation from Colgate, this interest led her to a position at ICRAVE, an uber-creative firm that reimagines built and digital environments for brands. Because she wasn’t a designer, most of her work with president Lionel Ohayon was on the problem solving side, but she learned an important lesson: creative success is not just doing great design but doing it in the face of demanding practical considerations.

Knowing that there was still a lot for her to learn, she decided to attend Parsons at night for two and a half years while continuing to work in real estate development.  She was on her way, but realized she needed have more hands-on knowledge before striking out on her own.  Upon graduating from Parsons in 2014, she freelanced for a decorator, to learn tricks of the trade and become familiar with the vocabulary of an interior designer—resource centers such as the D&D Building, millwork, fabrics, textures, lighting, and furnishings.

Prepared, she launched Cochineal in 2015, recruiting her former real estate development contacts as her first clients.  Cochineal quickly built a following through referrals and a host of repeat clients. Sarah noted she was fortunate to have had a background in real estate development, as it not only led to fruitful partnerships with former colleagues when building her business but also gave her valuable insights into how the “other side” of the design industry thinks.  This knowledge made it easier to succeed with her first projects and gave her successes to build on from the outset. And what better place to grow than in development. As Sarah said, that is what developers do—they develop one project after another, so there is an opportunity for a good deal of repeat work.

Now, with her business established and growing, Sarah has taken an office in Suite 1125 at 1133 Broadway with her director Risa Pally, whom she first met at Parsons, and they have decorated it beautifully, of course.

Cochineal’s Design Aesthetic and Process

As for Cochineal’s design process, Sarah said it “starts with context … We design with respect to what has gone before.” As the design vocabulary evolves to encompass more time periods, regions in the world, and material applications, the firm selects from the wealth of options with a central goal of avoiding clutter.

Typically, Cochineal’s room compositions feature a light, medium and dark element, with varying textures of “softer” pieces such as fabric or art, “middle” ones such as leather and wood, or “harder” surfaces like metal fixtures. As such, the firm’s spaces are “minimalist-leaning,” because each element is carefully selected to complement the main focus of a given room. Sarah points out that the focus is often a work of art, but may be something quite different, such as exquisite millwork. These principles are evident in the resulting designs.

A Developer’s Office—A real estate developer, who is the source of many of Cochineal’s referrals, paid the firm the splendid compliment of asking it to design his personal office. His criteria were minimal: the design should reflect his development company’s breadth of portfolio and the innovative, high quality of its brand. This could be elusive, as the firm’s brand is not so much a limited set of colors, shapes, and other branding elements, but more a philosophy of an approach to development—creative, responsible, and secure.

Sarah crafted a space that says all of this in a calming and invigorating way that is both timeless and alive. The final office features high-quality materials, artwork, and furniture. Soft tones of blue (his favorite color) reflect a custom ceiling mural based on abstraction of the developer’s signature in shades of blue. Middle warm tones are introduced in wood cabinets  and terracotta-colored leather on the walls.  Harder dark elements that balance the softness are introduced in the black Jean Prouve chairs and the oil rubbed bronze of the desk.

The Half—On the residential side of its portfolio, Cochineal received much acclaim for its Seaport District Townhouse, a staggering achievement given the 12’-0” width of the site. To meet the challenge, Sarah sought to create a soft interior that did not feel cramped, balancing richness and meticulous detail with simplicity and order. Her solutions were brilliant.

• A simple material palette was used to achieve the feeling of fine design without the “busyness” of traditional luxury materials. Ash wood runs throughout, complemented by light-grey concrete for countertops and backsplashes (referencing the Seaport’s cobblestone streets), and all anchored by oil-rubbed bronze fixtures and hardware.
• Sarah gained inspiration from art galleries, selecting large works to enliven and organize the space and avoid visual clutter.
• With such limited space, no elements were allowed to protrude from the wall. Base molding, door trims, backsplashes, outlet receptacles, etc. are all flush. A one-quarter inch reveal made with a reglet runs throughout the house, defining trim details, window casings, room thresholds, etc. Rather than adding carpeting, rotations in wood flooring suggest new thresholds and 98” pocket doors serve as dividers articulating smaller spaces when desired, but allowing the floor to be opened up and flow through like a large gallery space.

The Future

The team typically focuses on one residential project at a time, in conjunction with four to five commercial projects, allowing the company to provide optimal customer service and attention to detail. “I welcome the balance and the different challenges they represent,” Sarah shared, and she is planning to keep it that way. Because Sarah mentioned that Cochineal had completed a retail store for Swoonery jewelry in the fall of 2017, we asked about future retail projects. Sarah told us if it was a good fit, she’d love to do more. Recently she was asked to design a ground floor showroom for one of her vendors. That’s certainly a real testament to the confidence people have in the firm—so projects like this will be welcomed. What she is really looking forward to is restaurant design projects.

Cochineal Finds the Location Has Real Benefits and Enhances its Brand

When Sarah was looking for an office, she focused on NoMad because of the numerous showrooms within easy walking distance and plentiful options for sourcing in the area. What she says she didn’t realize is that there were opportunities right in 1133 at firms such as Mitchell Denburg, kinderMODERN, ArtStar, and others.

“Being in the building with so many accomplished architects and interior designers also gives us a cache of being associated with them as peers. It’s as if our firm reached a new level merely by association with such a well-respected community of designers. Vendors come knocking on our door after they visit other well-known firms to show us their products, and we are immediately in a different realm. Everyone knows ‘1123’ and ’1133;’ we don’t even need a full address. The numbers say fine interior design and architectural center.”

“We didn’t expect it—the biggest true benefit of being in this building—yes, it is a beautiful building, love the lobby, and you guys are great managers—is the spontaneity and frequency with which people just stop at the door and introduce themselves.”

Cochineal Design, LLC
1133 Broadway, Suite 1125
New York, NY. 10010
212 404 6941

cochineal.com

Boulevard Arts is the leading developer of arts-based immersive reality experiences for art, culture and education. The company partners with the world’s leading museums to share their collections through virtual, augmented and mixed reality technology. With unparalleled knowledge of and access to the arts, Boulevard is able to create exceptional, content-rich and user-controlled experiences that make art and culture accessible in everyday life.

