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.

08/10/2026

Long time no selfie. This month marks 10 years of Wade and Leta as a business; we’ve been together a bit longer than that, but it’s pretty exciting for us to celebrate 10 years as an LLC and 10 years filing taxes as a partnership (woohoo…taxes). Never did I think that starting with branding, art direction, and graphic design would we take it to a completely new dimension and travel the world for it.

So far this year we spent six months away from NYC and it kind of went by in a blip. Japan, Australia, Japan, Philippines, Japan, Australia, and finally, home. That time went by so fast, and before we knew it, it was gone and we were back in NYC. It’s a strange thing to acknowledge, that, as creatures, we really can be so malleable and adapt to our surroundings and our lifestyles. Sometimes I kind of question where I feel most “home” at this point. While I still don’t know the answer, what I do know is that I really don’t mind this nimble lifestyle. We’ve got a bit more travel lined up for the rest of this year and some fun things to show along the way, so as always, please stay tuned 👀

07/28/2026

After a bit of distance from its release, we are still going over our photos from There, Now, Here in Sydney. So much of this imagery makes us feel content with how the piece truly came to be.

Every thing we make bears a color system we have developed over time, which is largely based on temperature. For this project our colors were dulled and subdued to bring in some greater ideas of Australia, like the phrase “sunburnt country” in Dorothea Mackellar’s famous 1908 poem, “My Country,” about her love of the Australian landscape.

Our work is almost always bold and colorful, featuring many layered meanings, textures and ideas within the work and its storytelling. Firstly, we want people of all backgrounds to engage with the work and make it their own, whether it is with kids rocking out to our interactive music piece, families utilizing the seesaws (in all ways possible), or individuals simply lounging on the seating and looking up at our spinners. We can never assume we know how people will interact with our work; consequently, we learn and grow with each creation.

Technical Engineering & Fabrication: Makernet MakerNet
Installation: HPH Weddings & Events
Sound Production: Josh Burgess Josh Burgess
Bird Samples: Jeremy Drakeford

07/02/2026

Our work changes and alters often but one thing that remains constant is the use of explosive color. Through a system of juxtaposed hues and shades (maybe that is a whole other post worth discussing), combined with explosive lines and shapes, our work is inspired by our love of anime, the cosmos, and the curiosity of how our universe came to be. Our show with in Beijing (we called it “Big Bang”) was an example of focusing purely on these ideas.

A burst of energy; a fleeting moment; a frame of expression; a chaotic buildup; the motif of a blast takes many forms. From our studio to the world, on walls, behind windows, in pockets, on prints, we’re bursting in spaces to inject chromatic joy into all we see.

06/23/2026

The sun sets over Eye Valley in Wenzhou, where our installation, “Stop, Look, Listen” currently resides. After its time in IFS Chengdu, a year later our piece has been relocated to the sunny mountainside of Wenzhou in Eastern China.

Why is it called “Eye Valley”? Great question. The facility is an eye health research and development institution with a surrounding park area. Our piece has been placed here to bring sight and stimulation to those who are visiting for treatments, research, and examination. What better opportunity is there to place a colorful, kinetic piece?

We’re grateful that this piece has been able to continue its existence in another site and cater to a new audience in an equally playful way, this time built into the ground to create a seamless bridge between land and play.

Curated by 🤍

06/08/2026

No risk, no magic.

When installing these large works, we have a big team, large machines, many on-site decisions and adjustments, and other factors that contribute to big, long days.

Install took us a little over a week, and our hearts were in our throats for much of the time as we watched the components of our work fly high in the sky, lifted by cranes and booms to safely land on their designated posts. Our worksite was a whirlwind of cardboard, packing blankets, crates, and equipment, sometimes becoming makeshift offices.
We have so much respect to the crane operators, boom lift navigators, and fork lift drivers, as navigating through our piece to adjust the silicone seals or double check the bearings on the kinetics was a very controlled and detailed operation and Leta had to keep closing her eyes so she wouldn’t overstress.
The process changes every time, but It will always remind us that teams are what make things run smoothly and these projects really do take a village. In our case, it took multiple villages, from Japan, to China, to Australia. We’d be nothing without our collaborators, and we’re grateful for all they do!

Design: Wade and Leta
Fabrication & Engineering: .onair
Build:
Sound Production:
Bird Sampling: Jeremy Drakeford

05/22/2026

THERE, NOW, HERE is our latest work premiering at ! This is our first work in Australia, standing 6.5 meters tall in the heart of Circular Quay on Gadigal Country. It’s a kinetic and sound-based sculpture in near-constant motion driven by wind and motors. The work is designed as a shared, playful encounter that brings a shock of color to the busy CBD. As multiple visitors interact, the sculpture becomes an instrument for play, shaped collectively through sound, touch, movement, and curiosity.

Wade was born and raised in Australia, so this is an extra special one for us. The name, “Then, Now, Here,” comes from the constant motion and reflection on time as something that is always moving and shifting to the environment and space, causing us to reflect on this present moment, knowing that it will never exist again. Wanting to ensure that this piece felt specific to its location, we made sure to add elements that spoke to the things unique to Greater Sydney and Australia. The colors carry the feeling of our past works but are toned down in reference to the phrase “sunburnt country” in Dorothea Mackellar’s famous 1908 poem, “My Country.”

Endlessly spinning, the composition’s colors are constantly layering to the beat of a sonic soundscape, composed by Josh Burgess. The music composition takes the sounds of Sydney and greater Australia and layers them throughout the piece. If you listen closely, you can hear the rush of water on the rocks, the dings of the light rail, the crosswalk signal, and most importantly, the local wildlife. Together, these controls give the public a direct role in stretching, compressing, and layering time and space through sound. Our favorite piece is a nod to the “bush doof” using the sounds of a lyre bird as the structure. Hope you can visit and enjoy!

Design: Wade and Leta
Fabrication & Engineering: .onair
Build:
Sound Production:
Bird Sampling: Jeremy Drakeford

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.

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.

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 🩵💜❤️

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.

Address

349 Scholes Street Unit 309
New York, NY
11206

Website

http://wadeandleta.com/

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