Receiving a tattoo is likened to a spiritual and religious experience in this lookbook of tattoo parlours run by renowned artists across the world.

Designers and tattoo artists partnered on the studios below from Miami to Kyiv with the same thoughtfulness applied to the tattooing itself.

From the stark, pared-down white and black palette of Bang Bang Tattoo to the serene curves of Haram Haram, each project takes a completely different approach to providing an environment for the art and its client.

Many of the projects also sought to highlight the transformational aspect of receiving a tattoo, such as a Kidz Studio project for Sinners in Denmark, which leaves clients feeling like “a new version of oneself”.

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration, see previous lookbooks featuring Mexico City restaurants, reclaimed materials and vaulted ceilings.

Haram Haram, USA, by Chimera Design

Located in Miami‘s Little River neighbourhood, tattoo parlour Haram Haram has an interior design informed by traditional Arabic motifs, which help to reframe tattooing as “a ceremonial practice deserving of reverence”.

“Arches, niches, and curved built-in elements guide visitors through a sequence of spaces that move from public to private, creating a sense of procession and quiet ritual,” said US studio Chimera Design, who worked with Lebanese-Indonesian artist Natashia El-Badewi to create the space.

Find out more about Haram Haram ›

Sinners, Denmark, by Kidz Studio

The Sinners shop in Aarhus was developed around its title and its connection to wider spiritual beliefs associated with the word, such as the notion of birth, transformation and reincarnation.

“This mirrors the tattooing experience itself: arriving with bare skin, undergoing a transformative process, and leaving permanently marked – a new version of oneself,” Kidz Studio explained.

Find out more about Sinners ›

Atelier Eva Grand Street, USA, by Alp Bozkurt

Designer Alp Bozkurt transformed this Brooklyn hardware store into a tattoo parlour for New York artist Eva Karabudak, who is known for her detailed, micro-realism tattoos.

Arched stations line a large open space with exposed brickwork and structure that was restored during the build.

Find out more about Atelier Eva Grand Street ›

6:19 Studio, Ukraine, by Balbek Bureau

Run by Ukrainian tattoo artist Ulyana Nesheva, 6:19 Studio is located on the ground floor of a residential building in Kyiv’s historic Podil neighbourhood.

Using a stark palette of black and white, Balbek Bureau transformed the space to resemble a “contemporary art workshop,”

Find out more about 6:19 Studio ›

Atelier Eva Williamsburg, USA, by Eva Karabudak 

This Williamsburg tattoo parlour was the first studio by Turkish artist Eva Karabudak, who was the lead designer on the space.

Karabudak infused the studio with a restrained industrial aesthetic, using concrete walls and minimal decor to create a spa-like atmosphere.

Find out more about Atelier Eva Williamsburg ›

Bang Bang Tattoo, USA, by Jesse McGowan

Bang Bang Tattoo, known for its celebrity clientele, covers two floors of a shop in New York City’s SoHo neighbourhood.

Designer Jesse McGowan used angular black and white volumes to create a “religious experience” for clients, who navigate through passageways to receive a tattoo in the shop.

Find out more about Bang Bang Tattoo ›

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration, see previous lookbooks featuring Mexico City restaurants, reclaimed materials and vaulted ceilings.

The post Six tattoo parlours that celebrate the “ceremonial practice” of tattooing appeared first on Dezeen.

A hotel in a former military barracks and an urban apartment created on a budget feature in our latest lookbook of intricate interiors that use reclaimed materials.

Reclaimed materials encompass anything salvaged from buildings, products or other structures that are repurposed by architects and designers.

While these materials are often used to cut the financial or carbon cost of a project, sometimes, they are simply applied to interiors to create visually interesting spaces.

From Spain to India, the following eight interiors highlight just some of the many ways that practitioners are using reclaimed materials around the world.

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration, see previous lookbooks featuring home saunas, Mexico City restaurants and living rooms with blockwork walls.

La Casita, UK, by Juli Bolaños-Durman

La Casita is the Edinburgh flat of Costa Rican artist Juli Bolaños-Durman, which she renovated with local studio Architecture Office.

The flat is characterised by reused, reclaimed and offcut materials that were transformed into bespoke architectural elements, including a unique timber kitchen.

Find out more about La Casita ›

Sancal showroom, Spain, by Lucas Muñoz

The aluminium undersides of existing flooring plates were turned into wall panels at this Madrid showroom, created for furniture brand Sancal within the city’s 1966 O’Donnell 34 building.

When converting the office, Spanish designer Lucas Muñoz reused all the materials from the original space that could not be recycled.