Boulevard’s main mission is to educate and encourage inquiry and engagement. Central to Boulevard’s ideology is the belief that access to art and culture and life-long learning are essential to living a well-informed and well-rounded life. The enhanced reality experiences Boulevard offers complement education curriculum across disciplines and open up new possibilities for learning.

In this continuation of our conversation with Co-Founder and CEO Elizabeth L. Reede, we were able to get a more in-depth idea of how Boulevard Arts is able to do the amazing work that it does. Learn more about Boulevard’s process and some exciting opportunities on the horizon for this innovative company.

Behind the Scenes

In Part I of our tenant profile on Boulevard Arts, Elizabeth gave us a comprehensive picture of Boulevard’s mission and the education-based ideology that drives it. Elizabeth also spoke to us in detail about the complicated and cutting-edge technology in play behind the scenes, as well as the process her team adheres to when building Boulevard’s immersive reality experiences.

Boulevard provides content for three distinct platforms: augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR). Each platform is distinct and requires a unique device, so separate technology teams are involved in their development phases. Despite these different requirements, Boulevard’s production process is relatively similar for all three. Using an art gallery as an example, Elizabeth explained what the process looks like. The team goes in with a variety of tools, such as a laser scanner and high-tech cameras, and visually captures all of the information they need. The raw data is then uploaded to the cloud. Simultaneously, Elizabeth’s New York team starts the content development process, which includes researching and writing about the objects included in the experience. Software engineers pull the raw data from the cloud and begin the virtual construction process. At the same time, the engineers are making sure that the renderings are accurate, using the data points to accurately represent the detailing in the frames or the reflections on the floors.

Elizabeth says that it is a constant jockeying. “This isn’t like a manufacturing process where it is passed down an assembly line. Everything is happening at once.” The physical content is loaded in, the voice-overs and music recordings are added, and it all gets mashed together. Then the team starts the quality assurance process. “When we get a build, the whole team starts checking it, and we are essentially trying to break it.” Once the build is ready, it is sent to the client for testing and final approval. All of these steps are important to the production of the high-quality experiences that Boulevard provides.

Making a Name for Boulevard

Boulevard has the technology, but, as Elizabeth notes, the process of getting museums and education companies to move forward and innovate is like “pushing an iceberg.” When it comes to these institutions, they are often stuck in their traditional ways. According to Elizabeth, the willingness of art and education organizations to accept cutting-edge technology, as well as their eagerness to incorporate it into their programming, varies from place to place. Interestingly, five years ago, when Boulevard was just getting started, European institutions tended to be more open than their counterparts in America.

That said, the technology advances so quickly that even open-minded organizations tend to fall behind. Museums will throw money at “digital departments,” but, in Elizabeth’s experience, the focus is often on imaging and website design, instead of truly groundbreaking technologies. In fact, in the beginning, Elizabeth often found that she had to educate digital teams herself when it came to Boulevard’s virtual, augmented and mixed reality applications. However, as these technologies are becoming more mainstream, things are beginning to change. “Now everybody is on board, so we have a lot of projects.”

A major key to Boulevard’s success in this area was reaching out to museums and education companies early on. By opening up the conversation five years ago, before everyone was familiar with these technologies, Boulevard was able to establish a reputation as one of the first in the field. “We were there right at the beginning. Now people know the high quality of our work.”

Nevertheless, even with the increased recognition regarding the advantages of incorporating immersive experiences into their programming and Boulevard’s reputation, museums and educators can still be hesitant.

Luckily, Boulevard is unwavering in its mission to make arts and culture available to all. “We do a lot of traveling in order to build relationships with these institutions. The goal of these kinds of meetings and conversations is to encourage a more open mindset and a willingness to expand their comfort zone.” Major museums and education companies have the power to extend Boulevard’s reach, and, while a great deal of progress has already been made, Elizabeth and her team are not slowing down anytime soon.

What’s Next?

With technology advancing at such a rapid pace, there is a lot for Boulevard to be excited about in the future. Elizabeth’s priority is making sure that the company continues to be right at the leading edge. Boulevard is also focused on making sure that all of the experiences they have created up to this point remain functional. “Nothing becomes obsolete. In fact, we’re going through a major sweep and update right now, so that, in the coming years, all of our programs function as smoothly and as quickly as they do today.”

Another priority for Boulevard is ensuring that its materials are accessible to everyone. A large part of that mission is making sure that people are aware that these experiences exist. “We have this amazing stuff, and people who are ‘in the know’ know about it, but how do we make it prevalent in the larger population?” An exciting opportunity to do just that will take place in fall 2020, when Elizabeth’s team presents their immersive experiences at The Africa Center. It is undeniable that virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies are on the rise, and that Boulevard is on the forefront of this trend in the arts and culture sector.

Overall, Elizabeth is a big fan of what she calls “infinity thinking.” Five years ago, when she started Boulevard with Rob Hamwee, someone had the audacity to tell her that the advances she wanted to explore, and which have already now been made, would never happen in her lifetime. She is not one to tolerate that kind of lack of imagination. Roughly quoting Lewis Carroll, she says, “I like to try to think of at least six impossible things before lunch,” because to her, nothing is really impossible. If the technology doesn’t exist yet, she wants to create it. If it will take a year to create instead of six months, that’s fine by her, as long as she’s surrounded by people who believe that anything is possible.

Remarkably, Elizabeth thinks that, in another five years, all of this technology could be available in a pair of glasses. “I believe that if we do not respond to the demographic as it is today, we will miss a whole generation of individuals who want to work in this technology and have fun with it. If young people are reading Moby Dick, why can’t they learn about it through technology? I don’t just mean reading it online. They can construct the whale coming out of the water in a hologram for you to see. There’s one of my impossible things before lunch.” Elizabeth wants Boulevard to be a part of helping people learn about the things they are interested in, so that they can do the things they love. “Consume the content you want, when you want it and how you want to consume it. That just doesn’t seem impossible to me.”

