2020. WHAT. A. YEAR. so far…

TFW every month feels like a year.

WHAT a time to be alive. And… to run a small business.

This has been the global moment of taking a breath and taking stock.

Professionally it meant we had to work with clients to make sure we could still support their work without the trade shows they normally participate in. It meant rethinking how assets are made. It meant getting really good at working away from each other, still a team, just with many states between us. It means thinking about how a very small business like ours can continue to be committed to justice. It means taking stock of our impact, our industry’s impact, and where we want to go. If you know me, you know these questions are not new things that I’ve just started pondering- but I’m glad to reexamine, refine, get better. Do the work.

I do want to take some time to talk about the company news, and I will. But first I wanted to unequivocally say that Black Lives Matter. That personally and professionally we will always strive to create equality and representation throughout our overwhelmingly white, male industry. One of the things we’re doing as a company in solidarity is taking this Friday off to observe Juneteenth, and we hope that you do as well. If you want to learn more about what Juneteenth is all about, and why it should be recognized as a national holiday you can click here. We’re developing other ways this small shop can make a bigger impact, so stay tuned for further commitments from me and my team.

Sabai's sustainable sofa

Sabai

This year we started working with Sabai, a new direct to consumer sustainable sofa brand, founded by two young women who in their own words “aim to be the Impossible Burger of furniture!” By that they mean that the sofa looks great and is super comfortable (much like an impossible burger tastes great) without sacrificing sustainability. 

The BIPOC founders, Caitlin Ellen and Phantila Phataraprasit consider environmental sustainability in all aspects of their designs, from the frame to the fabric to the packaging. The two became experts on sustainable material manufacturers both domestically and abroad for each of the components needed, including wood, fabrics, fibers, and packaging.

Sabai's recyclable velvet in moss

In response to current events surrounding black lives in America, Sabai, hosted a fundraiser for Reclaim the Block, an organization which is pushing Minneapolis to move money out of policing and into community-led safety. They were able to raise nearly $3000. Their efforts were covered by AD Pro:

“Elsewhere, direct-to-consumer sofa company Sabai, which was founded by Phantila Phataraprasit and Caitlin Ellen, focused on their own fundraiser. Ellen stated to AD PRO: “At Sabai, we really identify with the notion that there can be a radical re-envisioning of our future….So we decided to raise funds for Reclaim the Block via a raffle for a brand-new sofa. Ultimately, we were able to donate around $3,000 to fund community health and safety. We’re a small business, but we’re hoping we can continue to help out how we can—including donating furniture to housing for the formerly incarcerated.”

Sabai’s photoshoots have always included a diversity of models, families, and relationships.

Sabai’s founders are not just incredibly smart and have values that need to be in the design world. Because of their leadership, Sabai is working with local, family run manufacturers right here in the US. Sabai is regularly reiterating on their design to make it better and better for the environment. They are constantly listening to customers and making changes to the company and the product to make it better. We need more Sabai’s in the design industry

Pair's space dividers, Toast

Pair

Working with an office furniture client during a time while there is no office has been truly interesting. Brian Wilson, Pair‘s co-founder, believes the office is here to stay– and said as much to Workplaces magazine:

“How we use the office may change, but we believe the workplace is here to stay. The office has always been a place for contemplation, collaboration and even water cooler chat. To get back to this place that effectively supports life and culture, the space needs to feel safe as much as it needs to be safe.”

You can read his whole essay here

Pair has also done very well during the award season, grabbing accolades from both Azure and Interior Design Magazine. Azure recognized Toast as a finalist for the Design: Interior Products category for their AZ Awards. It’s also part of the People’s Choice Voting, which is open through June 19th.
We especially like Toast because of its very topical use for creating space division, while remaining quite beautiful. 

Wolf Craft Logo

Wolf Craft

Like everyone else, my mind has been pulled in a hundred different directions. I’m scared about the months and years ahead of us. I’m so curious if any of us will even have a business in the future. So, of course, I doubled down. And did one of the boldest, exciting, invigorating (did I mention stressful and time consuming?) things in years. 

I launched a second business.