“The office’s modular material approach allowed us to dismantle and re-consider each piece as a potential intervention element,” Muñoz told Dezeen.

“Very little demolition was required, meaning recovered pieces could be evaluated according to their impact.”

Find out more about this Sancal showroom ›

Salt, UK, by THISS Studio

Local architecture practice THISS Studio avoided contract furniture when designing this London office, which was created from reclaimed materials found on the site or sourced second-hand.

Conceived for independent PR studio Salt, the space includes a duo of tables created us using old steel catering surfaces purchased on eBay and crowned with tops made from leftover cork edged with white American oak.

Jam Hotel Ghent, Belgium, Studio Lionel Jadot

Brussels firm Studio Lionel Jadot transformed a former military barracks in Ghent, Belgium, into a hotel for the Jam Hotels brand.

The studio worked with local artisans to craft contextually specific furniture solutions using found materials, including the blue flooring in the hotel bar made from old roof timber.

Find out more about Jam Hotel Ghent ›

The Wendy House, India, by Earthscape Studio

Aiming to draw from the surrounding nature of this home in Kerala, Earthscape Studio used locally sourced materials throughout the building, including recycled rods, broken tiles and earth from the site.

The Bengaluru practice used the recycled rods alongside waste wood to create the frames for built-in furniture, including a bed, sofa, and kitchen counter.

Find out more about The Wendy House ›

10K House, Spain, by Takk

This Barcelona apartment was completed by local studio Takk using a material budget of 10,000 euros, with the aim of updating the home to be as sustainable as possible.

The studio took cues from snugly stacked Russian dolls for the interior renovation, which features rooms nestled inside each other to maximise insulation.

Recycled white table legs were used to lift interior spaces, creating room for water pipes and electrical fittings without the extra cost of adding wall grooves.

Find out more about 10K House ›

Office interior, Germany, by Urselmann Interior 

Glueless joinery and a cellulose-based wall cladding feature in the Düsseldorf studio of interior design company Urselmann Interior, which was renovated using biodegradable, recycled or upcycled materials.

The studio completed the renovation project itself, salvaging existing wooden and terrazzo flooring from the building.

“The office serves us as a laboratory in that we can [use it to] test new qualities, materials and construction methods,” project manager Liz Theißen told Dezeen.

Find out more about Urselmann Interior’s office ›

Traid store, UK, by Hemingway Design and James Shaw

Local designer James Shaw created furniture for this store interior for London charity retailer Traid, using leftover second-hand clothes that Traid deemed unsellable.

Known for repurposing waste materials, Shaw also created curved pendant lighting from the old clothes, which were shredded back to fibres and combined with a plant-based binder.

Find out more about this Traid store ›

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration, see previous lookbooks featuring home saunas, Mexico City restaurants and living rooms with blockwork walls.

The post Eight interiors transformed using reclaimed materials appeared first on Dezeen.

Our latest lookbook collects homes with warm, bright and tactile living spaces that are set against a backdrop of concrete blockwork walls.

Spanning the US, Australia and Japan, these examples include a concrete-block home in Melbourne, designed to reference local farmhouses, and an understated and “robust” beachside residence in Cornwall.

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration, see previous lookbooks featuring heavenly home interiors, restaurant interiors and stylish wine bars.

SKI House, New Zealand, by Roberts Gray Architects

Local studio Roberts Gray Architects designed SKI House for the parents of studio co-founder James Gray, who lived next to the site in Wānaka, New Zealand, for over two decades.

Screens of lightweight steel and blackened timber contrast with its structure of exposed blockwork walls, which are paired with stone paving and warm-coloured accents in the living area.

Find out more about SKI House ›

House by the Sea, UK, by Of Architecture

This understated beachside home in Cornwall was designed for an artist and surfer, who tasked London practice Of Architecture with designing a “simple, robust and utilitarian” living space.

An open-plan living, kitchen and dining space is held on the ground floor, which is framed by blockwork walls and lit by a central skylight.

Find out more about House by the Sea ›

Cowshed, UK, by David Kohn Architects

London-based studio David Kohn Architects converted a cattle shed on a former dairy farm in Newton Abbot, UK, into a home and studio for artist Suzanne Blank Redstone and her husband Peter Redstone.

The studio looked to retain much of the existing structure, collaborating with engineering studio Structure Workshop to retain the original timber trusses, concrete floor and blockwork walls to define new rooms.

Find out more about Cowshed ›

Merricks Farmhouse, Australia, by Michael Lumby Architecture and Nielsen Jenkins

South African studio Michael Lumby Architecture collaborated with Brisbane practice Nielsen Jenkins to design this concrete-block home on the Mornington Peninsula in Melbourne, Australia.

