When Leta Sobierajski enrolled in college, she already knew what she was meant to do, and she didn’t settle for anything less. “When I went to school for graphic design, I really didn’t have a backup plan – it was this, or nothing,” she says. “My work is a constantly evolving practice, and from the beginning, I have always convinced myself that if I put in the time and experimentation, I would grow and evolve.” After graduation, Sobierajski took on a range of projects, which included animation, print, and branding elements. She collaborated with corporate clients, but realized that she wouldn’t feel comfortable following anyone else’s rules in a 9-to-5 environment. Leta Sobierajski (standing) and Wade Jeffree (on ladder) \\\ Photo: Matt Dutile Sobierajski eventually decided to team up with fellow artist and kindred spirit Wade Jeffree. In 2016 they launched their Brooklyn-based studio, Wade and Leta. The duo, who share a taste for quirky aesthetics, produces sculpture, installations, or anything else they can dream up. Never static in thinking or method, they are constantly searching for another medium to try that will complement their shared vision of the moment. The pair is currently interested in permanency, and they want to utilize more metal, a strong material that will stand the test of time. Small architectural pieces are also on tap, and on a grander scale, they’d like to focus on a park or communal area that everyone can enjoy. With so many ideas swirling around, Sobierajski will record a concept in at least three different ways so that she’s sure to unearth it at a later date. “In some ways, I like to think I’m impeccably organized, as I have countless spreadsheets tracking our work, our lives, and our well-being,” she explains. “The reality is that I am great at over-complicating situations with my intensified list-making and note-taking. The only thing to do is to trust the process.” Today, Leta Sobierajski joins us for Friday Five! Photo: Melitta Baumeister and Michał Plata 1. Melitta Baumeister and Michał Plata The work of Melitta Baumeister and Michał Plata has been a constant inspiration to me for their innovative, artful, and architectural silhouettes. By a practice of draping and arduous pattern-making, the garments that they develop season after season feel like they could be designed for existence in another universe. I’m a person who likes to dress up for anything when I’m not in the studio, and every time I opt to wear one of their looks, I feel like I can take on the world. The best part about their pieces is that they’re extremely functional, so whether I need to hop on a bicycle or show up at an opening, I’m still able to make a statement – these garments even have the ability to strike up conversations on their own. Photo: Wade and Leta 2. Pandas! I was recently in Chengdu to launch a new project and we took half the day to visit the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Pandas and I am a new panda convert. Yes, they’re docile and cute, but their lifestyles are utterly chill and deeply enviable for us adults with responsibilities. Giant pandas primarily eat bamboo and can consume 20-40 kilograms per day. When they’re not doing that, they’re sleeping. When we visited, many could be seen reclining on their backs, feasting on some of the finest bamboo they could select within arm’s reach. While not necessarily playful in appearance, they do seem quite cheeky in their agendas and will do as little as they can to make the most of their meals. It felt like I was watching a mirrored image of myself on a Sunday afternoon while trying to make the most of my last hours of the weekend. Photo: Courtesy of Aoiro 3. Aoiro I’m not really a candle person (I forget to light it, and then I forget it’s lit, and then I panic when it’s been lit for too long) but I love the luxurious subtlety of a fragrant space. It’s an intangible feeling that really can only be experienced in the present. Some of the best people to create these fragrances, in my opinion, are Shizuko and Manuel, the masterminds behind Aoiro, a Japanese and Austrian duo who have developed a keen sense for embodying the fragrances of some of the most intriguing and captivating olfactory atmospheres – earthy forest floors with crackling pine needles, blue cypress tickling the moon in an indigo sky, and rainfall on a spirited Japanese island. Despite living in an urban city, Aoiro’s olfactory design is capable of transporting me to the deepest forests of misty Yakushima island. Photo: Wade and Leta 4. Takuro Kuwata A few months ago, I saw the work of Japanese ceramicist Takuro Kuwata at an exhibition at Salon94 and have been having trouble getting it out of my head. Kuwata’s work exemplifies someone who has worked with a medium so much to completely use the medium as a medium – if that makes sense. His ability to manipulate clay and glaze