It’s called Wolf Craft and I’m really excited and proud of it. It’s a PR strategy firm designed to work with clients who don’t need ongoing PR retainers but do need PR support. It’s a way for me to work with companies I’ve never been able to work with in the past. I’m happy to say that this company is my first partnership with frequent Wolf PR collaborator (and best friend) Kirsten Larson. 

I’ve moved some of the services living on Wolf PR’s website over to Wolf Craft. We’re offering things like:

  • 1-1 coaching, because sometimes you need guidance, a sounding board, an editor, or a little extra push. This is the service I wish had existed when I was starting out. 
  • Audits and Reporting to better understand peer companies, similar products, and industry thought leaders, as well as the media landscape (ever changing always, but especially right now!). We give clear action items and recommendations at the end of these so our clients have clear next steps. 
  • One Time Analysis to answer to the important questions like where can my website improve? What about my instagram bio? Where do I need to improve my photography? What about my Press materials?
  • Courses, and we just launched our first one, How to Pitch Holiday Gift Guides! I won’t go into too much detail here because there is so much on the website, but we’re really proud of it and we think it will be endlessly useful to businesses who want to be in gift guides. 

Please check out our website and insta. I’m always endlessly thankful for your ongoing support, it means the world to me. 

A New Wolf PR Service- Gift Guides

Not only did I launch a new business, but we launched a new service as well. Something we’re really, really good at is placing our clients in gift guides. So we thought we’d make it a capsule service. We’re looking for clients who ONLY want gift guide support. It will be more affordable in price (just a one time fee) and it will last through the rest of the year while we support those clients until Dec 24 with the main focus of placing products into gift guides. If you or a company you know would be interested in this service, please get in touch!

Gift guides make a big impact for our clients. We’d love to help make a big impact for you too!

March Press Round Up

We know it’s been a minute since we’ve given shared an update, but in our defense we’ve been pretty busy helping launch a brand new showroom and securing appearances for our clients in major publications like The Wall Street Journal. Here’s a look back at the past month at Wolf PR.

We helped Industry West launch their first showroom, in Soho, and it was a huge success. Not only have did they get tons of people through the door on their very first day, they got a lot of great industry press for it, too, including in Business of Home and HFN.

Not just showing off their showroom, we’ve helped Industry West land their products in a bunch of publications this past month, including in Luxury, Aspire (twice!), New York Cottages & Gardens, and California Home & Design.

It’s been a big month for Geoff Chick and Associates, too, with not one but two shoutouts in The Wall Street Journal. One was a brief look at how he uses rolling ladders to maximize small spaces, and the other was a great feature on the Chandler home and its firefighting design.

November Press Round Up

It’s almost December, and you know what that means…holiday gift guides!

Industry West was getting a lot of holiday love—popping up everywhere: House Beautiful, The New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Wall Street Journal, Eater, Fast Company, Real Simple, Milieu, and Outside among them. The Sol&Luna leather goods were an especially big hit.

The brand also got some more holistic attention with Organic Spa picking up the Linge Linen Napkins and Yoga Journal spotlighting their Caisson Round Tray.

Wired made not just one pick from Wolf PR clients and favorites, but three!

Herman Miller’s soon-to-be-iconic Cosm chair, Pat Kim’s brass sculptures for Still House, and Norlan’s Rauk Heavy Tumbler all made the magazine’s wishlist.

And that was hardly all for Norlan this fall with the high-tech tumblers popping up in Eater too.

July Press Round Up

This past July was a great time for Wolf PR as our clients appeared all across print and web, and as we geared up to work with two exciting new brands—Industry West and Norlan.

Kikkerland was featured in the glamorous pages of Vogue where their reusable paper straws stole the spotlight as more and more people are turning away from plastic disposable products.

Resident cropped up in Spaces and Lighting and Decor with their Arcade Daybed and Circus 250 pendant lamp.

Herman Miller’s Live OS, a suite of data-driven solution for offices, was spotlighted in Business of Home from Editor at Large, showing how big data is even infiltrating furniture design. In one particularly standout example, Herman Miller used their technology on themselves: “Using the Live OS dashboard, we identified the exact minute during this period that the most desks were in use,” says Chris Hoyt, a Live OS manager at Herman Miller. “With this information as a guide, we created a plan for adding 15 new summer interns to the space. As a result, we comfortably accommodated both the interns and the other residents of the office.”