Designed to reference local farmhouses, the home comprises six bedrooms and a large open-plan living room, where dark timber cladding complements the exposed concrete and blockwork walls.

Find out more about Merricks Farmhouse ›

Lode, UK, by Nikjoo

Blockwork walls complement oak flooring at this home completed by local architecture studio Nikjoo on a former parking space in London.

Beyond its redbrick facade, the home contains its main living spaces on the ground floor, while the bedrooms above are similarly complete with exposed concrete walls and wooden floors.

Find out more about Lode ›

House of Joy, Japan, by KKAA YTAA

A simple material palette of concrete blocks, wood and metal was used for this holiday home designed for an elderly couple in Japan‘s Ise-Shima National Park.

Completed by Japanese architecture studio KKAA YTAA, House of Joy is complete with a pitched wooden roof and minimalist concrete structure that serves as a backdrop for the home’s interiors.

Find out more about House of Joy ›

Hedge and Arbour House, Australia, by Studio Bright

Blockwork walls were left exposed across the interior of this home in Melbourne, designed by Australian practice Studio Bright.

Named Hedge and Arbour House, the dwelling was designed by the studio as a simple, single-storey structure and is. wrapped with metal mesh screens for climbing plants.

Find out more about Hedge and Arbour House ›

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration, see previous lookbooks featuring heavenly home interiors, restaurant interiors and stylish wine bars.

The post Seven tactile living spaces with blockwork walls appeared first on Dezeen.

Natural materials, vaulted ceilings and utilitarian furniture feature in this lookbook of monastic interiors, where every room is a sanctuary for minimalist devotees.

Typically located in a church compound, a Christian monastery is a building that houses monks or nuns, and their restrained interiors – designed for prayer and contemplation – have become a source of inspiration outside of the religion.

Much like monasteries, the interiors below achieve a sense of serenity with neutral tones, wood and stone surfaces, and furniture that prioritises function over decoration.

Although they have a pared-back appearance, visual interest is created by celebrating the rooms’ architecture with dramatic archways, exposed ceiling structures and symmetrical layouts.

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration, see previous lookbooks featuring restaurant interiors in Mexico City, stylish wine bars and interiors where shoji screens filter light in.

Casolare Scarani, Italy, by Studio Andrew Trotter

Architecture practice Studio Andrew Trotter converted a 19th-century school in Puglia into a serene home with earthy finishes and furnishings, including stone floors and wooden furniture.

Aiming to retain the original character of the building, which was abandoned in the 1960s, its vaulted ceilings were kept intact and covered with a lime plaster.

Find out more about Casolare Scarani ›

Mourning Dovecote, USA, by Neal Schwartz

Neal Schwartz, founder of California-based studio Schwartz and Architecture, wanted to create a “chapel-like” space when designing a studio extension for his home in Sonoma.

A swooping roof rises at the end of the symmetrical extension and lets light in through a skylight, while a low window at floor level was designed for bird watching.

Find out more about Mourning Dovecote ›

Vaulting Loft, UK, by Mata Architects

Vaulting Loft is a house in London with soaring wooden ceilings, designed by local studio Mata Architects as a “white, cathedral-like space”.

Intending for the home’s architecture to be the main focus, Mata Architects paired white walls and ceilings with Douglas fir floorboards, an oak-clad volume containing the bathroom, and Taj Mahal Quartzite stone in the kitchen.

Find out more about Vaulting Loft ›

Chapel Residence, Hong Kong, by NC Design & Architecture

Designed for a devout Christian couple and their children, local studio NC Design & Architecture drew upon religious imagery for the transformation of this family home in Hong Kong.

The studio aimed to foster reflection and connection in the six-storey residence, which features rows of arches, marble accents and a lofty white living room.

Find out more about Chapel Residence ›

Rome apartment, Italy, by Serena Mignatti

Architect Serena Mignatti was informed by the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi for this apartment in Rome, but its lime-based painted walls and exposed wooden ceiling beams also give it a monastic quality.

Located in a 19th-century building, Mignatti renovated the penthouse for musician Thom Yorke and actress Dajana Roncione, overhauling the interiors with warm, neutral hues.

Find out more about the Rome apartment ›

Círculo Mexicano, Mexico, by Ambrosi Etchegaray

Architecture studio Ambrosi Etchegaray referenced the pared-back design ethos of the Shakers, a Christian sect founded in 1747, when transforming a 19th-century building in Mexico City into a hotel.

Minimalist bedrooms were designed to be devoid of ornamentation, with blocky plinths forming side tables, beige linens covering the beds, and Shaker-style peg rails used to hang mirrors and trinket boxes.