Why the St James is Perfect for Boulevard Arts

 One more thing that makes the future so bright for Boulevard Arts is its recent move to the St. James Building here in NoMad. The firm’s previous offices in Midtown weren’t the right space for Boulevard’s radical innovation. As Elizabeth commented, “I didn’t like the location. It was stressful, and there was absolutely nothing going on there. It was dead compared to NoMad. The reality is, everybody in the creative and technology industries are down here now.” When Elizabeth saw Boulevard’s current office space in the St. James, she knew right away that it was perfect. “Sometimes you just know. I walked in and thought, ‘this is a real building.’ The entablatures, the designs, the original moldings—I was sold.”

As an added bonus, Elizabeth has found common ground with many of her fellow tenants. “I don’t know how to describe it, but the people who choose to be here are all very similar in how they look at life. Being in the building feels interesting and weird and creative and eccentric—and those things make me feel comfortable.” The supportive, kind and interesting atmosphere of the building is exactly what Elizabeth was searching for, and it provides the perfect environment for Boulevard to continue with its groundbreaking work.

Boulevard Arts

1133 Broadway, Suite 1523
New York, NY  10010

http://blvrd.com

Renowned for interiors with strong clean lines; warm, rich palettes; antique and vintage furnishings; and custom upholstery, tenant Robert Stilin is a star of the interior design world.  In a career that has spanned 25 years, his remarkable work has come to grace the homes of the famous, from city townhouses, apartments and lofts to beach retreats and country houses.

Now, Vendome is focusing on fifteen of Stilin’s finest projects in a gorgeous, large format book of 320 pages, with 250 color illustrations.  The photos, by the brilliant interiors, travel and food photographer Stephen Kent Johnson, were edited by Mayer Rus, West Coast editor of Architectural Digest. The resulting assembly of photographs radiates the pure magic that Stilin’s interiors conjure.  Titled Robert Stilin Interiors, the book will be available online and in stores on October 8th.  You can pre-order it here.

If you don’t know fellow tenant Stilin’s work, visit his website at robertstilin.com. We think you will see why he has become so renowned.  His interiors have the unique ability to create a multi-faceted, engaging experience while at the same time exuding a casual, comfortable elegance that evoke a sense of serenity.  As the book makes clear, his projects span a wide range of purposes and life styles be it Hamptons country homes, Palm Beach penthouses, modern apartments on the Upper East Side, or a penthouse office for a millennial media company in the Meatpacking District. His is a unique signature, but one that always addresses the needs and tastes of each client.

Stilin’s work has been featured in several interior design books and in countless articles in top-tier publications such as Elle Decor, House Beautiful, Architectural Digest, House + Garden, Traditional Home, Design in the Hamptons, Palm Beach Cottages and Gardens, and Beach, to list only a few.  Named Elle Décor’s top 25 A-List Designers in 2010 and every year since, Robert Stilin was also selected for Architectural Digest’s Top 100 designers list in 2016, 2018, and 2019.  He is an avid art collector and member of the Director’s Council of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Robert Stilin

robertstilin.com

New York City
1133 Broadway, Suite 614
New York, NY 10010
(212) 255-1975

The Hamptons

74 Montauk Highway
East Hampton, NY 11937
(631) 329-7141

inquiries@robertstilin.com

In Part I of our follow-up article, we discussed ArtStar’s growth, its brilliant new office space and how the space helps business. In Part II we will take a look at how the business is evolving, the importance of personal interaction in the art business, and the collaboration opportunities ArtStar has found in the Townsend and St. James.

ArtStar’s Burgeoning Business

ArtStar started purely as an ecommerce company where young collectors could easily access art. They could go online; they could pick something out and customize it. It’s affordable and can be shipped to them.

There is still some of that business but ArtStar has evolved, and now it works with a lot of corporate collections and residential designers. Now 90% of ArtStar’s revenues are from the trade. The firm provides art for public areas in multi-family condos, and it does a lot with hospitality.  Chrissy explained, “We’re seeing the hospitality industry really rebrand. No one wants to be thought of as the typical tan hotel with maroon abstract art.”

They want to be fun, and they want to be seen as fresh, and interesting, and something you want to put on Instagram and social media. Hotels are responding to social media being part of their marketing and organic posts being part of their marketing. The art helps that narrative and gives people something to photograph and put on Instagram.”  ArtStar is also working on many corporate offices. Right now, ArtStar is completing projects with Convene, which is a high-end co-working space. The firm also does art for WeWork and lots of smaller offices. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how effective ArtStar’s newly conceived office space resonates with younger audiences looking for breakthrough edgy solutions and how that converts to sales.

The Internet and the Importance of Personal Interaction and Bricks and Mortar

Whether it is business to the trade or private customers, Chrissy, told us, “We’ve found that ecommerce needs some sort of physical presence. Bonobos was all ecommerce, now they have stores. Warby Parker was all ecommerce, now they have discovery shops. We’ve found that even if you want to be completely online, you do need some sort of physical footprint.”  This is especially true in the art business, where people need to see and feel what they are purchasing and how it will be finished; people see ArtStar’s products in person.

That is why the firm goes to art fairs all over the US, including Los Angeles, Miami, Houston, New York, Seattle, San Francisco. Nevertheless, we are seeing more people turn to the internet as a resource to buy art, and we’re seeing people spend more and more money online. They’re comfortable with a higher price-point. The problem is that everything that we do is custom, so, we do not take returns.  We found that the showroom was really necessary so that if you’re a first time buyer, you can come in, see the quality, and trust us. Especially if you’re an interior designer and you’re spending somebody else’s money, you don’t want to make a mistake. So, space is very important to the ArtStar experience, practically, aesthetically, and socially.

A Great Space in a Great Building

Chrissy specifically mentioned that her team loves the sunlight, high ceilings, detailing, windows, security, history of the building, and view of historic St. Sava.

It is important to Chrissy that she is in a Bruce Price building.  “I love him as an architect, and it was just a happy coincidence that he’s the one who designed the building.  Chrissy told us that her home in Tuxedo Park, and while her home was by William Bates, Bruce Price did the whole of Tuxedo Park; he did everything. And this building went up the same year that William Bates did her home.  So, it’s all the same vintage, so that was a super happy coincidence. I thought it was a good luck sign.”