and use it to create gravity-defying effects within the kiln are exceptionally mysterious to me and feel like they could only be accomplished with years and years of experimentation with the material. I’m equally impressed seeing how he’s grown his work with scale, juxtaposing it with familiar iconography like the fuzzy peach, but sculpting it from materials like bronze. Photo: Wade and Leta 5. The Site of Reversible Destiny, a park built by artists Arakawa and Gins, in Yoro Japan The park is a testament to their career as writers, architects, and their idea of reversible destiny, which in its most extreme form, eliminates death. For all that are willing to listen, Arakawa and Gins’ Reversible Destiny mentality aims to make our lives a little more youthful by encouraging us to reevaluate our relationship with architecture and our surroundings. The intention of “reversible destiny” is not to prolong death, postpone it, grow older alongside it, but to entirely not acknowledge and surpass it. Wade (my partner) and I have spent the last ten years traveling to as many of their remaining sites as possible to further understand this notion of creating spaces to extend our lives and question how conventional living spaces can become detrimental to our longevity.   Works by Wade and Leta: Photo: Wade and Leta and Matt Alexander Now You See Me is a large-scale installation in the heart of Shoreditch, London, that explores the relationship between positive and negative space through bold color, geometry, and light. Simple, familiar shapes are embedded within monolithic forms, creating a layered visual experience that shifts throughout the day. As sunlight passes through the structures, shadows and silhouettes stretch and connect, forming dynamic compositions on the surrounding concrete. Photo: Wade and Leta and John Wylie Paint Your Own Path is series of five towering sculptures, ranging from 10 to 15 feet tall, invites viewers to explore balance, tension, and perspective through bold color and form. Inspired by the delicate, often precarious act of stacking objects, the sculptures appear as if they might topple – yet each one holds steady, challenging perceptions of stability. Created in partnership with the Corolla Cross, the installation transforms its environment into a pop-colored landscape. Photo: Millenia Walk and Outer Edit, Eurthe Studio Monument to Movement is a 14-meter-tall kinetic sculpture that celebrates the spirit of the holiday season through rhythm, motion, and color. Rising skyward in layered compositions, the work symbolizes collective joy, renewal, and the shared energy of celebrations that span cultures and traditions. Powered by motors and constructed from metal beams and cardboard forms, the sculpture continuously shifts, inviting viewers to reflect on the passage of time and the cycles that connect us all. Photo: Wade and Leta and Erika Hara, Piotr Maslanka, and Jeremy Renault Falling Into Place is a vibrant rooftop installation at Ginza Six that explores themes of alignment, adaptability, and perspective. Six colorful structures – each with a void like a missing puzzle piece – serve as spaces for reflection, inviting visitors to consider their place within a greater whole. Rather than focusing on absence, the design transforms emptiness into opportunity, encouraging people to embrace spontaneity and the unfolding nature of life. Playful yet contemplative, the work emphasizes that only through connection and participation can the full picture come into view. Photo: Wade and Leta and Erika Hara, Piotr Maslanka, and Jeremy Renault Photo: Wade and Leta Stop, Listen, Look is a 7-meter-tall interactive artwork atop IFS Chengdu that captures the vibrant rhythm of the city through movement, sound, and form. Blending motorized and wind-powered elements with seesaws and sound modulation, it invites people of all ages to engage, play, and reflect. Inspired by Chengdu’s balance of tradition and modernity, the piece incorporates circular motifs from local symbolism alongside bold, geometric forms to create a dialogue between past and present. With light, motion, and community at its core, the work invites visitors to connect with the city – and each other – through shared interaction. The Cloud is a permanent sculptural kiosk in Burlington, Vermont’s historic City Hall Park, created in collaboration with Brooklyn-based Studio RENZ+OEI. Designed to reinterpret the ephemeral nature of clouds through architecture, it blends art, air, and imagination into a light, fluid structure that defies traditional rigidity. Originally born from a creative exchange between longtime friends and collaborators, the design challenges expectations of permanence by embodying movement and openness. Now home to a local food vendor, The Cloud brings a playful, uplifting presence to the park, inviting reflection and interaction rain or shine..

