These 50 designers are some of today’s top creatives in product design, interior decoration, and architecture. From new talents to design leaders and decorating masters, the Curiouz 50 list features (part I) some of the industry’s sharpest creative thinkers with different contexts, influencers, and approaches.
Meet the 50 names we compiled and some of the finest examples of their work.
Enis Karavil
Cosy spaces are among the top interior design trends for 2025. Comfort and individuality are setting the home decor concepts. Enis Karavil's Istanbul-based multidisciplinary design practice (SANAYI313), co-founded with his brother Amir Karavil, curates interiors that tell a story, with people’s legacy and past helping create timeless, warm spaces.
SANAYI313 is a concept store, kitchen and architecture studio where Enis designs spaces with a heritage feel. His projects mix classic and contemporary furniture, old and new, fantasy and reality, past and present, and Eastern and Western elements. The studio is his laboratory where he plays with contrasts and brings things together. Enis Karavil's aesthetic is full of maximalist expressions in minimalist details, where eclectic interiors flourish through forms and materials.
Arvin Olano
Inspired by all things design, Arvin Olano is a vintage furniture lover and collector. From the modernist home to the world, Arvin speaks about home decor to a community of over 300K followers on his Instagram account.
The content creator explains how to balance pattern rugs with simple furniture, why investing in vintage lighting is a smart choice, and the importance of paying attention to details like quality pillows, and more! His interior design style is about sophistication and practicality. Vintage designs are essential in these chic interiors and are frequently mixed with contemporary pieces.
Katie Fischer
Interior architect, designer, CEO, furniture designer, blogger, and entrepreneur: Katia Fischer is a mandatory source of inspiration for spaces with an organic and cosy atmosphere. There are no complications, nothing feels too fussy, nothing feels too precious. Katie Fischer despite trends. She thinks interior design shouldn’t be fashion lead.
From Deutschland to the world, her private collection is defined by timeless design and craftsmanship. It includes a selection of furniture, lighting, decor, and one-of-a-kind vintage items. Katie Fischer's interior design projects and furniture collections are committed to beauty, comfort, sustainability, quality, and style.
Miguel Saboya
Brazil's Miguel Saboya, based in Lisbon, is one of the most promising furniture designers for 2025. His first stackable piece, the Puzzle stool, or the Seesaw bench, are fun designs and highly functional. His collection is playful without compromising practicality and harmonious woodworking with creativity:
I think the process of designing is a bit like that of science - it is open to criticism -, reinterpretation and bettering, and that's incredibly exciting. It also approximates me to the great designers of the past, to think that we sometimes dwell on the same problems now as we did 100 years ago. I have immense respect and admiration for the legacy of design, which is expressed through an appreciation of the paths opened and solutions unlocked by past creatives and trying to think how that trajectory may continue into the present and be reinterpreted by new hands (hopefully mine). What makes for great design after all is when no re-interpretation of it matches the solution achieved originally (sometimes centuries ago).
The Brazilian designer uses traditional woodwork and joinery techniques to produce contemporary furniture. His designs often take inspiration from everyday objects; forms which have become intimate to our eyes gain a new life when reinterpreted in noble materials. His work is inspired by the fundamental question of design as problem-solving, as Miguel Miguel explains in a small interview with Curiouz:
A chair is made for sitting, but how can we originally reinterpret this function, perhaps bringing more comfort or simplicity? I love this endless challenge that design proposes. Having said that, it's the "simplest" of pieces which inspire me the most. Those pieces have solved a problem so naturally that we even overlook the fact that there is ingeniousness there - it seems like these pieces were "born" that way. Those could be anything from Alvar Aalto's stool to a crane.
Phoebe Kut
Content creator and interior designer Phoebe Kut, who has nearly 200K followers on her TikTok account, @pbjdesign, and 130K followers on her Instagram account, proves multipurpose furniture is the key to small houses and space design (with a vintage flair).
