May 16, 2017
A Winning Trophy: Trueing Designs This Year’s #MetropolisLikes Award
With support from The Workspace at A/D/O, the young design firm Trueing, creates a minimalist testament to the “ever-changing world of design.”
As design fair season heats up, here at Metropolis we are excited to recognize and share with our readers all the outstanding work from the upcoming shows and exhibitions. Each year, under the banner of #MetropolisLikes, our editors select the best products from NYCxDESIGN and NeoCon. Recognition is lavished upon winners through our website and social channels and, to give the honor a material presence, all winning designers receive a specially-made #MetropolisLikes award-trophy.
This year’s award is custom designed by Trueing, a Brooklyn-based design studio founded by Josh Metersky and Aiden Bowman. The meticulously composed, geometric keepsake features a kaleidoscope enclosed in a wooden sphere that’s framed by a rectangular faceplate. The duo calls it “a metaphor for the varied and ever-changing world of design contained within the pages of Metropolis.”
To create the award, Metersky and Bowman found great support from The Workspace at A/D/O, a collaborative design environment and studio where Trueing is a resident member. As A/D/O enters its second season of programming under the rubric of Common Sense, which investigates designers’ power to transform our world through the activation of the senses, the designers aimed to incorporate the theme into their design. “A kaleidoscope allows you to get rid of all extra references and pare it down to that raw, elemental sense,” Meteresky explained. To view the variegated complexity inside, one must engage the object fully, and “by isolating the sense of sight,” Bowman added, “you can really examine its effects.”
Metersky and Bowman define Trueing as a “context-driven” studio, with each product purposefully grounded in the parameters set by its environment and the materials at hand. With Metersky’s background in mechanical engineering and Bowman’s in architecture, communications, and art history, “Trueing comes together in the combination of our respective skill sets,” offered Bowman.
With a rich concept in mind, Trueing thoroughly addressed the award’s functional parameters as well. “It needed to be portable and it needed to be resilient,” Bowman recalled. Balanced with a maple wood plaque, each award contains colorful acrylic pieces which were laser cut at A/D/O’s fabrication lab, an amenity available to resident members. The Workspace is ideal for designers to leverage tools and connections to grow their practice, particularly for young firms like Trueing. “It’s a great collaborative space, it’s very open and inviting,” Meteresky said, and, Bowman added, “they have an entire staff dedicated to pushing design forward and creating opportunities for designers.”
With their studio only seven months old, the designers see this award as their arrival into the world of design and the initial stages of a collaboration where Bowman’s inquisitive “why” balances Metersky’s more functional “how.” Trueing already has many works in progress, including another collaboration for a light fixture with A/D/O. Their work will also be on display at ICFF as part of their 2017 competition, ICFF Studio.
The #MetropolisLikes awards will be handed out to the winning participants during NYCxDESIGN, New York City’s longest design celebration yet, running from May 3 to 24. #MetropolisLikes NeoCon will take place this year on par with the trade festival, from June 12 to 14. For more #MetropolisLikes updates be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.