We’re excited to introduce two new clients Industry West and Norlan.

Industry West was founded in 2011 by Jordan and Anne England, Industry West began as a search for the perfect dining chair. They now collaborates with numerous international designers to sell a variety furniture and home accessories for residential and commercial spaces. The company is entirely bootstrapped and has accepted no outside funding.

Some of the designers Industry West has collaborated with include HARTÔ, Mexa, Karpenter, Sol & Luna, Lyon Beton, and Serax, just to name a few. Loved by the start up community, their pieces can be found in seemingly all. the. offices. Most recently at UNTUCKit, SeatGeek, and new Breather spaces.

Norlan creates hypermodern drinkware for whisky aficionados. Norlan was founded by two former Moss colleagues, Brian Fichtner and Shane Bahng, both who went on to work their way up the design ecosystem with stints at the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian National Design Museum, Giorgetti and Swedish luxury brand Hästens. They were joined by internationally recognized Icelandic designer Sruli Recht. The three combined their design expertise to found Norlan.

Norlan’s glasses use biomimicry, fine glass blowing techniques, and contemporary design details to update the the ritual of whiskey drinking, adding a modern take to a timeless tradition. They currently have two glasses and a new one on the way.

 



Also stay tuned for a look at one of Wolf PR’s own’s (somehow Herman Miller inspired) visit to a very unusual church and artists’ retreat upstate.

June Press Round Up

Summer’s well underway and things have been heating up at Wolf PR—not least of all with NeoCon where we represented Herman Miller’s newest releases and their big announcements about their acquisitions of HAY and Maars Living Walls. Of course, Kikkerland’s also been enjoying its day in the sun, topping of many summer roundups.

With the continued success of Cosm, many new product announcements at NeoCon, and some big corporate news, Herman Miller has been getting plenty of attention. Overlay and Axon, first launched at NeoCon, made it into Architizer. Cosm was featured in Specify, Design Milk, Co.Design, and Snap—which also featured Leeway, a favorite of Azure, too.

Herman Miller’s acquisition of Hay also popped up in Business of Home by Editor at Large.

As usual, Kikkerland made the rounds on and offline, not least of all in Real Simple with their Reusable Garden Markers as part of a garden themed “What We Love.”

April and May Press Round Up

Phew things have been busy! April and May have been a whirlwind with Salone del Mobile and NYCxDESIGN. Thankfully, our clients’ great work has been getting plenty of much-deserved recognition.

In Milan Wolf PR worked with Herman Miller to unveil their brand-new Cosm line of office chairs at their exhibition For You Everyone. Unsurprisingly, Cosm was a hit and landed publication in Interior Design, Architect Magazine, Hypebeast, and others.

We hardly had a moment to breathe, with NYCxDESIGN following up right after Salone. For New York’s more-than-a-week design week we were happy to work again with Wolf PR’s very first client, Still House, for a successful celebration of Pat Kim’s Formations, which appeared in Sight Unseen and Curbed, as well as on Interior Design’s “What not to miss” map (along with new Wolf PR clients Next Level and Resident).

New Zealand furniture designer Resident’s Soho installation Traveling without Bags and the collaboratively curated show Next Level were big hits, appearing on roundups from, among many,  Architectural Digest and The New York Times. Resident also got some great press in publications like Surface and Wallpaper*.

Kikkerland had their own display during NYCxDESIGN, showcasing the winners of their latest design challenge at Wanted Design. They’ve also been getting a lot of summer love for their new collection in publications like House Beautiful and Vogue.

March Press Round Up

While we didn’t welcome in spring quite the way we wanted to this snowy March (and, it seems so far, April) we did get some fresh starts with Wolf PR’s newest client, New Zealand-based furniture brand Resident.

We helped Resident come on to the U.S. scene by scoring them a position in Sight Unseen’s Saturday Selects.

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Resident wasn’t the only Sight Unseen feature this past month. Canadian collectible furniture makers Claste also made Saturday Selects the week before, following on the heels of their first U.S. showing and the launch of their new collection, Tension 1.2, at Les Ateliers Courbet in New York.