Mixing furniture illustrations with interior design tips, Phoebe draws iconic furniture items, from the Eames lounge chair to the Togo sofa or the Ghost chair, and gives tips or hacks about topics such as: selecting stools for small apartments, where to buy furniture in different price ranges, and decoding lighting symbols.
Phoebe's painting videos showcase a diverse range of things, from furniture to flowers and objects, inspire her community and spark popular furniture pieces. Her work stands out for its creativity, vibrant colours, and distinctive aesthetics. Keep her content on your radar if you are a design enthusiast with a special love for illustration and art.
Joanna Lavén
Based in Sweden, but with interior design projects worldwide, Joanna Lavén is the Studio Lawahl co-founder, an interior design studio for private residences and commercial spaces. Bespoke lamps, vintage coffee tables, sleek furniture, noble materials, playful upholstered seating pieces, and iconic designs are common elements in Joanna’s spaces.
Marta De La Rica
Joanna Lavén makes the ordinary extraordinary. The Madrid-based interior designer is among the best interioristas in Spain. Her incredible ability to mix the old and the new, simplicity with maximalism, classic and modern, originates spaces with soul.
Marta de La Rica is a New Yorker by birth, French by adoption, and Spanish at heart. Her father, a passionate decorator and antique collector, inspires her work. She learned from him the excitement of the search and the skill of finding the soul of spaces and pieces. Her interiors go beyond achieving a beautiful photograph. They are spaces to be lived in.
Orlando Pippig
Based in southern California, Orlando Pipping's design process is guided by process and materials. His collection includes lighting, furniture, and objects, defined by visual simplicity and inspired by nature, sculpture, industrial environments, and architecture. Orlando designs high-end furniture made of solid wood and metal.
Bowen Liu
Bowen Liu founded her studio in New York City in 2017. Liu creates artistic furniture collections with a clean aesthetic and crafts to produce collectible designs and functional art for contemporary living.
Her furniture collections privilege different types of woods, including walnut, cherry, ash, and maple. The private collection also includes lighting and objects. Liu's designs have appeared in elite magazines and publications worldwide, including the New York Times, Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, Monocle, and Dezeen.
Jialun Xiong
Jialun Xiong, one of Wallpaper* magazine's future icons, draws her inspiration from minimalist designs. She is reinventing minimalism with her pared-back yet deeply referential interiors and furnishings. Born in China and based in Los Angeles, the architect and furniture designer explores dualities, functional minimalism and the balance between weightlessness and weightiness.
Ali Shah Gallefoss
Ali Shah Gallefoss memorise Norwegian nature and fairy-tale creatures in his objects and sculptures. In 2019, Gallefoss created a sculpture from surplus scarves and cut-offs from the stone industry for the Norwegian clothing brand Holzweiler, which was later installed at Dover Street Market in Beijing. In 2020 he won Bo Bedre’s design award as Newcomer of the Year. Ali Gallefoss (Bergen, 1989) lives and works in Oslo, Norway.
Gallefoss's practice involves materialising objects that spring from magical environments and setting spaces with an extraordinary vibe while preserving functionality:
I monitor today's trends and look back to great artists such as Gaetano Pesce, Isamu Noguchi, and Peter Opsvik. I am always trying to work with a curiosity for something new, not getting stuck in old ways and repeating myself over and over again.
Kelly Wearstler
Kelly Wearstler lives and works in Los Angeles, USA. Her work as a product designer creates collections where each piece oozes its narrative, influenced by the conditions underlying the creative act. Their playful and modern aesthetic evokes elegance and cutting-edge design, surprising her audience in each new collection.
Kelly Wearstler's interior design studio is now a global brand rooted in exploring elemental dichotomies. It spans interior design, architecture, industrial design, curation, and creative direction. Through an exploration of materiality, colour, forms and an intuitive juxtaposition of contemporary and vintage, she curates a wealth of experiences into every space. Kelly Wearstler believes that honouring history is imperative to challenging the rules.