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V&A Dundee’s new exhibition starts before you get up to the first-floor gallery. As visitors enter the main hall of Kengo Kuma’s 2018 waterfront building, they’re confronted by 11 big white flowers dangling from the double-height ceiling. Called Shylight and created by Amsterdam’s Studio DRIFT, the floral forms slowly rise and fall courtesy of robotics, with their silk petals folding inwards, mimicking those flowers which close up at nightfall. Thought-provoking and visually pleasing, it sets the tone for Garden Futures: Designing With Nature, the exhibition which opened last week and runs until 25 January. It also hints that not everything in the garden (exhibition) is rosy. Beyond horticulture, there’s also technology – starting with those Shylight robotics – and art. That’s quite a juggling act. As a long-standing allotment holder, it was the horticulture content which drew me in. If I hadn’t had that focus, the exhibition could have been overwhelming: so many topics, so many ideas, so many things to take in. This is the touring show’s only UK stop, having debuted at Vitra Design Museum in Germany’s, before appearing across various European venues. Vitra Design Museum’s deputy director Sabrina Handler claims it’s the first major exhibition on the history of modern garden design. An image from Andrew Buurman’s photo project Allotments. An image from Andrew Buurman’s photo project Allotments. The original show comprised 300 objects. V&A Dundee has an extra 200m2 of space to play with, and has added another 130 objects to give it their own spin and highlight some Scottish contributions to the topic. Msoma Architects were brought in to reimagine the show for Dundee, building on Formafantasma’s original concept for the Vitra Design Museum. The graphics were handled by Boris Meister. In terms of the gardens on show here, they vary from productive spaces for work, rest and play, to places representing spiritual, cultural and political ideas. What they have in common is that they’re all designed spaces. Like a virulent form of bindweed, this show is covering a lot of ground. Its material is grouped in sections themed as Paradise, Sanctuary, Retreat and Labour of Love. It’s Paradise that makes the strongest impression – and rightly so – with its ice-cream-pink structure. Garden Futures at the V&A. Photo by Grant Anderson. The overarching aim is to demonstrate how garden design impacts us both functionally – providing food, hence Birmingham’s Uplands Allotments and seed companies – and aesthetically – hence William Morris wallpaper and the naturalistic planting of Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf. It combines factual photos with artworks, and roams from floral tile panels from 17th Century Persia to a Chinese garden inspired by a video game, and from vast landscapes to hand tools. The two wall displays of the taxonomy of tools will add to the dwell time of any visitors who actually garden or grow. Biome’s Garden installation But for those after interaction, Dundee-based creative studio Biome Collective has created Garden, a video game that allows players to create a virtual musical garden. They’re also behind the Pollinator Pathway digital tool that creates a planting design tailored for the maximum benefit of pollinating insects. And then there’s the smell trail – little wooden boxes whose lids lift to give off a specific scent, such as a cypress tree. The image of Prospect, Derek Jarman’s Dungeness house and garden, might feel over-familiar to some. Likewise architect Stefano Boeri’s Bosco Verticale, the residential skyscraper covered in greenery in Milan – but an exhibition like this has to cater to all knowledge levels. Stefano Boeri’s Bosco Verticale Specific V&A Dundee content includes Seeds of Scotland in the Highlands, which produces resilient seeds. The company’s utilitarian packaging sits alongside photos of vegetables and the seeds themselves – another stop to linger for any growers in the audience. There’s also Oban’s Seaweed Gardens, a community-led project, and the garden designed by Arabella Lennox-Boyd for cancer patients at Maggie’s Centre, Dundee. On a smaller scale, there are origami-inspired self-watering plant pots made from marine waste, the brainchild of Glasgow-based company POTR. And when it comes to Dundee’s own garden future, things could be looking up. The Eden Project has a scheme to transform a defunct gasholder into a vast glasshouse. It’s got planning permission, and the 2025 model of architecture firm Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios brings the £130million idea to life. POTR’s self-watering plant pots There’s something counter-intuitive about going indoors to experience gardens. But this isn’t the only show tackling that problem. Gardens and gardening are having a moment. The exhibition Soil, which explored soil’s vital role in our planet’s future, finished at London’s Somerset House in April, getting 50,000 visitors in three months. Now Garden Futures is off the ground, V&A Dundee will be thinking about how to spend the £2.6million of government funding which was confirmed in February. The plan is to improve the permanent Scottish galleries. The museum’s director, Leonie Bell says there’s demand for them to be bigger. Her ideas so far include expanding the time frame to go as far back as Skara Brae, the prehistoric village on Orkney, and to explore Scotland’s influence on global design, for example in fashion. Exhibition designers, watch this space. Garden Futures at the V&A. Photo by Grant Anderson. Arabella Lennox-Boyd’s garden for Maggie’s Centre, Dundee.