Find out more about Círculo Mexicano ›

House for Two Musicians, Portugal, by Atelier Matteo Arnone

Completely symmetrical in plan, this house in Portugal features two semicircular recording studios that project out over the double-height living space and bedroom below.

Designed by Italian practice Atelier Matteo Arnone, the home’s neutral interiors feature plaster-coated walls, wood furniture and grey upholstery.

Find out more about House for Two Musicians ›

Gate Lodge, Ireland, by A2 Architects

A circular void looms over the dining area at the centre of Gate Lodge in Navan, revealing the home’s pyramidal roof and skylight above.

Designed by Irish studio A2 Architects, the home has a cruciform plan with four arms containing a kitchen, three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a lounge area.

Find out more about Gate Lodge ›

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration, see previous lookbooks featuring restaurant interiors in Mexico City, stylish wine bars and interiors where shoji screens filter light in.

The post Eight heavenly home interiors that embody monastic minimalism appeared first on Dezeen.

From April 16–18, 2026, OFFF returns to the halls of Disseny Hub Barcelona for its 26th edition. Since its founding in 2001, the festival has served as a meeting point for the most innovative and generous minds in creativity, art, and digital design. The goal hasn’t changed: bring people together, pull back the curtain, and let audiences see how the work actually gets made.

Cultured

This year’s visual campaign, developed in collaboration with Uncommon Creative Studio, does more than brand the festival—it frames the conversation. Titled Cultured, the concept zooms in on a truth most of us know instinctively: creativity is a steady accumulation of references, lectures, screenshots, dog-eared books, overheard comments, half-built files and half-formed thoughts. In other words, it’s communal.

The message is straightforward: our industry is what we make it. Design is what we make it. Culture itself takes form under the right conditions—through collaboration, shared agency, and intentional growth.

It’s also a call to action. Not a passive theme, but an open invitation. Show up. Participate. Add your perspective to the pile. Because creativity isn’t culture authored by a select few—it’s culture built collectively, influenced and refined by many voices at once.

A Lineup That Crosses Borders (and Disciplines)

OFFF has always thrived on range. This year’s lineup spans agencies, studios, solo artists, strategists, animators, and architects—people who don’t just set trends, but explore and investigate them.

You’ll find voices from major studios like Stockholm Design Lab (with Björn Kusoffsky), teamLab, Moment Factory, Volvox Labs, Foster+Partners, and CODA. Add to that a global roster of photographers, visual artists, 3D pioneers, art directors, and branding minds—each bringing their own creative context and lived experience.

However, what makes OFFF different isn’t just the prestigious speakers, it’s proximity to their humanity. You don’t just see the final work projected on a massive screen—you hear about the false starts, the rejected directions, the uncomfortable pivots. You get the messy middle.

And then you get the hallway conversations.

The Hallway Is the Point

Design conferences aren’t just about talks. They’re also about the in-between moments. The coffee line debates, the accidental introductions, the shared eye-roll over a slide that didn’t quite land, and the communal laughter when a great joke does.

In fractured times, there’s something radical about gathering in the same physical space. You sit next to someone whose politics might not mirror yours. Whose aesthetic definitely doesn’t. Whose career path took a completely different route. And yet, you’re all there for the same reason: to understand how ideas become form.

A few years ago, PRINT’s co-publisher and I had the chance to attend OFFF, and we quickly realized it’s far more than a series of talks. It feels like a temporary city built by designers who have consciously chosen to gather. Being there was a powerful reminder that creativity is never created in isolation. Even the most distinctive voice is shaped by community—by mentors, competitors, collaborators, critics, and the places we inhabit. When hundreds—sometimes thousands—of those voices come together in one space, the result isn’t just the next big trend. It’s something more meaningful: a real, ongoing conversation.

Barcelona as Backdrop

And, yeah, it doesn’t hurt that this all unfolds in Barcelona—a city where design, architecture, and public life are tightly interwoven. With its upcoming designation as UNESCO World Capital of Architecture 2026, OFFF’s inclusion of leading architecture studios feels especially timely. Including architectural thinkers alongside branding strategists and immersive artists, the programming underscores a shared truth: every discipline is shaping the same cultural landscape. Whether you’re designing a logo, an installation, or a building façade, you’re participating in a similar creative ecosystem.

Why We Still Need This

OFFF Barcelona has been doing this for 26 years. That kind of longevity isn’t accidental. It’s built on the belief that creativity flourishes when people gather, share, challenge, and celebrate one another’s work. In divided times, choosing to convene is a statement. It says we still believe in dialogue. In process. In the power of seeing how something is made—and who made it. It reaffirms what this year’s theme drives home: the industry isn’t something that just happens to us. Design is what we make it. Culture is what we make it. And for three days in April, inside Disseny Hub Barcelona, it will be made—together.

