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Best Friday Five Posts of 2020

Every week throughout the year, we enlist designers, artists, architects and creatives to share something other than their own work. It’s entirely up to them what they select, and the options are endless, but every week they share five picks, from things that inspire them, favorite locations, iconic designers they look up to, things they can’t live without, and so on. Every time it’s a surprise to see what they select and it’s always fascinating as it’s more insight into each creative’s mind. Now, we’re looking back to see the most popular Friday Five posts from 2020.

12.18.20 | By
Best Friday Five Posts of 2020

10. Friday Five With Nastaran Mousavi
Born and raised in the small Iranian city of Sari surrounded by the Alborz Mountains and the Caspian Sea, architect Nastaran Mousavi grew up appreciating the vast differences between the rich natural landscape and the heavily populated city. The San Francisco-based architect joined us for Friday Five to share places, designs, and things that inspire her.

Photo: Yakusha Design

9. Friday Five With Victoriya Yakusha
Architect, interior designer, and product designer Victoriya Yakusha is the founder of Yakusha Design studio among several other creative ventures. The Ukrainian talent is also behind the furniture and decor design at FAINA Design and owner of the design lecture hall Ya Vsesvit. Victoriya shared five favorite things, including modern Ukrainian music and a pair of designers.

8. Friday Five With Olubunmi Adeyemi
Olubunmi Adeyemi is a Nigerian minimalist designer, interior architect, and lifestyle entrepreneur, as well as the founder of AFROMINIMA, a design movement and social enterprise, and THE DÃ… BRAND, a design and culture lifestyle brand. In this Friday Five, Olubunmi explored some favorites, like a design icon and his favorite city.

7. Friday Five With Alice Grandoit
With a practice centered around developing engaging community platforms, cultural researcher and designer Alice Grandoit works at the intersections of community engagement, education and urbanism. Over the past 12 years, she’s worked with organizations to build awareness through strategic community partnerships, then reinforced these relationships through the creation and execution of memorable, physical touchpoints that serve as sites of mutual inspiration and exchange. Alice is the co-founder of Room for Magic, a collaborative design studio that works to bridge brands and communities, and Deem Journal, a new bi-annual print publication focused on design as a social practice. Alice shared five things that keep her inspired, including a favorite LA museum and an inspirational book.

6. Friday Five With Han Santana-Sayles of Meow Wolf
Han Santana-Sayles is a curator and Director of Artist Collaboration for Meow Wolf, an immersive, collaborative arts exhibition based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Meow Wolf has the vast ambition to curate the best creatives across every medium throughout the world. They also offer exhibitions as a platform for diverse, emerging and underrepresented artists across the United States. Han’s artistic taste tends to gravitate towards futuristic sci-fi aesthetics and maximalism, often incorporating parody or humor. In this Friday Five, Han shared a selection of her favorite artists’ recent installations and immersive environments!

5. Friday Five With Kara Mann
In 2005, interior designer Kara Mann opened a firm of the same name with offices in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. With 15 years as founder and creative director under her belt, Kara continues to challenge the boundaries of tradition with impactful yet refined interiors. Her inspiration is found in many creative fields – including art, architecture, and fashion. Along with several ongoing residential and luxury hotel projects, she launched a furniture collaboration with CB2 that launched earlier this year. For her Friday Five, Kara selected an intriguing mix of favorites, including handwritten notes and artist Genieve Figgis.

4. Friday Five With Petrus Palmer of Hem
Petrus Palmer is the Founder and CEO of Hem, a company that both conceives of and manufactures high quality designs, thereby cutting out the middleman. Hem, Swedish for ‘home,’ is a Stockholm-based design brand that has aimed to create fresh furniture, accessories, and lighting since 2014. Aside from Hem, he is also chairman of the board of Design Sweden, an organization with the purpose of supporting, nurturing, and enabling Swedish designers across the globe. Petrus shared five of his favorite modern designs, like a chair by Konstantin Grcic and glassware from Jasper Morrison.

Photo by Claire Lorman

3. Friday Five With Katie Lim of BARK
Katie Lim is Director of Industrial Design at BARK, the world’s most dog-obsessed company best known for BarkBox. There she helps push innovation, aesthetic, and play by leading the design team for Super Chewer, a line of toys for dogs who love to play rough and need a challenge. As part of BARK’s in-house design team, Katie also oversees product branding, product development, and prototyping of the design process for over 430 new and original toys each year. Katie joined us for this Friday Five where she shared five important things in her life, including Dieter Rams’ 10 Principles and community + mentorship.

Photo: Laurence Ellis

2. Friday Five With Jason Wu
Jason Wu’s interest in fashion began at an early age, when he would use dolls as mannequins for the miniature garments he would sew. It’s taken the designer only ten years to create his internationally recognized brand of clothing. Merging classic American sportswear elements and couture, his collection is sold globally. Since debuting his Ready-to-Wear collection in 2007, Wu has been dedicated to making clothing that are beautifully crafted from the inside out. In his Friday Five, Jason revealed his favorite skincare product and a food staple he grew up on.

And the top Friday Five post of 2020 is…

Photo: Amy Bartlam

1. Friday Five With Joyce Downing Pickens of JDP Interiors
Los Angeles-based interior designer and owner of JDP Interiors, Joyce Downing Pickens’ love of design was born during travels as a child. Her goal with every project is to create beautiful, comfortable and textural spaces, while also providing clients with superior customer service and project management. Joyce continually collects and curates to achieve the perfect blend between vintage and modern styles and loves watching her visions come to life. In the most read Friday Five of 2020, Joyce shared some of her favorite things, including vintage art and her beloved dog.

Caroline Williamson is Editor-in-Chief of Design Milk. She has a BFA in photography from SCAD and can usually be found searching for vintage wares, doing New York Times crossword puzzles in pen, or reworking playlists on Spotify.