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Kikkerland’s more rugged products made appearances in OFFGRID, the outdoor gear magazine with reviews of their Wood Axe Multi Tool and Key Tools.

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Kikkerland also got a bunch of love from Buzzfeed, popping up in lists with products ranging from pencils to playing cards to cold brew makers.

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February Press Round Up

Even with only 28 days there was plenty going on in February for Wolf PR—not least of all the Valentine’s Day gift guides.

We at Wolf PR, of course, know that Kikkerland makes great homegoods and HGTV seems to agree. The Mozart Kitchen Timer made the list of “20 Beautiful Kitchen Accessories for $20 or Less” and the Felt Bedside Caddy won the title of “Storage All-Star.”

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Meeting with Modern magazine, Nathalie du Pasquier and George Sowden dished about their new collection with ZigZagZurich. They talked color, collaboration, and crisis making for a definite must-read.

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ZigZag also got the spotlight in Hospitality Design.

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One of Wolf PR’s newer clients, Tritan from Eastman has been making waves. The shatterproof, crystal clear, BPA-free plastic has been cropping up in a number of products, especially for the kitchen. For The Inspired Home’s coffee-obsession roundup they recommended the Tritan-based Dash Rapid Cold Brew System as the first step in an indulgent cocktail.

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And finally, we helped land Wolf PR friend Michala Monroe in the Wall Street Journal’s print and online editions where she reminisced with other design pros on what she loved (and hated) about her family home.

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December Press Round Up

Wolf PR is feeling refreshed and ready for the new year after taking a much needed break. As we gear up for 2018, here’s a look back at our very busy December.

This holiday season Kikkerland was all over gift guides. And with budget (and stocking) friendly products for just about everyone, we can’t say we’re surprised. Some stand outs were Redbook’s feature of the 3D dinosaur puzzle in its under $50 round up, Real Simple’s inclusion of the Unicorn Zip and Flip pillow in its holiday gift guide, and numerous appearances in New York magazine’s The Strategist. We hope Kikkerland brought many lucky recipients some cheer this past December.

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ZigZagZurich also popped up on this season’s holiday giving guides. The Konstructiv Wool Blanket made an appearance on Design Milk‘s “2017 Gift Guide: For the Person Who Has Everything” and the Bauhaused 2 blanket was recommended for “the entertainer” in Organic Spa.

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It wasn’t just holiday gifts that Wolf PR clients rounded off the lists of, though. The luminous marble of Claste’s Heart of Gold lamp got a full-page feature in the “Covet” section of “Interiors.” Definitely a covetable position.

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November Press Round Up

The holidays are a time to celebrate, and there’s been no shortage of celebration at Wolf PR.

First and foremost, Kikkerland rang in an amazing 25 years! On the advent of this silver anniversary, Format Magazine profiled founder Jan van der Lande, who reflected on the brand’s over two decades of fun and functional design. From humble beginnings bicycling around New York selling friends’ vases to design stores to creating a design that was “more like pop music,” Jan has grown a business and brand whose cleverness inspires smirks the world over.

screen-shot-2017-11-30-at-5-04-52-pmKikkerland’s press presence didn’t stop there, though; their staggering range of products dotted gift guides with everything from selfie lights to Bluetooth speakers to portable grills in publications like InStyle, Goop, Chatelaine, the Los Angeles Times, and many more. The Gold Paper Straws even made an appearance as a seasonal cocktail ingredient, certain to help you get through even the most trying family functions.

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Speaking of gift lists, ZigZagZurich’s Kosntructiv wool blanket, designed by creative director Michele Rondelli, made the inimitable New York Times’ own holiday gift guide, and the Guatemala throw made an appearance in the decidedly design critical Architect’s Newspaper. It wasn’t just gift guides that rounded up ZigZagZurich’s striking patterns, though—Surface’s wall covering list featured the Milano pattern designed by CoopDPS, the collaborative project of iconic duo Nathalie du Pasquier and George Sowden.

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Stationary aficionados can also rejoice this holiday season, as rave reviews have been coming in for the productivity-focused the Action Method Action Book from The Gentleman Stationer, The Gadgeteer, and Cool Hunting. Elegant and practical, its definitely perfect for a New Years resolution reset after a holiday break.

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