Wade and Leta

Wade and Leta Wade and Leta make music for your eyes.

Their studio combines purposeful eclecticism and performative design to create satisfying and emotional visuals ranging from conventional identities to colorfully charged compositions utilizing all disciplines.

That’s it. That’s the post. This is what we believe and this is the guiding line of our studio practice. 1000%, every ti...
04/20/2026

That’s it. That’s the post. This is what we believe and this is the guiding line of our studio practice. 1000%, every time, as much as we can until we can’t anymore. We always put everything we can into our projects and that’s why we treat each one like it could be our very last—every opportunity is a possibility for growth and development, and that’s why we will work our hardest until the very end.

Thank you for inviting us to speak about our journey and about our work 🫂 It was a joy to be with you all.

A little Wade and Leta inspiration moment and a very special memory. Last week, we headed out to Shizuoka for an overnig...
04/15/2026

A little Wade and Leta inspiration moment and a very special memory. Last week, we headed out to Shizuoka for an overnight trip to visit .bar, one of the last remaining interior projects by Kuramata Shiro, the prolific Japanese designer who is responsible for some of our favorite design objects and brand interiors from the postmodern period.

To greet us was Nakayama-san, an enthusiast for Kuramata-san’s work and cocktail-making extraordinaire. Nakayama-san is the steward of this bar and has held a long history with it, starting as a cleaner during its opening in 1989. Around 2023, he took ownership of the space and has since been opening its doors nightly to design and cocktail enthusiasts alike.

After pouring over our books of Kuramata-san, we’re quite familiar with his design objects—especially his floating ghost-like lamps produced with , but being in his spaces is something quite new and novel to us. I’ve been fascinated by his ability to manipulate resin and create a sense of weightlessness, but seeing it in harmony with so many other materials in this space is just a whole new context. Anodized aluminum, suspended halogen light bulbs, glass, and a floating yellow resin bar sit so succinctly together to create a space that feels just as contemporary as it did when it was designed in 1988. As we are spending more time thinking about spaces and objects this year, it is places like these that really bring so much into perspective on our goals and our dreams.

My biggest regret? Not coming sooner. Thank you Nakayama-san for your kind hospitality and for being so kind to design enthusiasts like us.

Two years ago, we transformed the rooftop of into a colorful spring playscape—bringing music to your eyes in Tokyo.We c...
03/24/2026

Two years ago, we transformed the rooftop of into a colorful spring playscape—bringing music to your eyes in Tokyo.

We called it “Falling Into Place,” a reflection of a moment when many things were aligning as we redefined and redirected our work. We spent hours watching families and people of all ages play, sit, jump, and invent their own ways of interacting.

The shape kids gravitated toward most was the oblong circle. They saw it as a slide, a toy car ramp, something to climb—something entirely their own. Every project carries these lessons forward: the way we define a space is never fixed, and children are always the first to show us what’s possible.

Grateful to for making it possible, and to 🩵💜❤️

Last week, we were in Manila to give a talk to an enthusiastic audience of 3,500 people about our work, life, and the ma...
03/17/2026

Last week, we were in Manila to give a talk to an enthusiastic audience of 3,500 people about our work, life, and the manifestation of our creative practice at . It isn’t often now that we give talks at conferences, but when we do, it really is such an outpour for us of our dreams, our desires, but also of our reflections and our gratefulness for where we have managed to end up.

We signed autographs (a first) and took selfies for over an hour before we were swept away by security for a speaker’s dinner—it was a whirlwind. If you had told us 10 years ago when we started the studio it would lead to speaking to 3,500 people and deleting our presentation off our computer 1 hour before speaking we wouldn’t believe you. Thankfully, we recovered it in time.

We’re so grateful to be given a platform to speak about our journey openly and honestly. The talk is a representation of our journey to get here and our continued journey. Thank you everyone for being a part of this story and for supporting us, rooting for us, and believing in us. We’re forever motivated by your words of encouragement.

Introducing our first beloved homeware item, the San-Rin (Three dignified rings - the name is a bit of a mixture of Japa...
02/24/2026

Introducing our first beloved homeware item, the San-Rin (Three dignified rings - the name is a bit of a mixture of Japanese word for “three” and the elimination of the -G from the English word “ring”) vase, presented at the Home-Home exhibition at in Chiba, curated by . Bringing together 16 visual artists from around the world, the exhibition took place within a house designed in 1974 by Ren Suzuki, who worked with Le Corbusier in France in the 1950s before returning to Japan.

We wanted to take the opportunity to create something that people could live with, since our sculptural work can be quite large in size and we wanted to push ourselves to make something that could sit in the intimate and personal space of a home.

San-Rin is made from one solid piece of keyaki wood and turned to develop the ōdango-like form and finished with a black acrylic coating which still allows the wood to present its natural beauty while protecting it for longevity. Originally intended to be a candle holder, we didn’t want to ruin such a beautiful form with melted wax, and opted to create a vase instead. The possibilities for self expression were greater with this context, and for the exhibition, a single branch of early ume blossoms felt like the right amount of styling. We’re looking forward to seeing how it can be styled as the seasons change.

Our hope is that, as a studio, we can make works of all kinds that people can appreciate. Whether something is 14 meters or 14 centimeters, we want to give use to these things and encourage personal expression. The big challenge here was to make the material sing and as you can see we limited the color!

We want to thank for helping us to craft this beautiful project and for being willing to try something new!