Find out more about OFFF Barcelona and register to attend.

The post OFFF Barcelona: Why We Still Show Up appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

From sushi, Singaporean food, and, of course, tacos, restaurants in Mexico City have it all. For this week’s lookbook, we dive into restaurant interiors in the city that utilise formal innovations and materials to showcase its world-class cuisine.

With the city’s art week just having passed, Mexico City art and design are front and centre.

The eight restaurants below, opened in the last four years, showcase not only the beauty but the rigour of design in the city around something taken very seriously – food.

But it’s not all tacos and terracotta; these restaurants vary in materials, styles and location, showing the breadth of style in the metropolis.

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration, see previous lookbooks featuring global wine bars, shoji screens, and home saunas.

Makan by Locus

Local studio Locus designed this Singaporean food restaurant to fit into a concrete-framed space at the base of a mid-rise building.

Remarkably, the studio managed to use 50 per cent recycled materials for the interior, which features built-in wood elements as well as screened-in dining spaces.

Find out more about Makan ›

Los Alexis by RA!

This taco restaurant in the city’s Roma Norte neighbourhood was decked out by local studio RA! in thousands of tile shards – a homage to the chef Alexis Ayala’s time spent in Barcelona.

The compact space is centred by an open kitchen hemmed in by a steel-topped bar and a green, ribbed material, with the scheme inverted to shroud the venting elements above.

Find out more about Los Alexis ›

Órale Milanga by MYT+GLVDK

This fast-casual restaurant is devoted almost entirely to the Milanese dish and features overlays of green metal and mesh throughout – from the sides of the bar to the extensive shelving.

Modernist-style tubular chairs with beige and olive leather reflect the colour scheme of the space, with mirrors lining the walls to create visual expansion.

Find out more about Órale Milanga › 

Ninyas by Ignacio Urquiza and Ana Paula de Alba

The design scheme for this restaurant fuses its two main offerings, steak and sake, mixing Japanese and Mexican sensibilities.

To find a commonality, the designers relied heavily on stainless steel. Wooden stools were given stainless-steel footrests, and an earthy red floor provides contrast.

Find out more about Ninyas ›

Plumbago by OPA

Two gabled volumes covered in polycarbonate panels on an infill lot create soft light for this recently opened Mediterranean restaurant in the city.

The studio kept the main dining space open and lined it with cinder block and brickwork that showcases various construction techniques.

Find out more about Plumbago ›

Savvia by Worc Studio

The design in this tall-ceilinged space was implemented to reflect the cuisine, traditional and communal.

Located in the historic core of the city, Savvia features a massive wood-topped communal table with a circular chandelier above, with the kitchen elevated to the second floor to create more space for diners.

Find out more about Savvia ›

Oku Pedregal by Michan Architecture and Escala Arquitectos

One of two Oku sushi restaurants in this city, this most-recent outpost in the Jardines de Pedregal neighbourhood features teardrop-shaped dining areas partially suspended from the ceiling.

The restaurant’s material palette is light, featuring pine-clad surfaces, pigmented stucco and GFRC panelling.

Find out more about Oku Pedregal ›

Tana by RA!

This moody Polanco bar sells tapas and drinks in a compact, 65-square-metre space with heavily textured walls and concrete pendant lamps.

The space is centred on a massive concrete bar created in the shape of an inverted pyramid, reminiscent of Aztec architecture.

Find out more about Tana ›

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration, see previous lookbooks featuring global wine bars, shoji screens, and home saunas.

The post Eight Mexico City restaurant interiors good enough to eat appeared first on Dezeen.

Sipping on a red or white wine is made all the better by these wine bars from Canada to Kazakhstan, which are clad in zinc, marble, and reclaimed materials, as seen in our latest lookbook.

Natural and orange wine have seen a surge in popularity in recent years, and the design industry has matched its pace with a new wine bar popping up here, there and everywhere across major cities.

The seven wine bars below showcase some of these unique interiors found across cities including New York City, Montreal and Marseille, where everyone from casual enthusiasts to aficionados can enjoy a glass.

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration, see previous lookbooks featuring shoji screens, home saunas and minimalist living rooms.

Dévo, French, by Axel and Mélissa Chay 

Located in Marseille, Dévo is a restaurant and bar informed by the “instinctive, generous and deeply rooted” reputation of the French city, according to husband-and-wife design duo Axel and Mélissa Chay.

The pair pulled in references to 1970s Italian bars as well, outfitting the interior with geometric lines and sleek surfaces.

