Just in time for Father’s Day—and all your outdoor summer cookery—we spent some time with the Mosner’s, a three-generation dynasty of meat purveyors in the Bronx.
Read the story.
Introducing the inaugural issue of the Wantful magazine, the world’s first fully personalized print magazine, custom printed for each member of our new Premier program. Features 116 perfect-bound pages of rich photography and features about the products we carry and the people behind them, all on the theme of The Art of Giving.
(Source: wantful.com)
The Art of Giving, Los Angeles Style
This month, we want to celebrate paying it forward. The Art of Giving takes many forms, and giving back has been a part of Wantful since its earliest conception.
Earlier this week, with Thanksgiving on our minds, we teamed up with actress Rashida Jones to host a dinner benefiting the International Rescue Committee, and in particular, the New Roots organization, which helps refugees become self-sufficient through community gardening and small business farming.
The dinner, which took place at West Hollywood restaurant Eveleigh, turned out a stellar group of supporters including Amy Adams, Amy Poehler, Brooklyn Decker, Emma Roberts, Kristen Bell, Brad Goreski and Ali Larter. We were excited to share our service with new friends and grateful to Rashida for her help in making this event such a big success.
Most importantly, we’re quite proud to be adding the IRC to our growing list of charities available on Wantful, and to be giving our customers and their recipients the opportunity to contribute in such a meaningful way.
The gift of giving never gets old.
Up In The Air Somewhere
By Rammy Lee Park. Photos by Collin Hughes
Susan Dwyer’s studio sits appropriately on an industrial corner in the West Loop neighborhood of Chicago. “I’ve always been drawn to very functional, very large shapes,” she says, pointing out a looming water tower, striped with ladders. Chicago’s renowned lake front skyline are in the background here. What interests Dwyer is the factory, the water tower, the warehouse.
Dwyer, who attended the Art Institute of Chicago, was making large scale installation art when she decided to try tackling smaller, more tactile objects. This was a few years ago, but it hasn’t kept her from looking up.
She shows us more of her favorite neighborhood structures, including a set of mottled arches supporting an overpass and cylindrical silos, pierced by small, square windows. “They’re almost ugly,” she admits with a smile, “but the challenge is to get them to their smallest, purest form.”
The fruits of this challenge, one she clearly relishes, are the heart of Up In The Air Somewhere, her collection of ceramic and papier-mâché vessels. Inside her sun-filled studio, the shapes that dot the skyline around her take softer, gentler form.
Short, ceramic water towers, painted a rich gray, cluster before a window. Small, slightly leaning cups, arranged in rows, seem to patiently await their turn to be dipped into bright rubber. While much smaller than their outdoor counterparts, these vessels feel substantive even while fitting neatly into your palm. Her papier-mâché pieces, light as a feather, are lined with gold, giving them a contrasting visual heft.
Dwyer works without molds, so each piece is individually crafted by hand. As a result, no two vessels are alike. While this yields one of a kind results, it also means a large part of her design practice is born out of mistakes in the studio.
“Working in ceramics can be heartbreaking,” Dwyer says with a sigh. She can work for hours on a piece only to have it come out of the kiln with a tiny speck on it. Unable to throw these out, they lie around the space, awaiting her careful consideration. She picks up a small dish and points out a tiny blue spot. “It could always become something,” she says.
Maybe even a little piece of the Chicago skyline, distilled.
A Perfect Pairing
By Rammy Lee Park. Photos by Collin Hughes.
Barreling down a dirt road in a beautiful, boxy Geländewagen and headed for the caves at the Caldwell Estates, Mario Sculatti of Evinco turns to me and says with mischief, “We’ll have to ask John if you can write about his clone smuggling days.” Inside, Boris Guillome tips a generous pour of Rocket Science Cabernet into my glass. I take a sniff and say the first thing that comes to mind: rubies. “I love that you say that,” Boris exclaims. “It’s important to remember, wine is subjective…it’s very personal.”
We’ve come to Napa to meet three of the twenty-three wineries they’ve partnered with to create Wantful’s inaugural wine collection. Over the course of the day, we talk terroirs and terrains, burgundies and bordeaux, the two trading tales of extravagant tastings of extremely rare wines, and it becomes clear these guys are serious about wine.
When asked how he got into the wine business, Boris smiles, shrugs, and says, “I’m French, and from the Loire.” Mario, a third-generation wine obsessive born and raised in Napa Valley, has a similar challenge: neither of them can seem to help it. Their passion for all things wine and vine is infectious, and their combined knowledge vast.
An auctioneer of rare wines for many years—most recently in the emerging Asian market—Mario’s family history plays big in local lore. His grandfather managed and planted Otto Beringer’s vineyards, and his father was on the team that produced the 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay, which won the 1976 Paris Tasting in a stunning upset and put Napa Valley wines on the map.