A Place for Collaborating

As mentioned earlier, Chrissy Crawford is open and upbeat.  That may be why she finds so many opportunities to collaborate with fellow tenants.  Besides her work with kinderMODERN, which she lavishes with praise, she has worked with a number of the designers in the Kew buildings.  ArtStar staffers are working with Shawn Henderson on a project in Turks and Caicos. They’re friendly with John Greene. They did a feature on Fawn Galli, who just had her book come out, and it launched at Rizzoli downstairs. She’s awesome.

On the personal side, Chrissy also does Pilates with Amy Nelms on the 10th Floor of the St. James, who was just featured in Vogue. (“kinderMODERN also designed her space, and it’s beautiful,” says Crissy).

Chrissy wanted to invite fellow tenants to drop by, “We would really love it if our neighbors wanted to come by. We’re always hosting people, and we have a trade program.” To get the benefits of the program, Kew tenants can sign up at  https://www.artstar.com/pages/trade-signup. The KEW discount code good for 15% off, plus free shipping.

ArtStar

1133 Broadway, Suite 314
New York, NY 10010|
(212) 995-5352

www.artstar.com
hello@artstar.com

Boulevard Arts is the leading developer of arts-based immersive reality experiences for art, culture and education. The company partners with the world’s leading museums to share their collections through virtual, augmented and mixed reality technology. With unparalleled knowledge of and access to the arts, Boulevard is able to create exceptional, content-rich and user-controlled experiences that make art and culture accessible in everyday life.

Boulevard’s main mission is to educate and encourage inquiry and engagement. Central to Boulevard’s ideology is the belief that access to art and culture and life-long learning are essential to living a well-informed and well-rounded life. The enhanced reality experiences Boulevard offers complement education curriculum across disciplines and open up new possibilities for learning.

We sat down with Elizabeth L. Reede, Co-Founder and CEO, to learn more about how Boulevard is reshaping the landscape of storytelling and revolutionizing the way the world looks at art and culture.

What is Boulevard Arts?

According to Elizabeth, the goal of the company, when it first started, was “to be able to make art and culture available to anyone, anywhere, anytime.” The best way to do that is through technology which can be driven off of smart devices of all types. When it comes to making arts and culture more widely accessible, Elizabeth emphasizes that she defines “art and culture” very broadly. “I think of it as pretty much anything that is a manifestation of our human existence and of who we are as people.” While that includes all of the art in the world’s museums, it also comprises the buildings we pass when walking down the street, parks, landscape architecture, and so on. Art and culture should not be thought of as exclusively high-brow concepts. Boulevard seeks to highlight and bring these aspects of humanity into everyday life, and make them interesting and experiential for a wide range of people.

In doing so, the company is focused on adding as much bonus information to its experiences as possible. In the case of museums, this means that when you “visit” a gallery, you are getting more out of this trip than you would from just walking through the space without a curator or guide to explain things to you.

That being said, Elizabeth also recognizes that for some people, who live in remote areas of the world or who can not visit museums for a whole host of other reasons, just being able to experience art from far-away locations can be incredibly valuable and mind-opening. “It’s pretty awesome for someone who’s never even had the opportunity to think about seeing the British Museum in person be able to put on a pair of VR glasses, pick up their device and ‘go there’. If we’re going to offer that, though, we want to make the immersive experience even better.”

Boulevard’s approach is about providing options. If you want to virtually visit a museum or gallery and simply observe the art, that’s possible. But if you want to learn more and engage with the objects or the environment, that’s also possible. “Each of the experiences is built to be user-driven. You aren’t being dragged around from point A to point B. You might decide to go from point A to point Z, and come back again. We present our users with that choice.” By providing this interactivity and flexibility, Boulevard is able to vastly increase its audience.

Boulevard’s Founding

Boulevard Arts is the product of the intersection between an idea whose time has come, a set of groundbreaking technological advances and an impactful meeting of two avid history buffs, dedicated to the concepts of spreading knowledge and creating learning opportunities.

Elizabeth has a background in business and finance, a life-long interest in technology and a professional history in curatorial work. She also has graduate degrees in both finance and art history. When she was introduced to Robert Hamwee, CEO at New Mountain Finance Corporation, she had been working at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for several years. Their first meeting, which Elizabeth thought might take 30 minutes, ended up lasting for a couple of hours. “Basically what happened was, as we talked, we found many areas in which we were aligned, especially in terms of the importance of education and wanting to share this technology.”

Elizabeth tested the first iteration of the virtual reality experience on a primitive version of the technologies available today (an Oculus system called the DK1), and, even though it was rough around the edges, she was sold. Because the technology was still unexplored, she knew that getting into the industry so early was a huge opportunity. There were still lots of issues to work out, but Elizabeth agreed to continue testing the program as a consultant. For the next two months, she spent time telling various people about this idea of using immersive technologies to democratize access to art and culture. Their reactions were overwhelmingly positive, and three months later – at the end of 2013, she and Rob co-founded Boulevard Arts.

In the beginning of 2014, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook acquired Oculus for over two billion dollars. Elizabeth said that was when they realized, “Wow, this wasn’t just an idea we had. This could really turn into something.” She said that, in many ways, everything just seemed to come together, a coalescence she attributes to shared interests between herself and Rob, accompanied by incredibly serendipitous timing.

Boulevard Today

At present, Boulevard Arts offers many different experiences to their users in VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality) or MR (mixed reality). Within each of those platforms, Boulevard has created multiple apps. Elizabeth says that, since Boulevard is still a small company, it is constantly adding new content whenever it can. The technology develops quickly, but recent advances in AR software will allow for the experiences to be more accurate. Elizabeth says this is especially exciting because AR has turned out to be the platform that most people can get their hands on. She even compares Boulevard’s AR apps to Pokémon Go, in terms of the size of the audience they are able to reach.