Find out more about Dévo ›

Stars, USA, by Studio Valle de Valle

Studio Valle de Valle employed a zinc-covered bar, cedar panelling, custom furniture and a sandy matte red marble floor to outfit Stars in the East Village, a single-room wine bar.

“The zinc is almost buttery and malleable, the fusion red marble is so much more subtle than the name implies, and the Valle stools bring them both together; the world between grey and red may really be yellow,” Studio Valle de Valle co-founder Chase Sinzer told Dezeen.

Find out more about Stars ›

With Others, USA, by Studio Ahead

San Francisco studio Studio Ahead used taupe walls, walnut banquettes and metal mesh shelving to create a soft-industrial feel for this Williamsburg wine bar.

Owner Shanna Nasiri tapped the studio to create a “neighbourhood bar” that would evoke the creative spirit of Williamsburg in the late 1990s and early 2000s, before the neighbourhood became populated with the luxury brands and developments of today.

Find out more about With Others ›

Stem, Canada, by Ravi Handa

Located in Montreal‘s Little Burgundy neighbourhood, Stem wine bar features reclaimed materials found during demolition, which were repurposed into artworks by Jeremy Le Chatelier.

The space also contains a recurring motif of thin, wooden slats, which are intended to evoke wine glass stems.

Find out more about Stem ›

Vinvinvin, Canada, by Ménard Dworkind

This Montreal wine bar is filled with jewel tones, geometric patterns and wine bottles repurposed as lamps.

“They were looking for something loud, something with a lot of colour and something that really broke the mould from traditional wine bars,” Ménard Dworkind co-founder David Dworkind told Dezeen about the clients.

Find out more about Vinvinvin ›

House of Wine, Czech Republic, by Chybik + Kristof 

Towering, curved, wood-panelled volumes recall traditional Moravian wine cellars in this Czech wine bar in Znojmo.

The wooden volumes are multi-level and contain circular terraces outfitted with seating that look out onto the space below.

Find out more about House of Wine ›

Six Coffee Wine, Kazakhstan, by NAAW Studio

Six Coffee Wine in Almaty, Kazakhstan, doubles as a cafe and wine bar, with multiple styles of seating and gathering distributed throughout the space.

“The concept was built around a gradual shift – from morning to evening, from coffee to wine,” NAAW Studio co-founder Elvira Bakubayeva told Dezeen.

Find out more about Six Coffee Wine ›

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration, see previous lookbooks featuring shoji screens, home saunas and minimalist living rooms.

The post Seven wine bars for stylish sipping appeared first on Dezeen.

Something I have been mulling over recently is this idea that the general public are performing advertising on behalf of brands. I think it was probably off the back of Casey Lewis’ annual What Gen Z are getting for Christmas round-up, where reels after reels of photogenic girlies display their Stanley cups and new UGG Classic Ultra Minis. It got me thinking about how buying the product is no longer the end of the shopping journey; it’s the entry point. The real work happens afterwards, in how ownership is made visible, narrated, and put into circulation.

For most of the past century, consumer culture has been organised around a relatively simple exchange: brands produced meaning, and people buy products to access that meaning. Identity was something you expressed through what you consumed, but the labour of making those identities legible largely sat with brands, not individuals. If you bought certain products, you didn’t have to explain yourself; the brand had already done the semiotic heavy lifting. You’ve got the Beams x Arc’teryx multi-colour Beta jacket? or the Chopova Lowena tartan safety-pin skirt? These kind of products told the world what kind of person you were supposed to be if you owned it. It is pre-packaged meaning.

It’s been a minute now since products were bought solely for what they do. Now it’s about what they allow the individual to signal: taste, belonging, discernment, proximity to a certain lifestyle and, crucially, how legible that signal is to others. In this context, function becomes the baseline, not the differentiator. The premium is paid for recognisability within the right social codes. Why buy a €30 Brita water filter when you can place a “timeless,” ergonomic, stainless-steel carafe from Aarke on your kitchen counter for €170, not because it filters water better, but because it places you firmly and undeniably within the creative class.

What we’re starting to see now is not just a change in taste or behaviour, but a quieter economic reorganisation, one where the individual self becomes the primary site of value creation. Ownership is no longer the end point of a transaction but the beginning of a new kind of labour.

The rise of front-facing cameras and platforms like TikTok has turned everyday life into a continuous site of production, where identity is not simply expressed but actively worked on in real time. Ordinary activities like getting dressed, making breakfast, going to the gym, ordering coffee, are performed with an audience in mind (real or imagined). The self becomes the medium through which brands acquire meaning, while individuals, often unintentionally, take on the work brands once did: positioning, differentiation, and proof.