22 May, 2025 The Type Tasting founder's new podcast shows how visuals intersect with our other senses. She tells Rob Alderson why she thinks this could help save graphic design. Sarah Hyndman has an experiment she has been running at events for several years. She asks people to sniff two bottles of perfume and then say what they smell in each. Both perfumes are identical – only the typography on the bottles is different. And yet 72% of participants, nearly three quarters, describe the perfumes differently. It’s a perfect example of the sorts of insights Hyndman has been sharing through her books, talks, and other projects for the past 12 years. Having worked as a graphic designer – “one of the original Mac monkeys” – and run her own agency, Hyndman started Type Tasting in 2013, inspired by Stefan Sagmeister’s regular client-free sabbaticals. She wanted to research type’s ability to influence our other senses, find evidence to back up her intuition, and bring this knowledge to a broad audience (which she does through Type Safaris, and wine-tasting events among others). Now in her new podcast, Seeing Senses, she is interviewing chefs, psychologists and perfumiers, “to discover how they connect what we see to what we sense and feel.” We sat down with her to find out why she thinks multi-sensory design might help save the industry. Sarah Hyndman’s podcast Seeing Senses How does your podcast build on Type Tasting’s work? From the outset, Type Tasting was always multi-sensory, but I was looking at typography because it was a niche area. Type was just the gateway into the other senses. So we start with what you see, vision. Vision is about what gets your attention – that’s what branding and packaging does. But in my opinion, what we’ve forgotten in design is the follow-through – that senses like smell and sound boost the mood more than vision. So you need to back up the experiences you are designing with all the other senses if you’re going to create an emotional connection, make something feel personal, and create memories. What does that mean for graphic designers and their work? I think graphic design, as a term, is too one-dimensional. The visuals are the flag for your brand, so you can recognise it really quickly. But what does it sound like? What does it smell like? What does it feel like? How does your experience of this product change from location, to moment, to experience? I think we need to rewrite our job descriptions, so that we start thinking in a multi-sensory way from the outset. Who cares if it wasn’t in the brief? We need to be the challengers, the rebels that are saying “No, I think you need to think about this differently.” If we keep doing what’s already been done, that’s what AI could do. Our job is to find the gaps, to be the mavericks, and to do the lateral and creative thinking which, at the moment, AI can’t do. That infamous Future of Jobs report, that said graphic design was at risk of becoming extinct, was a wake-up call. That report is based on what business leaders think will be important over the next five years. Why is graphic design not seen as a useful skill? And do we need to talk about what it does in a different way? Yes, absolutely. Leaders need to see designers doing something, or being something, different. It always used to be that clients loved visiting their agencies. Why aren’t businesses excited by designers any more? I think we need to show people something that makes them say, “Oh, we need that.” Rather than showing them something which will win them awards. Type Tasting activations at Adobe Max. Photo by Grant Terzakis. As someone now studying neuroscience, how do you see the relationship between science and creativity? I did science all the way through school. I’ve never studied graphic design, so nobody ever told me I wasn’t allowed to experiment. As designers, we’re given permission to come up with solutions that fit the brief, but we’re not somehow given permission to go out and experiment. And there is a big misconception that science is very rigid, and will take all of your creativity away. Whereas real research is about constantly interrogating every statement. Always asking why, like an annoying five-year-old. And that same curiosity is key to good design as well, right? Exactly. But as designers, I think we’ve lost a bit of bravery to do that. So my thing is – think more like a scientist. Science is about proving yourself wrong, and finding what’s right. The interesting stuff, when it comes to my experiments, are the really weird answers, the outliers. That’s where the magic is – when someone tells you something different, and you discover it’s because they grew up somewhere where that means something else, or they’ve had an experience where that means something else. A lot of your experiments seem to be very fun – is that an important part of designing them? If I want people to take part, I have to make them really understandable. I have to make them fun. And if I’m going to gather your data, I need to give you something – some insight or learning. I did a talk for 1,000 people in Germany not so long ago, where we gave them all pairs of jelly beans, and I played a load of different stimuli, to show how it changed what they tasted. I talked them through the science of what happens, so that everybody could feel for themselves how it worked. A Type Tasting event at London Design Festival. Photo by David Owens. Is there any tension between that sense of fun, that showmanship, and the scientific rigour you are clearly interested in? I like that I sit in the middle. I think as designers, we are basically showmen. Packaging, branding, everything that we do is about showmanship. It’s about catching attention, selling imagination, sensation transference. But then in spaces like FMCG, they have consumer neuroscientists, and everything is measured to an infinite degree. What’s your hope for the podcast, and the new books, you are working on? Hopefully they will help graphic design to keep changing, so this amazing profession can stay alive, but also evolve as it needs to. Type Tasting does wine tasting in London. Photo by David Owens. Design disciplines in this article What to read next