When asked to give an example of one of Boulevard’s apps, Elizabeth told us about a virtual reality experience that brings users to the Wolfson Room at the Courtauld Gallery in London. It features eleven masterworks of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism by Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Gauguin. To give me an idea of how the experience is so much more than a simple “virtual tour,” she explained that users can move around the gallery and zoom in on any work. They can also listen to award-winning author Neil Gaiman narrate the experience. In this way, users are able to learn more about the art they are seeing than they would by simply reading the wall labels. Even more exciting, when users approach Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, they can actually “step inside” the painting. The primary subject of Manet’s work is a barmaid, who is activated to offer the user a series of items within the painting. “She doesn’t speak with you, but she gestures, and it’s all based on where your eye is landing. If you’re looking at the mandarin oranges on the bar top, she will pick one up, and offer it to you.” Elizabeth says, “It’s just magnificent. And, if you turn around, you can actually see back out into the gallery.”

Adding to the engagement factor of these experiences are two unique features:

One: A user is provided a deeper understanding of the social, cultural and economic context of the painting. “To see mandarin oranges in a 19th-century Parisian bar…it’s not like there were citrus trees in the middle of Paris. It’s indicative of economic trade and the value of luxury items, like fresh fruit in the winter. Now it’s not just a beautiful painting. The user realizes that the artist is actually sharing something unique about his environment.” These are the details that most people tend to miss when they are simply admiring art in a museum, and Boulevard is dedicated to providing that kind of key contextual information for its users.

Two: Users are given access to objects, documents and cultural artifacts from various collections that they would normally never be able to see or experience in this way. The virtual reality app that Boulevard created with the British Museum is a great example of this. “We built an opportunity for the user to go into the Reading Room at the British Museum. It’s the Round Library, in the center of the museum, that has actually been closed to the public for years. In the experience, a map shows up, and you pick a geographic region to visit. You can see what was being created in China at a particular time in history, what was being created in North America, and so on. You suddenly get this visual comparison across cultures, or across chronologies, if that’s the entry point you choose–and that’s just one of the amazing things that VR technology is capable of.”

A Focus on Education

One of Boulevard’s most promising components is their “virtual field trip.” By using Boulevard’s apps, schools can participate in virtual trips, offering their students the opportunity to experience cultural monuments and landmarks around the world. One of the points on which Elizabeth and Rob first connected in their initial meeting was the importance of education. “Look, I think we all know, if people are educated, their quality of life and what they are able to achieve is vastly enhanced.” Elizabeth insists that even something as simple as grasping the logic of our own urban architecture can make us feel more engaged with our environment and able to understand how our civilization is manifest in myriad fascinating ways within the material world around us.

When it comes to her own sense of cultural appreciation, Elizabeth admits that she didn’t really fall in love with art and culture until the end of high school. “I was always the kid who didn’t want to go to the museum. I wanted to run around and play basketball, or something like that. I was a senior in high school, and I took my first art history class, and that light just went on for me.” Now she’s dedicated to creating similar experiences for as many people as possible. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a life-long learner or someone who has never set foot in any kind of cultural setting. It only takes the smallest bit of interest, and you can truly see that light go on in people’s eyes.”

In Elizabeth’s mind, education is about giving someone a sense of ownership over a thought or an idea. This inspires a natural self-confidence that develops and prompts the person to continue exploring. One of the ways that Boulevard is inspiring that confidence is by partnering with textbook publishing companies. For one company, Boulevard is developing augmented reality activities, which are directly integrated into the company’s course for ninth-grade English. The app includes poetry, Dada collages, historical artifacts and more. Instead of sitting in a classroom listening to a lecture about grammar and composition, students are able to learn those basic skills through activities included in the AR experience. “Thankfully, educators and schools finally acknowledge the research which shows that everyone learns differently and everybody expresses things differently. This technology affords people the chance to learn in the most effective way for them.”

The Future

Because Boulevard Arts’ story is so fascinating, we wanted to share more about the company’s inner workings, how it has convinced old-fashioned institutions to embrace new technology, and where Boulevard is going in the future.  So check out Part II, which will soon be issued.

Boulevard Arts
1133 Broadway, Suite 1523
New York, NY  10010

blvrd.com

We did a feature profile of ArtStar in October of last year. If you haven’t read it, you might want to check it out. Recently, we made a follow-up visit to ArtStar and a lot has happened since October. We discussed ArtStar’s growth, its brilliant new showroom and how the space is helping business. We’ll cover these in Part I.

We also took a look at how the business is evolving, the importance of personal interaction with clients, and the collaboration opportunities ArtStar has found in the Townsend and St. James. We’ll cover these in Part II.

ArtStar’s Founding and Early Growth

You’ll recall that Chrissy Crawford Corredor founded ArtStar in 2010 to make high-quality art accessible for young, new collectors. She saw there was “a gap in the market between poster-based wall décor and blue-chip fine art,” and in response, she started ArtStar as a pioneering source for contemporary art in that niche. ArtStar’s story from there has been one of increasing success, likely due in part to the founder’s wonderful openness but also very smart planning and positioning.

The company was originally operating on the Lower East Side. The staff loved the space there, but the firm had outgrown the area. Chrissy told us “We wanted to be closer to interior designers, so we felt that the NoMad neighborhood solved that issue. It’s right by the New York Design Center at 200 Lexington, a ton of our clients have offices in this area, and it’s close to other showrooms—so we just thought this was the perfect spot.” ArtStar moved into a 600-square foot space on the 10th Floor St. James building in June of 2018 and found that some designers the firm had worked with before had their offices in the building. Chrissy said, “You see people in the elevator all the time that you’ve worked with.”

A Move Up

ArtStar’s business continued to grow, and the company needed a space where it could host designers and show off more of its collection. Chrissy was very happy with the ease of the transition, “The building has been incredibly flexible in terms of changing space within the building. For me, I’m less afraid to commit if I know that I can go up or down in space without a hassle.” So, in January of 2019, ArtStar doubled its footprint and signed the lease on a new 1,200-square foot space on the Third Floor of the St. James Building.

However, the move wasn’t just about more space. Chrissy wanted to change the entire experience. Having worked with kinderMODERN, which has offices on the 16th Floor of the St. James, ArtStar hired the firm to help design the new space, “because we wanted it to be functional but really playful, and kinderMODERN is great at both of those things.”