Dieter Vander Velpen
Dieter Vander Velpen's Architects studio mission is to find the perfect symbiosis between the client, the house and their design. The open is always open wide for interiors with character and details. Their motto is “couture architecture”, which means creating the home of the client’s dreams.
The Antwerp-based architecture and interior design firm creates high-end residential and hospitality projects worldwide with the help of extraordinary craftsmen and quality materials. Dieter Vander Velpen founded the studio in 2013.
Dong-Ping Wong
Dong-Ping Wong is the founding director of Food Architects (founded in 2010), an international architectural practice based in Chinatown, New York. The office began with an initiative to build a swimming pool in the East River. Since then they have worked on homes, stores, offices, bathhouses, hotels, bridges and museums.
Every project is about optimistic designs. The team believes architecture can create space for the spaceless, invite people into places that previously didn't exist and connect communities with the environments around them. Dong-Ping Wong's projects and designs have stories to tell, are bold, and emanate good energy.
Heidi Caillier
Hei Caillier's interior design studio is at the forefront of interior design and decoration. Aided by a small team from her studio in Seattle, Heidi Caillier oversees high-end residential and hospitality projects across the US. Their interior signature is the feeling of spaces with a memory as if even a new space already has something to tell.
Heidi Caillier reinvents tradition to create beautiful and enduring interiors. Her projects, through her design studio Heidi Caillier Design, are underpinned by a sense of feeling and intimacy.
Lily Dierkes
Lily Dierkes's approach is a fresh take on interior design projects. The LK Studio is a residential interior design firm based in New York. Driven by a love of colour and pattern, the creative team works with different styles to produce designs that feel joyful, refined, and free from ostentation. The goal is to create spaces reflective of the people who live in them.
Martin Brûlé
Martin Brûle's portfolio includes interiors, antiques, and decoration. Between Paris and New York, the designer's creative process is built on experimentation. Brûle and his team use drama to create strong interiors where opulence rules but quietly so. Functionality, unpredictable beauty and freedom are the real luxury for Brûlé.
Ross Cassidy
Ross Cassidy is an interior and furniture designer based in Los Angeles. Romantic-chic armchairs and sofas define his collections and approach to spaces. Whether covering an accent chair in humanely sourced Mongolian sheepskin or bringing a uniquely lived-in, indoor feel to an outdoor space, his mastery of understated luxury radiates throughout.
The Hollywood Reporter defines Cassidy’s speciality as “designing private sanctuaries for Hollywood’s most discreet A-list entertainers.”.
Little Wing Lee
Little Wing Lee is the Studio & Projects (2017) interior design studio founder and creative director, in Brooklyn, New York. She is also the founder of the Black Fols in Design, whose mission is to bring awareness to and promote cultural contributions, excellence, and importance of Black designers.
Little Wing Lee is an interior designer with over 15 years of experience in cultural, commercial and residential projects. Her projects are defined by her sharp eye for colour, texture and materiality.
Jonas Damon
Jonas Damon is a German-American designer driven by an informed optimism that comes through experience and capability. His designs create positive, impactful experiences for people and drive connection.
Michael Bennett
Michael Bennett is the creative director of Studio Kër, a multidisciplinary studio that communicates through African diasporic forms and languages across different scaçes of space. His collections touch joy, pain, and the everyday moments of Black life, channelling culture into every choice, every form, every gesture.
Tavia Forbes
Tavia Forbes is the principal interior designer of the Forbes Master Studio. Tavia’s interior design inspirations seamlessly reference historical periods and forward-looking design trends to create polished spaces with modern, clean lines. From early childhood, she learned the importance of quality craftsmanship while tagging along with her dad on his custom carpentry projects, and the beauty of working on luxury interior spaces.
Ashley Lavonne
Ashley Lavonne is a Los Angeles-based interior designer who artfully produces dynamic and composed spaces full of colour, craft, and form.
