Roll and Hill: Roll and Hill

(adam štěch) Last time, we presented the new American furniture collection from MatterMade. This time, we would like to have a closer look at another hot new piece on the New York designer scene, which was designed by Jason Miller – a mystifier, and conceptual designer.

The designer, who has operated in Brooklyn for several years, ranks among the designers who established the current creative background of this quarter and has quickly become the shooting star of contemporary American design thanks to his ironic designs along the lines of Droog design products, such as the Wooly chair, with upholstery that evokes buffalo fur. He has also designed the Shipping Container ceramic tiles in the form of shipping containers, the Duct Tape chair with a surface partly covered with adhesive tape, and the Antler ceramic lamp that imitates deer antlers. The design of this lamp initiated the birth of Miller’s latest project - his own lighting brand of Roll and Hill.

Miller founded the brand in February this year and officially presented it at the last ICFF in New York. The brand should, in his own words, bring a specifically American perspective into the world scene of lighting designs. The current collection, on which he has collaborated with lesser known designers from both America and abroad, shows that the brand achieves its goal. This wide range of lighting objects for all purposes was designed by e.g. Rich Brilliant Willing, Paul Loebach, Partners & Spade, Lindsey Adams Adelman, Peter Buchanan-Smith, and others. The progressive Brooklyn-based studio of Rich Brilliant Willing enriched the Roll and Hill collection with the excel floor lamp, the form of which was later applied to the table and wall versions. Paul Loebach, who has also contributed significantly to the furniture collection by MatterMade, has designed several variants of the Himmeli suspension light (inspired by cubist aesthetics) for Miller’s brand. Simple archetypal Monogram lamps designed by Partners & Spade, the Stack light designed by Peter Buchanan-Smith, and the Roll light designed by Miller himself introduce a slightly eclectic element that formally follows American custom-made designs by Paula Laszlo and James Mont. The collection is complemented with large Agnes suspension candelabras designed by Lindsey Adams Adelman, the Supercluster decorative suspension light designed by Sarah Cihat, and Michael Miller and the above-mentioned Antler series by Jason Miller.

The specific atmosphere of the brand is not created only by original American designs, but also by sophisticated presentations with a form that is closer to the visual graphic styles of quality American brands that focus on products, clothes, and nature than to luxury European designer brands. Miller’s brand is really very different. Thus, the website contains photos of American nature, mainly deep forests and high mountain tops. The name of the brand – Roll and Hill – also refers to them and evokes the tradition of worshipping the ruggedness of North-American nature. Is this another of Miller’s mystifications or a symbol of home in which light plays one of the most essential roles?

Both Roll and Hill and the MatterMade collection rank among the new hopes of American designer production. Roll and Hill has achieved this thanks to the interesting combination of avant-garde Brooklyn design with partially eclectic designs within American designer tradition and, last but not least, to unusual presentation methods.

www.rollandhill.com

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