While the office design is driven by functionality, it’s handsome, light, open and welcoming. Without physical barriers, the office is divided into three spheres of activity: an entrance/lounge area, a meeting/conference area, and the working area of the staff. Fully open, the office can flow and integrate organically. It’s a great example for other tenants who have considered thinking about their office spaces more strategically and possible solutions ingeniously.

Lounge Area

Here ArtStar can host people and have coffee or drinks. It is a great space for designers who want to come in for a happy hour or to bring in a client and sit down comfortably and learn about ArtStar. Upbeat furniture sourced by kinderMODERN, and a fun, custom cocktail table by Concrete Cat make the area relaxing and lively. Chrissy mentioned, “Concrete Cat is another company we couldn’t have found on our own. kinderMODERN brought them to us. They’re out of Toronto, and you can pick your pallet, and they make tons of fun concrete stuff. They’re completely wild, and it’s so fun.”

Besides making clients feel at home, the lounge area also provides the opportunity for ArtStar to display its latest finds. “The Wall” in the lounge area changes every two months or so to highlight the season and new trends. While Chrissy had planned to do this seasonally, the firm is doing it faster than that, because the works are selling off the wall.

At the time we visited, Chrissy described The Wall as it was then constituted. “This is our summer look, and these are new artists that we’re working with. We wanted to do a lot of soft clouds, sunsets, beach themes, and bathing suits. For example, here we have a piece showing a new condo on a beach in Spain. Over there on the top left, there is a new Italian artist we’re working with. She’s out of Sicily, so we have the little girls in the bathing suits with ice-cream, and she also did the girls in the helmets who are also in swimsuits. She shoots for Vogue Italia and a bunch of great publications. The pictures are kind of sexy, but you can tell they’re shot by a woman. They’re not overtly sexy; they’re playful. We were going for a summer vibe.”

Aside from The Wall, there is a creative corner just as you enter the office. ArtStar changes it over once a quarter, and it is dedicated to new featured artists. Chrissy explained, “Right now we’re featuring two artists that have collaborated called Robyn Blair and Name Glo. Both of their work was just featured in Architectural Digest. We did a collaboration with them, and they’re going to be collaborating with Bergdorf’s in February: they’re going to take over the Bergdorf store. We launched them with that collaboration. I don’t know who our next artist is going to be, but we are getting ready soon to change it over. Then, when we change it over, we’ll do an open house cocktail party for the building.

Meeting/Conference Area

Across the room is a welcoming conference area, where the light and art continue. If a designer wants to come in and lay out blueprints, and see the samples that ArtStar has stored at the office, the ArtStar staff makes the conference table its workstation. It is convenient because we can look at plans and pull samples of art, frames, and mats right from the adjoining wall unit, and then, we can start to specify orders. This is a great area to host the client who wants to come in and get work completed.

Chrissy was particularly proud, as she should be, of the cunning wall unit kinderMODERN designed for sample storage. The outside presents a beautiful, clean, modern cabinet. However, once the doors are opened, various sized drawers are revealed that are custom-made for matts, frames, prints, and so forth. The storage unit is free-standing and comes apart. It’s totally flexible and like the rest of the ArtStar office it is designed with growth and adaptability in mind. The wall unit is actually six different cabinets from Ikea beautifully enveloped in the case built by Reform, yet another kinderMODERN recommendation. Reform is out of Brooklyn and specializes in making custom facades for Ikea cabinets. Chrissy noted that “You can do different finishes, and they’re very high-end. We did a pink-nude finish, and we love them. It all comes apart; everything comes off, so it’s not a commitment forever.”

Staff Working Area

Then the third part of our showroom is the team’s desks, which are integrated around the conference area. The space isn’t confined so ArtStar can reapportion it as needed, if there is a new employee to be accommodated.

ArtStar’s Appreciation of the Importance of a Welcoming Space

Chrissy told us, “What we find is, unless we have a personal connection, we don’t really get the principals in here, but we do get the junior designers. They love a free lunch, and they love a free drink. They’re the ones that are open to new resources. The principals have their people they’ve worked with for years, but the younger designers are the ones that will say, ‘Okay, let’s try a new vendor. I found this; I was out, and I found that.’ Working with the juniors is really helpful for us. They’re more open to our pitch.”

On entering the space, one gets a sense of how successful Chrissy has been in creating a place where you want to be and where you want to come back to; and she is always looking for new ways to use it to broaden her community. “We try to use the space for happy hours, and we’re having a dinner party in here for our top designers—we just try to think of different ways to utilize the space.“

ArtStar

1133 Broadway, Suite 314
New York, NY 10010|
(212) 995-5352

www.artstar.com
hello@artstar.com

Robin Kappy practices her vocation here in her offices at 1123 Broadway.  She is a highly skilled and experienced psychotherapist, focusing trainer, and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) practitioner, but she has exceptional talent and skills in other areas as well.

An Advocation in the Arts

Robin is also an extremely talented painter.  As a testament to that, one of her portraits, entitled “Sunday Afternoon at Salmagundi” was juried into the 41st Annual Exhibition in Painting, Sculpture & Graphics this summer at the prestigious and historic Salmagundi Club in Greenwich Village. The exhibition ran from July 15th to August 2nd and was comprised of works from all over the country, allowing well-known and up-and-coming artists to exhibit their work.

The Salmagundi Club was founded in 1871 and is one of the oldest and highest-regarded art organizations in the United States. The club originated as a sketch class in Johnathan Scott Hartley’s studio and was originally known as the Salmagundi Sketch Club. The name is a reference to Washington Irving’s potpourri of wit and wisdom, “The Salmagundi Papers.” . Members are primarily residents of the Tri-State area, but some come from as far away as London, Amsterdam and Lisbon. Over the years, the Salmagundi Club has been the singular gathering place for great artists, such as William Merrit Case, Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth, Ogden Pleisner and more. Honorary members have included the likes of Winston Churchill and Buckminster Fuller.

The contest to be juried into this annual exhibition is incredibly competitive, and we congratulate Robin on having her painting chosen—it’s an amazing achievement.