With over a decade of working on projects from Hawaii to East Hampton, Lavonne has cultivated a discerning eye and an impressive understanding of crafting striking and unexpected interiors at many. Her creative process is a sophisticated dialogue of diverse materials and furnishings - each piece is intentionally selected to play off the beauty of the next.
Shalini Misra
Shalini Misra is an internationally celebrated interior architect, designer, and property developer. One of House & Garden’s top 100 interior designers, Shalini is a committee member of the British Institute of Interior Design (BIID).
She founded the Shalini Misra Design, a multi-award winning interior design practice, with offices in London, New York, Delhi and Dubai. They believe design is about more than aesthetics, being deeply committed to wellbeing.
Patricia Urquiola
Originally from Oviedo, Spain, Patricia Urquiola is one of the biggest names in interior design, architecture, art direction and industrial product design. Urquiola founded her studio in 2001 with her partner Alberto Zontone.
Patricia Urquiola believes in an original design perspective. Her design thinking is the intersection of challenges and breaking prejudices, finding unexpected connections between the familiar and the unexplored.
Matthew Williamson
Matthew Williamson is a residential and commercial interior and homeware product designer. His spaces feature natural materials, natural light, and warm colour palettes. He designs lavish interiors without compromising functionality and details.
Martin Brudnizki
Martin Brudnizki is an interior and product designer based in London and New York. Its design studio is acclaimed for its obsession with details and unique ability to create experiences, not spaces.
The interior design projects are vibrant and bold, full of glamour and eccentricity. The past inspires and inspired many projects, including the Broadwick Soho and the Hôtel Barriére Fouquet’s.
Alex Dauley
Alex Dauley believes every space has a story. Her studio is a testament to the transformative power of interior design, crafting spaces that create experiences, memories, and moments that last a lifetime.
The holistic approach of the interior design studio ensures a seamless blend of style, emotion, and purpose, resulting in interiors that are both timeless and uniquely tailored.
Moritz Bannach
Moriz Bannach is the founder and creative director of BANNACH, a Berlin-based furniture brand. The brand pursues a strong interdisciplinary approach and feels at home in design, architecture and art. In close cooperation with selected manufacturers in Germany, Bannach creates modern furniture characterised by its unmistakable design and high quality.
Edoardo Lietti
Edoardo Lietti is a designer artist and craftsman born in Florence. His designs are fueled by curiosity for the applied arts with his affinity for honest materials. His deep understanding of the technology of materials creates pieces often based on a modular and flexible nature. The results flirt with a pinch of humour and are surrounded by an air of inventions of a past area.
We particularly love the Sedia Tonda wood armchair: a piece of art and a pragmatic furniture item. It will be an object for generations and the epitome of what we believe in at Curiouz.
Anne Nowak
Anne Nowak is a multimedia sculptor and one of the most outside talents in this 50 designers list shaping furniture legacy. However, we had to include her!
Anne Nowak investigates the transition of life through a practice devoted to creating images and objects derived from personal memory of and from the cosmos, nature, the sea, spiritual mythology and inner meditative realms.
Jule Cats
Jule Cats is a Rotterdam-based artist dedicated to customised and autonomous interior objects. She is fascinated by the stories and emotional depth that materials can convey. In her designs, she searches for the value of materials that usually go unnoticed or are seen as worthless. Her objects show the beauty of recycled and natural resources and evoke wonder and curiosity.
George Sawyer
George Sawyer grew up amidst the wood shavings in his father’s Windsor chair shop in Woodbury, Vermont. George blends traditional green woodworking techniques while re-envisioning a future for fine craftsmanship and traditional joinery in modern seating.
The chair makers studio process is based on the foundations of green woodworking – using wood that has not been kiln dried – and paying careful attention to the moisture content of the wood, the distinct characteristics of different wood species, and following the grain of the wood.