This line of thinking directly echoes the academic Brooke Erin Duffy’s 2017 book (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love, which examines at what happens when creativity, identity, and work collapse into the same space. Duffy traces how social platforms have drawn huge numbers of people into posting, sharing, styling, and narrating their lives under the banner of passion and self-expression.

The promise is visibility, connection, maybe even fame or a career. But the reality is more uneven. A small minority actually manage to turn that visibility into income, while most participate as a kind of ongoing side project, producing content, circulating products, and normalising brand presence without ever being paid for it. The labour still happens; it’s just framed as fun rather than work.

The striking (if not surprising) thing is how gendered this dynamic is: most of the people posting are women, and increasingly, girls. Pre-teens and teenagers are filming GRWMs, performing multi-step skincare routines for one another, and speaking fluently in meme language. What looks like play or self-expression often functions as early training in visibility and sales.

The expectation that self-presentation, aesthetic effort, and emotional openness should be offered freely because you love it mirrors much older ideas about whose work counts and whose doesn’t. In that sense, the contemporary “me” economy isn’t entirely new. It follows a familiar pattern: value is generated through people making themselves visible, while the time, effort, and judgement involved in making life look good are rarely recognised as work. Platforms and brands benefit from that visibility, but the labour behind it is framed as personal expression rather than something that deserves to be paid.

What matters, then, is not just the product, but how it is activated through the self — and ultimately, how that self is read in public. Ownership becomes content; content becomes identity; identity becomes an economic asset circulating through platforms designed to extract value from visibility.

Interestingly, this evolution is not linnear. As brands move up the pyramid, abstracting themselves into values, worlds, and cultural posture, individuals are pushed in the opposite direction, down into labour. The work of meaning-making, distribution, and identity signalling increasingly falls on the person rather than the company. Brands become lighter, more conceptual, more removed; people become the infrastructure through which those brands are activated, circulated, and made legible.

Mouthwash Studio’s idea of the “pleb influencer” captures the final stage of this shift. Influence no longer belongs to a visible class of creators; it has been fully normalised as a condition of participation. When everyone can be an influencer, everyday life becomes promotional infrastructure. The distinction between expression and advertising collapses, not because people are trying to sell, but because visibility itself now performs economic work.

Platforms have normalised a way of living where everyday life is quietly organised around being watchable. Bedrooms become sets, bathrooms become studios, private routines become content addressed to an imagined audience. The effect can feel faintly dystopian; a distributed Truman Show, in which people are advertising products, habits, and lifestyles to unseen cameras, without ever being cast or paid.

Visibility becomes ambient rather than exceptional, and performance less a choice than a default condition.

As visibility becomes more extractive and performance more ambient, some of the most meaningful forms of identity and belonging are quietly moving out of view; into smaller, slower, less legible and harder to reach spaces. Offline communities, finstas, private chats, niche scenes, and unmonetised and unreachable spaces.

This doesn’t signal an end to the brandification of the self, but a growing desire to reclaim parts of the self that don’t need to be performed, optimised, or read. Not everything is meant to circulate. And increasingly, that is kind of the point.

Lucinda Bounsall is a Strategy Director and Founder of London-based, Sibling Studio where her team provides brands with strategy that’s culturally attuned, commercially sharp, and actually works for how brand teams operate today. This essay was originally published in Lucinda’s Substack channel.

The post From Consuming the Product to Becoming the Product appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

From the beginning, Stössinger envisioned a face that was geometric but not cold—open, crisp, dense, and cheerful, with curves that feel dynamic rather than engineered. Its key signature is in the details: vertically cut curve terminals, which add sharpness and forward motion, and proportions that are generously wide yet compact enough to stay practical in slightly larger sizes.

The roots of Cassis trace back to an earlier trip to Antwerp, where Stössinger was captivated not by museum relics but by the city’s blue enameled street signs. Their geometric capitals weren’t precious or typographically “correct”—they were engineered shapes with literal geometry, rough execution, and quirky optical decisions that created unexpected charm. The signs also featured those vertically sliced terminals, a small move with big energy.

Over years of development, Cassis’ character coalesced around ideas of gesturality and density, rather than charming historical forms.

Cassis draws from that same tension: geometry meeting grit. It also sneaks in gesture. Alongside European signage memories are American influences—commercial lettering, sign painting, even echoes of Antique Olive in its slightly unconventional contrast, pushing just far enough beyond neutral to feel animated.