A Vocation Helping Clients Attend Their Own Emotional Needs to Solve Problems and Conflicts

In her practice here at 1123 Broadway, Robin attends to each of her client’s essential relational needs and experiences. Trained in relational self-psychology, she has been in private practice since 1991 and has added to her skills since then, becoming certified as a trainer by the Focusing Institute in 1998, and by the EMDR International Association in 2001. Her areas of expertise include depression, anxiety, trauma, sleep and creativity, and she has also received training in clinical hypnosis.

Susan Rudnick has been defined by some degree by growing up in New York City as the daughter of refugee parents escaping from Nazi Germany. The greatest influencing force in her life has always been her relationship with her beloved little sister Edna. Susan is an author, a poet and a practicing psychotherapist. She holds an office in the St. James building along with fellow Psychotherapist, Robin Kappy, where they run Flatiron Psychotherapy Associates.

The story of how Susan got to where she is today is beautifully told in her touching memoir, Edna’s Gift: How My Broken Sister Taught Me To Be Whole, which was released in June of this year. Edna was differently-abled, a term that was unknown during the girls’ childhood. In youth, Edna was aware of her limitations, most likely a result of an injury at birth that affected her motor skills and intellect. However, despite not always being able to keep up with her bright and ambitious older sister, Edna did not fret or let these differences define her. As an adult, Edna was able to lead a relatively normal and independent life, never losing her spirit and passion for life. She was a joyful force in the world, and accepted herself and others as they were, always loving unconditionally. Susan recognized and admired these traits, but struggled to learn acceptance, both in respect to Edna and also to herself.

Susan herself has not gone without trials in life, and she credits Edna’s spirit of unconditional acceptance for helping her through them. At the age of 16, Susan was diagnosed with MRKH, a condition in which a woman is born without a uterus. The condition is extremely rare, and due to a lack of knowledge regarding MRKH, Susan felt defective, marginalized and alone for much of her adult life. To read more about how Susan came to terms with her diagnosis, check out her article, “The Power of a Name: My Secret Life with M.R.K.H,” published this past May in The New York Times.

In addition to her MRKH, Susan has struggled with her desire for motherhood, multiple marriages, the complicated legacy of being a first-generation survivor of parents who fled from the Nazis, and in the end, becoming Edna’s caregiver and advocate. Through all of this, Edna is the one who gave Susan the courage to persevere. Through her remarkable sister, Susan came to understand that joy and wisdom can come from unexpected places. More than that, her relationship with Edna sparked a desire in Susan to become a healer. As a result, she has been practicing psychoanalysis and psychotherapy for over 40 years.

Susan is currently on a very successful book tour for Edna’s Gift, and the memoir has been receiving rave reviews. Emily Perl Kingsley, Emmy-winning writer, says, “Rudnick has walked us through every aspect of growing up with a sibling who has a developmental disability…astonishingly candid…It’s a wonderful book. I read it twice.” NY Times best-selling author, Barbara Graham says, “Rudnick’s lovely and moving memoir of her own journey toward fully embracing Edna – and herself – is a gift to us all.”

Congratulations to Susan on her amazing accomplishments this year, and make sure you pick up a copy of Edna’s Gift to read the full story for yourself.

To find out more about Susan and all of the amazing things she’s up to, visit her website: susanrudnick.com

The Working Assembly is a branding design agency that has built its reputation by taking a personalized, integrated approach to shape ideas into brands for its clients. Utilizing a blend of technologists, designers, and storytellers, the firm has developed a hands-on, iterative working methodology that allows it to effectively address the needs of large national corporations as well as local startups in today’s collaborative, fast-paced environment. 

The firm specializes in expressing brand in key inflection points, helping major brands like Google and Sotheby’s take the next step in their evolution or realize a total reinvention.  The Working Assembly’s larger corporate projects allows it to give back to the community through two innovative programs: Local Works—to help startups and preserve the socio-economic fabric of New York and 24 Hour Assembly—to help minority businesses present themselves more successfully. 

Company partners Jolene Delisle and Lawrence O’Toole recently sat down with us to talk about the beginnings of The Working Assembly, some of its recent campaigns, and its unique, streamlined approach that has brought the firm and its clients such success.

Kew: Can you tell us a little about the beginnings of The Working Assembly—how and why you started the company?

Lawrence: It started out with just the two of us, pretty small, kind of cautiously, because we were doing it independently at the same time we had our full-time jobs.

Jolene: Both of our backgrounds are in creative: I worked in advertising, and Lawrence worked in branding and design. At first, we started consulting with startups on a part-time basis, and about four years ago, we transitioned to become a full-time agency.

Kew: What makes the Working Assembly unique compared to other branding agencies?

Jolene: I would say it’s two things: We have a diverse background in both advertising and communications, as well as branding and design; and we have a comprehensive definition of branding. Today, consumers are much more savvy, so companies have to be more conscious of how their brands, as expressed in design and content, impact their company at every inflection point with their audiences.

Lawrence: We understand that, and our skills allow us to apply the brand practically. We consult on the conceptual strategy, and then, we go all the way through to actual production work — video, print campaigns, and more.

Kew: You both have been in and around this industry for a while now. Can you talk about how the industry has changed over time, especially in light of the Internet, social media, etc.?

Jolene: Our current assignments are not like traditional branding work, or what it might have looked like ten years ago. It’s actually expressing the brand in paid social posts or a cool email campaign.  These days, it is important that no product or facet of the company speaks only for itself but also reflects the corporate brand message. That’s where our strength lies.

We are able to identify a “voice”/”personality” for a brand and communicate it from the point where it touches the customer up to the corporate level.

Lawrence: Today, people want transparency—to see how the sub-brand interacts with the overall organization and its social contract.  We look at the brand holistically and help our clients make a consistent emotional connection with their audiences. We make it possible for people to see through the brand’s product and services to the corporate brand—to understand that the values of these products and services are values of the corporate brand and are shared by all aspects of the corporation.

Kew: Could you talk about one of your favorite projects to give us an idea of what your campaign work is like?

