Leah Ring’s Another Human Studio Elevates Everyday Materials with Touches of Whimsy

Childhood birthday parties, outer space, and Memphis are among the inspir­ations for 32-year-old designer Leah Ring. While previous gigs at residential firms and a furniture company inform her back­ground, it’s the desire to elevate everyday materials that has driven Ring since founding her Los Angeles studio, Another Human, in 2017.

Witness her Party On side table. She fills its streamlined acrylic legs with the foil-laminated crinkle paper found at party-supply stores. She then employs the same substance, or the equally commonplace packing peanuts, feathers, or mylar sheets, to plump the vinyl ICU pillow, neoprene in fluorescent green or other vivid colors playfully weaving through its grommets. “The aim of my work is to bring joy,” Ring says. The mood shifts to Italian mid-century in the Dorothy lamp, crafted from chrome-plated steel. But, like all Another Human pieces, its totemlike silhouette is totally smile-inducing.