Now released through Frere-Jones Type, Cassis is designed to project affable confidence and offer compelling density at larger sizes; it presents swelling curves, reaching terminals, and a teetering balance of stroke weights, which infuse its geometric underpinnings with plenty of flavor. A powerful voice for branding, identity, and titling work, Cassis is presented in seven weights from a spare Thin through a forceful Black.

Cassis is designed to project affable confidence and offer compelling density at larger sizes; it presents swelling curves, reaching terminals, and a teetering balance of stroke weights, which infuse its geometric underpinnings with plenty of flavor. Cassis reads like a geometric sans serif that stopped trying to be perfect—and became much more interesting because of it.

The post Cassis: A Typeface as Tasty as a Kir Royale appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

For our latest lookbook, we’ve collected homes, offices and shops where Japanese shoji screens were used to create practical and beautiful sliding doors and walls.

Among the interiors featured in the lookbook are a modernist home in the US and a Tokyo office filled with natural materials.

While most of the interiors shown here are from Japan, shoji screens are also used in Western interior design – often to create a Japanese feel, but also as a practical solution to keep rooms bright while adding a layer of privacy.

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration, see previous lookbooks featuring relaxing saunas, minimalist living rooms and kitchens featuring natural wood.

Duane House, US, by OWIU

The interior of this Los Angeles home blends mid-century modern and traditional Japanese influences, with shoji screens used to create a large sliding wall in the living room.

Here, it’s juxtaposed with a classic LC4 chair by architect Le Corbusier and sculptural washi-paper lamps by designer Isamu Noguchi. A brick floor matches the screen’s grid pattern.

Find out more about Duane House ›

House in Saidera, Japan, by Akio Isshiki Architects

Cedar wood was used for the structure and facade of this Japanese home, which features a construction technique called shinkabe that leaves beams and columns visible in the interior.

Architect Akio Isshiki used traditional design elements such as shoji screens to create a home that would “set a new standard for contemporary living through a modern interpretation of Japanese architectural elements”.

Find out more about House in Saidera ›

Matsuya Ginza lounge, Japan, by I IN

Local studio I IN aimed to turn “light itself into the material of the space” at this VIP lounge for department store Matsuya’s Ginza location in Tokyo.

While most of the walls were kept white, one room was drenched in the saturated Edo purple hue. Here, delicate shoji screens and gridded paper lamps help bridge the gap between traditional and modern Japanese interiors.

Find out more about Matsuya Gina lounge ›

Conran Shop, Japan, by Keiji Ashizawa

Designer Keiji Ashizawa created the interior of this Conran Shop in Daikanyama, Tokyo, which spotlights products from Japan and Asia.

Shoji screens were used in the basement, where they were matched with Japanese paper that had been dyed grey and used as wallpaper.

“Shoji screens are an important element in creating a Japanese-style room but I realize that they can also be well used in both functional and aesthetic ways in a modern space,” Ashizawa explained.

Find out more about Conran Shop ›

Hiiragi’s House, Japan, by Takashi Okuno

This U-shaped house in Japan’s Ehime Prefecture was designed so that all rooms would have views of a tree in the central courtyard.

Inside, architect Takashi Okuno used clean lines and minimal decorations to create a sense of simplicity. Shoji screens were used as walls and window screens in a traditional Japanese room, which has a tatami-mat floor and can be used as a guest room.

Find out more about Hiiragi’s House ›

Symbolplus office, Japan, by Symbolplus

When designing its own office, located in a timber building designed by Japanese architect Akio Hayashi, Tokyo studio Symbolplus aimed to use natural materials in innovative ways.

In its seating area, shoji screens were used both as walls and ceiling panels, tilting over the room’s angular grey sofas.

“Rather than seeking visual novelty, this project innovates through its approach to material reuse, tradition, and adaptability,” the studio explained.

Find out more about Symbolplus office ›

Malibu Surf Shack, US, by Kelly Wearstler

US interior designer Kelly Wearstler created a “rustic and raw” decor for this 1950s beachfront cottage in California.

She drew on the property’s original details, which included shoji screens, when creating the interior. The resulting space was then filled with an eclectic mix of vintage and contemporary pieces.

Find out more about Malibu Surf Shack ›

House in Toyama, Japan, by NYAWA

This traditional timber home in Toyama, Japan, was updated by architecture studio NYAWA to use as a holiday home. Its original wooden structure, including its decorative intricate carvings, was restored.

The studio then combined the traditional shoji screens with corrugated polycarbonate screens to provide different degrees of light and privacy.

Find out more about House in Toyama ›

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration, see previous lookbooks featuring relaxing saunas, minimalist living rooms and kitchens featuring natural wood.

The post Eight interiors where translucent shoji screens let the light in appeared first on Dezeen.