Boris is a holder of the highest level certificate offered by the Wine and Spirit Trust, and most recently was a senior wine buyer for Dean & Deluca. During his tenure there he sampled over 4,000 wines per year from California alone. But Boris values most his relationships with the people behind the scenes. His knowledge of local winemakers and their traditional yet evolving techniques is both informative and anecdotal.
Together, they bring a wealth of knowledge and skill traversing the wide expanse of wine culture, but what really sets them apart is their emphasis on the personal touch.
At the Martin Estate, we spent the afternoon with the elegant and adventurous Petra Martin. We rescued frogs from the pool, asked about the Martin’s world famous antique gun collection, and huddled around an iPhone as we watched an old YouTube clip of Petra’s daughter playing Annie Oakley in a PBS show.
The Martin Estate produces such small batches—just 1,500 cases each season—that they’ve never needed advertising, and their wines are only available to their mailing list and special customers. Now, thanks to Mario and Boris’ efforts, they will available as gifts on Wantful.
Linda Hartwell of Hartwell Estates also produces in very limited quantities, just 3,000 thousand cases compared with the 15,000 and more produced by larger mass wineries. For Linda, quality has always been more important than quantity. Her 2010 Sauvignon Blanc has a complex and generous texture balanced by a refreshing acidity. This wine is only available to her most loyal clients and now, on Wantful. Having tasted a full glass myself, I can say without hesitation this is a very exciting thing.
As fixtures around Napa, driving around with Boris and Mario takes a little extra time because they are always running into someone they know. Their deep investment in the people and communities who make these wines is reflected in the wines they’ve selected, with fully local representation, from young upstarts to local legends, rising female winemakers to multigenerational ones, and over all, winemakers with great stories making incredible wine.
Evinco’s goal is to bring this spirit of the best and most interesting current and collectible wines to Wantful. “We want each person who purchases from the Wantful collection to feel the beauty and triumph of quality in their glass each time they drink,” Mario says.
It’s safe to say their goal is ours as well. Welcome to Wine, now on Wantful.
Wantful Q&A: Susan Kare
By Rammy Park
If you’ve ever clicked around the original Macintosh computers, played solitaire on Windows, or given a virtual gift on Facebook, you’ve engaged with the pioneering work of Susan Kare. To anyone who uses a computer, Kare’s work is immediately recognizable.
Legendary in design circles, she continues to influence today with her minimal, mosaic-like precision, working with clients like Target, MoMA and PayPal, and earlier this year she launched Kare Prints. “We were fortunate to have received some requests, and that inspired the making of signed, limited edition prints and a book of icons,” she says. The book, Susan Kare Icons, features 80 of her favorite designs from 1983 to 2011.
While normally only selling her work through her own site, Kare felt like Wantful was an elegant execution of a creative idea. We’re honored to be teaming up with her to offer four prints in custom sizes and colors, hand-signed and numbered, available exclusively on Wantful.
Next up for Kare? “We’re working on an icon alphabet print and a series of individual letters paired with icons.”
We spoke with Kare to find out more about her work, her influences, and why she loves designing icons.
How did you get started in digital design?
I got a job at Apple in 1982 to create digital fonts and icons for the new Macintosh computer. I was lucky to have the chance to learn about digital design by creating images on MacPaint as it was being developed.
What drew you specifically to user interface graphics and iconography?
I was excited about working on a computer being designed “for the rest of us” and developing symbols for a non-technical audience.
What, in your mind, makes a good icon?
Frequently, good icons are like road signs - symbols that are free of extraneous detail. Clear, concise, meaningful, memorable.
You’ve been involved as a designer in the tech industry for a long time, and you’ve seen it evolve. How has that evolution influenced, or not influenced, your work?
I believe that there is very little that’s new under the sun! If you study art history, you can usually find precedents for most images and ideas; this is a wonderful human connection through the ages, but it’s also humbling. The computer is a relatively new tool, and makes certain processes easier, and iteration a snap, but it doesn’t really change the creative process. In our design practice, I’m always trying to create symbols that can communicate something in a minimal and memorable way.
What is your favorite step of the design process?
I love being in the middle of projects, when the path is clear but there are still decisions to make.
Tell us about some of your greatest influences and inspirations for your work.
An artist and designer whose work is particularly inspiring to me is Paul Rand. He created many enduring corporate logos (Westinghouse, IBM, and the classic UPS shield logo with a package) and for many years led graphic design and packaging at IBM. His work is spare and thoughtful and often good-humored, and I frequently refer to his books to study his typeface and color choices. I’m also influenced by all kinds of design and natural elements that I encounter daily, such as graffiti, signage (old and new), textiles, surfboard graphics, shells, etc. I’m always taking pictures with my phone for future reference.
