The Design Life: What Inspires This Year’s Dwell 24?

Learn how our favorite emerging talents live, work, and dream design in 2019.
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We asked each of this year's Dwell 24 about their everyday lives as designers. What inspires them? What does a typical workday look like? Who are their heroes? Follow along with the infographics below to read their responses.

The Design Life: What Inspires This Year’s Dwell 24? - Photo 1 of 2 -
I am...
  • 19% Left-handed 
  • 74% Right-handed 
  • 7% Ambidextrous

2. Who are your heroes in design or in life? 
  • Hans Wegner (in design) and Michael Jordan (in life). —Samson Wang 
  • Olafur Eliasson. —Ian Cochran 
  • Immigrants—people who leave behind and risk everything for a better life. —Maria Camarena

3. What contemporary design trends do you despise? 
  • Soft, squishy things. —Urvi Sharma
  • I can tell I’m getting older by my response: the ugly-beautiful situation running about. I like organic forms and surprising material combinations, but this new stuff is beyond my comprehension. —Mark Grattan
  • All of it. —Aaron Aujla 
  • Any trend that ignores environ- mental issues. —Maria Camarena

4. Choose one...
  • 48% Bauhaus 
  • 22% Memphis 
  • 30% Brutalist

5. Choose one...
  • 34% Form 
  • 30% Function 
  • 36% Fun

6. Choose one...
  • 11% Past 
  • 52% Present 
  • 37% Future

7. What is your most treasured possession?
  • A pine tree, actually. —Simon Schmitz 
  • In my studio, my manual Muji pencil sharpener. In my purse, my silver hairpin from Bali gifted to me by someone dear to my heart. —Paola Sakr
  • My moleskin. I never leave home without it, cliché as it may sound. —Gabriel Tan

8. I sketch with...
  • 59% Pen 
  • 26% Pencil
  • 15% Computer
The Design Life: What Inspires This Year’s Dwell 24? - Photo 2 of 2 -
1. What skills would you most like to learn? 
  • The ability to carve the human figure in marble. But more important, being able to capture the figure’s soul in the sculpture. —Ryan Heinz
  • Negotiation tactics. —Stein Wang
  • Proper Italian pasta making! —Joel Booy
  • Teleportation, a kind of super strength like in Marvel comics. I really hate to waste too much time on the road. —Mario Tsai

2. What's in your dream house? 
  • Secret passageways. —Urvi Sharma 
  • A separate refrigerator for ice cream and a library with a spa. —SeonHee Kim 
  • A cedar-wood sauna (on a lake!). —Kate Booy 
  • A room full of all my favorite stationery in the world, including some items I can’t get anymore. I’d call it the Stationery Museum. —Nicki Shen 
  • An indoor hammock. —Miranda Tengs Brun

3. What everyday object would you like to redesign? 
  • For a long time I dreamed of a folding house that I can keep in my car, like the cartoon character Doraemon. I’d love to design a folding house someday. —SeonHee Kim 
  • Mobile phones—they all look the same now. —Ángel Mombiedro 
  • A mirror. —Ian Cochran

4. Design should...
  • Dare. —Simon Schmitz 
  • Strive to have worthy aims and then attempt to meet them. —Joel Booy 
  • Be thoughtful and functional. —Nicki Shen 
  • Withstand the scrutiny of being questioned "why." —Stein Wang

5. I work best with...
  • 56% Music 
  • 37% Silence 
  • 7% Podcast

6. My studio is... 
  • 33% A study in head- clearing minimalism. 
  • 67% A hive of productive clutter.

7. I do my best work...
  • 48% First thing in the morning 
  • 11% In the afternoon 
  • 19% Sometime in the evening 
  • 22% Late at night

8. What is Instagram? 
  • 26% An amplifier for ideas 
  • 48% A useful promotional tool 
  • 22% A homogenizing force in the design world 
  • 4% I avoid Instagram

9. How do you procrastinate? 
  • With the help of the Internet. —Simon Schmitz 
  • You mean, what is Instagram? —Mark Grattan 
  • Often and needlessly. —Paola Sakr 
  • My zodiac sign is Sagittarius, so procrastination isn’t a part of me. —Topher Kong 
  • I meticulously organize everything around me or start rearranging the furniture in my house. —Urvi Sharma
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