Jolene: One of our favorite clients is Zola, a wedding registry startup. When we started working with the company over two years ago, it was really just focused on being a wedding registry, but it has since expanded into websites, invitations, planning and more. It’s been really exciting to see Zola scale up, and our work with the company has evolved as a result. Initially, we were just helping with brand guidelines—the company’s “look” and “feel,” but since then, we’ve done three ad campaigns for Zola.  We’ve helped with events and activations, creating subway ads, and designing its look book, direct mail pieces and so on. What’s been exciting with Zola is that we’ve been able to flex our muscles and demonstrate all the things that we can do with a client.

Kew: The Mass Mutual and Guardian projects are impressive. Can you tell us how you succeeded with these large companies?

Lawrence:  Yes, we also do work for large, long-established firms.  It’s natural, because much of our team comes from large agencies dealing with major corporate clients.  Two of our most successful client projects involve complete rebranding assignments for national leaders in the insurance industry: Mass Mutual and Guardian Insurance.

Insurance companies are by definition identified with old-fashioned technology, and many people in these firms still view change with a wary eye. As a result, neither Mass Mutual nor Guardian had done this type of rebranding before, but they realized that technology and the way of doing business is changing—global shifts and evolving mindsets are affecting their businesses.

Large creative agencies approaching these large corporate assignments come in and do intermittent big “dog and pony” shows and then disappear for long periods in between— there is limited give and take and projects can drag out. This approach doesn’t fit the way business is done today, and Mass Mutual and Guardian recognized that.

I think we have been successful with our clients because of our size and the fact that we work as a partner.  We understand quickly what they want to do and take a collaborative and iterative approach to reach a solution faster, while meeting high expectations for conceptual and practical rigor.  These large insurance firms, are wedded to tradition and immutability, and the fact that they have trusted us, I believe shows the power of our working methodology.

Kew: What is the extent of your involvement with these companies?

With Guardian, it started as a high-level experimental/conceptual phase to see what we might do. Then from this high-level thinking we brought it down to the level of implementation, working like an in-house asset.  If a client has no internal resources, we complete the implementation, but regardless, there is usually so much work to be done on a major rebrand that clients welcome the additional support we can provide to their in-house service groups.  We are available to be involved to whatever extent the client is willing, and because our staff has experience in a broad range of applications, advertising to packaging and everything in between, we can handle virtually every client need.

Kew: Tell us about your innovative initiatives outside your primary business.

Jolene: New York City’s many unique small companies are part of what makes this place so interesting. We know how hard it is to have a small business in New York, so last year, we decided to try to identify small business owners in New York who might need some branding help but might not be able to afford it. These initiatives are twofold: Local Works, which we do pro bono, for small firms challenged in their marketplace and 24 Hour Assembly, which we do for significantly reduced costs for minorities and women.

Kew: How do you manage to do them along with your core work?

Lawrence:  We both have created many product, web, and digital application designs—experience that can be used to launch a product very quickly and follow up with reinforcement. While we can’t always do this with our more established, day-to-day clients, we can hyper-focus using special methodologies for these projects.

We basically use a “hackathon” model, which is a sprint-like event in which a number of creatives, designers, writers, and others spend an intense period collaborating to delivering an effective solution.  Because our team has substantial experience, we have the tools to produce great results in a concentrated timeframe.

It helps the client obtain something very quickly at reduced cost (perfect for startups who are always looking to have something right away), which they can iterate and use right away.  At the same time, it is great for us. It is work we find rewarding and it allows us to keep our skills sharpened for all our clients.

Kew:  First, tell us a little about the Local Works initiative.

Jolene: Our idea is to undertake about four pro bono projects per year to help small firms complete. Our first Local Works project is a good example. Tache Artisan Chocolate is a one-woman show—she has a brick and mortar storefront on the Lower East Side. Dylan’s Candy Bar was moving in a couple blocks away, and her biggest issue was how to compete with a heavily branded company. In this case, we developed a brand “look” quickly and provided the basic tools she needed—design elements, packaging, stationery, and a website—so she can maintain a highly professional appearance by applying these tools as the need arises.

Kew: What about 24 Hour Assembly? 

Jolene: 24 Hour Assembly is roughly a month-long engagement—focused on minorities and women, who are among the groups most underfunded by venture capitalists. This past year, only 2.2% of the people who got VC funding were women or minorities. We realized that branding can really help passionate female and minority entrepreneurs when it comes to getting initial funding and attention.

One of the initiatives we undertook last year was with Sanzo, an Asian-inspired sparkling water beverage company. We helped Sanzo with its launch, branding, and packaging. Now, the company is doing really well and is selling in Foragers, Momofuku, and several other places. We just wrapped up another 24 Hour Assembly project for Harper Sage, which is a clothing company being started by two women who used to work at J.Crew. The 24 Hour Assembly is an amazing process; we were able to accomplish Harper Sage branding from start to launch in under six weeks.

Kew: You recently moved the company into NoMad. What has made this a positive move for you?

Jolene: I think there are remarkable things happening in NoMad. This area has been wonderful for us, especially because many of our clients are here; there are a lot of terrific startups in the neighborhood.

Since moving here, we have been seeing all of our clients more often. They all want to come to our office. They love it, and it’s easy for everyone to get to.

Also, the light in our office is amazing. Unbeatable. Just the quality of the space—I think it’s actually increased productivity. I sense people are happier to be at work. We just love it.

Kew: What do you hope to accomplish moving forward?

Jolene: I’d say one of our goals is to be a more purposeful company, not necessarily a bigger one. We want to be very purposeful with the clients that we’re working with and the type of work that we’re doing, while making time for projects we really care about.

Lawrence: I think it gets back to why we did this in the first place. In our former jobs, we were doing the kind of work we do now on the side to let off a little steam and remind ourselves why we are designers and communicators in the first place. Now, we do it full time.

We’re constantly checking in with our goals and values: Are we doing cool stuff that’s rewarding for the clients and for us? Are we helping clients make a difference in their industry? It comes down to finding the right type of people to partner with and making sure that we’re doing the best work that we can do.

The Working Assembly
11 West 25th Street, 12th Floor
New York, NY 10010
(917) 756-1981

www.theworkingassembly.com

jolene@theworkingassembly.com