Hannah Bigeleisen
Hannah Bigeleisen designs sculptural furniture and lighting in Brooklyn, New York. Her designs are guided by her background in sculpture to create an elegant, yet playful approach. Bigeleisen’s rich understanding of material, form, colour and texture leads to collections crafted and designed for a lifetime of joy and inspiration.
The Throne chair is one of her iconic designs. The groundbreaking Italian modernist artist and furniture designer, Enzo Mari inspired this piece made from solid walnut.
Andrew Finnigan
Andrew Finnigan makes furniture by hand in NY's Hudson Valley. His collection draws from classical designs and shapes to inspire contemporary items. Andrew’s work is classic and subtly unique, combining function with aesthetics. As a maker, he employs traditional methods to produce pieces that will withstand the test of time.
Charles Constantine
Charles Constantine and Randy Rollner lead the Bestcase design and manufacturing firm. The studio's commitment is to provide high-quality products and create a manufacturing system that makes quality custom metal fixtures easier to specify and build.
The original designs can be tailored to fit specific needs, and their fabrication team transform the client’s designs into a reality.
Tana Karei (team)
Tana Karei is Norma, Cynthia and other teachers in Mexico who work side by side with traditional techniques and exquisite attention to detail. They create spaces where you can enjoy your daily rituals and thus help you generate a closer relationship with your intimate space.
They design unique objects and spaces to generate a state of contemplation. Their pieces are made to last for generations, age beautifully and, over time, to tell their own stories.
Steph Trowbridge
Steph Trowbridge is a woodworker and ceramist based out of Philadelphia. Steph creates household items that combine style and utility, transforming functional tools into pieces that can also be decorative objects.
The Resting Vase No.1 description in Steph’s shop is everything: “Ceramic bud vase with a clear glaze inside and walnut accent. Hoping this vase reminds you to sit and rest”.
Ryan Twardzik
Ryan Twardzik founded Uniform Studio, an independent furniture studio based in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. The studio is focused on creating uniquely designed furniture highlighting aesthetics and the interaction and tactility inherent in good design.
At the heart of the pieces lies an attention to quality and a commitment to local manufacturing in Pennsylvania, the capital of America’s finest furniture past and present. We are obsessed with the pop-up collection, a systemised approach to lounge seating.
Greg Fuguet & Kristen Snow
Greg Fuguet and Kristen Snow run the Fuugs studio, a small, sustainably dedicated, locally based, hand-built wooden furniture company. Their catalogue features beautiful, durable and sustainable designs for people ready to invest in an alternative to the disposable products of box stores.
Nora Voon
Nora Voon creates and curates interiors, objects and art that are mischievous and beautiful. Nora Voon is an artist, designer and lover of traditional craftsmanship. The Canadian talent created Noda to honour the places she loves and the people she respects.
Pablo Vidiella
Pablo Vidiella was born in 1984 in Madrid. Nature and living forms are the reference and inspiration for new designs. Every curve and surface present in living beings has a biological explanation related to a certain function over time, and these evolutionary changes and transformations are what he finds especially inspiring.
The Kanona dining table illustrates this creative process. It arises as an investigation of circular and elliptical geometries through a simple conceptual sequence of stretching transformations.
Paola Sakr
Paola Sakr is an award-winning product designer and ceramist from Lebanon. She moved to Dubai in October 2020. Paola describes her work as “emotional design” because, all while being functional, her products always have a story or a feeling to convey.
Carla Baz
Carla Baz designs through dialogue. Her designs are born of a collaborative journey with a team of skilled craftsmen. Together, they continuously push the boundaries of form, function, and practicality, creating sculptural and practical pieces.
Every piece is ornate and clean, strong and subtle. The Monarch table lamp with dome, for example, has been developed with the idea of opulence and fine details all the while keeping with our intention of overall lightness.