Choose from Dog Gray (one of Susan’s personal images), Big Love Blue (one of her “favorites”), Caffeine Yellow (one of a series of bad habit icons Susan designed for MoMA) and Crayon Green, (designed for a paint application). All Susan Kare giclee prints are hand-signed and printed to order on handmade Hahnemüle fine art photo rag paper.
A gift unlike any other, available only at Wantful.
Get It Right For Father’s Day
Father’s Day is a tough one and it’s coming up fast. A Wantful gift book gives him sixteen options to choose from, and he’s bound to love one of our exciting new gifts for dads.
Not sure where to begin? We’ve curated a few special collections that will help you get started.
He’ll never expect getting exactly what he wants for Father’s Day .
One of our favorite things about working in DUMBO is views like this. Taken this morning on the roof by our creative director, Taylor Pemberton.
Like shedding a coat,
like fog: all worries lift. What
remains? Clarity.
Getting to see something beautiful right outside our window inspires us to work harder, better, stronger. All good things.
Ready, Set, Graduate.
One recent morning on my way to work, my train felt different somehow. Nestled here and there within the usual scrum of commuters were excited faces in caps and gowns, bursts of bright satin on an otherwise typical morning. Their numbers grew with each stop, hues of crimson, marigold and royal purple packing the train. I noticed the baby blue of my alma mater and remembered my own graduation: huddled under an umbrella with my parents, listening to Tony Kushner tell me how it is, how it would be, and what I could and should do about it.
The only real certainty in the life of a recent graduate is a life in flux. The next few months are a series of brand new beginnings: new job, new city, a new place to live. And while it may not be the best time to be graduating, it’s still an accomplishment worth celebrating. Doesn’t every new beginning deserve a little send-off? With sixteen different gift options, a Wantful gift book is particularly well-suited to the vagaries of post-graduate life. You choose the items that speak to various possibilities, they choose the one that fits their new path best.
Transitions are hard, but one way to make it easier is to include a few upgraded versions of college staples. We love these glass water bottles from bkr so much that everyone in our NYC office recently ordered them. They’re an elegant, long-lasting, and clean-tasting update to school-logo emblazoned plastic. Or how about some art for their bare walls? This limited edition archival print of vintage Atari games is not only a worthy replacement for dormitory posters but a nostalgic reminder of a beloved pastime. No thumbtacks necessary.
Speaking of bare walls, offer a few housewarming options. I love these air plant pods, which offer high impact style for low maintenance care. Just a little spritz of water and you’re done. A new set of towels might also be appealing, considering their last set probably did the rounds at a communal bathroom of some kind. These are made in Kerala, India, as part of an initiative to save the traditional handloom industry. Even if they’ve had enough of books for now, The Picture of Dorian Gray belongs on a higher-ed shelf. This one cleverly masks an iPhone/iPod charger and you can choose from an assortment of syllabus-worthy tomes.
New jobs call for new supplies, and your employed graduate might enjoy this elegant and sustainable iPad case. Die cut from recycled wool felt, it doubles as a viewing stand. For those with a low-tech approach to their work, this leather field sketchbook is great for taking notes on the run. There’s no reason not to include both so they can decide the best fit for their new job.
Finally, all work and no play make for a dull post-graduate life, so include a few options that are all fun, like this home brew kit. It comes in six different flavors and includes everything they need to make their own Hefeweizens or IPAs. Traveling is also a common option after graduating, and if they haven’t spent a semester abroad already, they’ll have need for a few basics. Include a passport case, a new messenger bag, a leather camera strap—because who knows all the places they’ll go? Only they do, so let them decide. They’ve earned it.
In her famous “Etiquette,” Emily Post writes, “Who was it that said—in the Victorian era probably, and a man of course—‘The only mechanical tool ever needed by a woman is a hairpin?’ He might’ve added that with a hair-pin and a visiting card, she is ready to meet most emergencies.”
Frankly, I don’t even need a hairpin anymore. Visiting cards, name cards, calling cards—all are precursors to the modern day business card. For us, it’s an indispensable professional tool as well as a form of expression. We wanted the cards to evoke the experience of a Wantful gift book, so we made sure the two matched exactly.
We’re pleased to say we get asked about them all the time, so from our print-geek hearts to yours, here’s how they were made. The fronts of our cards have a smooth white quality with cool gray details. The back has a black suede texture, just like our gift books, with a subtle blind deboss. Each side is letter pressed separately on double white and black card stock, then sandwiched together to complete the construction. We worked with our friends at Oscar Printing in San Francisco to get them just right and we couldn’t be happier.
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