I know it’s a little late for 2026 goals (we are in February after all) but despite the timing, this post is very indica...
02/09/2026

I know it’s a little late for 2026 goals (we are in February after all) but despite the timing, this post is very indicative of how i’m feeling about this year. Every year, I avoid making goals. I have always had the mentality that “whatever will happen will happen,” while simultaneously maintaining this control-freak anxiety that causes me to want to control every little aspect of our practice, resulting in a few nervous breakdowns.

I have this problem where I never think anything is good enough to release, and when I do release it, I just still don’t think I should have released it. I’ll be brutally honest—i’m scared of rejection. But this year, I want to get better at so many things. I want to put more out there. I want to feel like I can be confident about what I am sharing, and what i’m experimenting with. I don’t want to listen to my anxiety!

Therefore, I want to push myself further out of my comfort zone this year and try to do more. I struggle so much with deciding what kind of creative person I want to be but I think that the reality is that I want to be creative in many different things. Perhaps this becomes confusing for clients, but quite frankly, we just need to express, and if we express enough, someone might be able to figure it out.

Anyway, over the years, we have made lots of little (and some big) wall works, but to me they have always felt a bit stiff and I haven’t known how to get past that. I got a new pen for my iPad not so long ago, and I think I may have figured out what was missing… my hand.

10 years ago, on January 21, and I decided to take it to the next level. After meeting on the online dating platform OK...
01/22/2026

10 years ago, on January 21, and I decided to take it to the next level. After meeting on the online dating platform OK Cupid (desktop only at that time—oh, what a time!), things escalated quickly. We fell in love quickly, took a trip to Japan, started a portrait series together, met each others’ families, and we concluded that the only way we could continue to grow together was if we were to commit ourselves to holy matrimony and, ideally, citizenship so we could start our studio together.

I know we’re meant to only discuss 2016 in terms of nostalgia, and yes, I will, but oh, what a time, what a time. To think about so much opportunity, so much possibility—and to stare it in the face, wide-eyed and fresh-faced—is an experience that is quite unique to recount.

But in order to be nostalgic about 2016, I actually need to be nostalgic about 2013, when Wade and I met. I had no clue. I imagine we’d all say that about ourselves 10+ years ago. I wanted to be good. I wanted to be me. I wanted to design, and I wanted to succeed. I wanted love, I wanted care, and I wanted to ensure that whoever I met, they’d tick all these boxes, and some that i’d never even thought of. Personally, before meeting Wade, I felt quite certain that I was destined to crash and burn in relationships, and that all of these aspirations were just wishful thinking that would never be fulfilled. But, I was very wrong.

Wade is someone who manages to exceptionally exceed all of these margins. He’s pensive, considerate, collaborative, caring, and proactive. He makes up for what I am not, and motivates me to be the person I will always strive to be, and teaches me to be someone he can be proud of. 10+ years of this relationship has helped me grow into someone my 2013- and 2016-year-old self would admire.

I couldn’t do this alone. I have the best teammate in the world—for me. I’m so fortunate. And I can’t wait to see what we’ll be like in another 10 years together.

LOVE YOU WADE!

Locking in for the start of 2026 with so much to think about and so much to prepare for (and so much that I want to push...
01/15/2026

Locking in for the start of 2026 with so much to think about and so much to prepare for (and so much that I want to push for!). The start of the year is all about diffusing the anxiety I’ve carried with me throughout 2025, looking for fresh starts, and cleansing my creative palette. I’m excited to spend a good bit of time in a different environment for the start of the year here in Tokyo: the city that inspires me the most and forever keeps me on my toes.

Wearing 🥋

It’s been about one year since we completed our largest installation ever in Singapore at . This was our first time inc...
11/21/2025

It’s been about one year since we completed our largest installation ever in Singapore at . This was our first time incorporating movement into our works and it has become an addicting component of our projects moving forward.

Scale brings a sense of wonder, and movement transfixes the viewer. While it was up throughout the months from November 2024 until February 2025, this Monument to Movement transformed from earthy greens and blues to festive golds and reds, exploding into celebration and growing in scale (you can see the transformation on the final slide). Swings were incorporated into the base of the piece to encourage people to participate in the piece, adding further movement to the overall composition.

Thank you to for bringing us on and allowing us to explore such scale and transformation!

Time moves too fast. Some enjoyable moments from life and studio lately.
11/13/2025

Time moves too fast. Some enjoyable moments from life and studio lately.

37. A big year of growth. A year of big impacts, extremely high anxieties, fluctuations, fears, and making some of the b...
10/29/2025

37. A big year of growth. A year of big impacts, extremely high anxieties, fluctuations, fears, and making some of the best work of my life so far. A year of deep love, pride, recluse at times, grey hairs, and continuous internal progression. I’m proud of where 36 led me. It’s been a really great year for me personally. We won’t reflect on how I’ve felt politically because tldr things are fu**ed. But as the year was nearing a close for me I felt quite impatient. We all hate growing older, and honestly, I forget how old I am most of the time, but I’ve just been feeling like something big is coming and that’s why and I’m even more excited to see what 37 is going to bring. I feel like I’ve been ready for it. I certainly hope that the anxieties will be a little less high, though admittedly I’m horrible with stress management. Partially to commemorate this age shift (but primarily because the were outdated), we took some new headshots at the studio recently and I’m really happy about how I feel to be presenting myself in this image - truly, wholly, and firmly myself, with no ifs ands or buts about it. Now back to work, and let’s kick some ass!

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349 Scholes Street Unit 309
New York, NY
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