Don Tanani (studio)
At Don Tanani, we celebrate the immense legacy of furniture by ensuring that every piece we create is nothing short of extraordinary. From manufacturing and craftsmanship to the concepts we explore, we are committed to pushing boundaries and redefining what’s possible in furniture design. Our journey in the furniture industry spans over 30 years as a family. Initially, we focused on importing furniture from the U.S. and Europe. Living with these pieces and experiencing their design firsthand gave us a deep appreciation for the artistry and ingenuity that go into exceptional furniture. It also shaped our understanding of the importance of both design and manufacturing. When we launched Don Tanani, we knew our creations had to live up to these standards of excellence. Every piece we produce reflects a commitment to innovation and craftsmanship. We provide the designers we collaborate with the freedom to challenge limits—whether in finishing, engineering, or production. This philosophy ensures that every item we manufacture not only honours the legacy of furniture but also drives it forward, creating something truly remarkable.
Don Tanani Studio answers the need for elevation in the Egyptian design market. The studio creates products that emulate art. The pieces we produce are full of life, they are by no means static objects, they are timeless and should stand the test of time. They believe in the power of research and respect the value it brings to design. Lina Alorabi, the lead designer, explains to Curiouz how she celebrates furniture legacy and her inspiration sources:
What inspires my design is the richness of our cultural heritage, as well as Egypt’s deep history. Rather than relying on overt symbols, I draw from everyday forms and experiences, reinterpreting them to create designs that resonate with modern living. I’m deeply fascinated by the properties of materials and the technical aspects of furniture making, such as joinery, but it’s the exceptional skill of Egyptian craftsmen that makes the design and processes truly unique. Their expertise, honed over generations, allows for an intersection of craft and technical knowledge that brings ideas to life in ways that couldn’t be achieved anywhere else. For me, design is not just about form and function; it’s about telling stories that connect our heritage to the present, creating pieces that are both meaningful and distinctly Egyptian.
Kim Mupangilaï
Kim Mupangilaï is a Belgian-Congolese Interior Designer and Architect based in New York. Inspired by her heritage and roots, Kim’s designs reflect the merging of cultures. She brings a unique perspective and insight that encourages fresh discourse within the design world.
Laurence Leenart
Founded in 2013 by Belgian Laurence Leenaert, LRNCE is a Marrakesh-based lifestyle brand focused on handmade ceramics, textiles, ready-to-wear, and more. The goal is to revise the materials’ purpose and spontaneously combine elements to create uniquely designed pieces.
Myles Igwebuike
Myles Igwebuike is a Nigerian artist, designer, and founder of Nteje Studios. Myles seeks to embody an ethos of disruption, divergence, and innovation. He eschews the constraints of a singular medium, instead adopting a multi-disciplinary approach that enables him to explore novel concepts and push the boundaries of artistic expression.
Drawing inspiration from the rich cultural heritage of Nigeria and the African continent, Myles imbues his work with a contemporary sensibility that defies preconceived notions of African design.
Thomas Trad
Thomas Trad is a product designer from Beirut who loves manufacturing processes, craftsmanship, and the natural beauty of materials. Trad’s aesthetic mixes organic and abstract shapes—one that unites the pleasurably familiar with forms of challenging ingenuity. Trad is one of the most impressive emerging designers in Beirut.
Gabriel Hendifar
Gabriel Henifar co-founded Apparatus Studio with Jeremy Anderson in 2012. He believes objects are accessories to the human experience and enrich the way we live. He aims to create work that leaves an emotional imprint, drawing on the language of seduction and sensuality.
Conclusion
The Curiouz 50 Designers Shaping Furniture Legacy celebrates creativity, innovation, and boldness. It is our homage to the creative talents challenging the design boundaries and creating new pieces that elevate spaces.
Sources
Architectural Digest: Meet the AD100 2025 Debuts
Architectural Digest: AD100 2025 (and previous editions)
dezeen: Fifteen furniture designers showcased at ICFF's Look Book 2024
Architectural Digest: AD100's Product Designers of Note
Fabric Magazine: At Home with Enis Karavil
