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AW Design
A fifteen-foot kinetic butterfly — articulated wings flap and flutter naturally, internally illuminated panels shifting through chromatic geometric patterns.
An aerial kinetic sculpture that blooms and wilts overhead — projection-mapped, misting — a space people stay in for hours, some missing the sets they came to see.
Two counter-rotating forms that appear, simultaneously, to move and to stand perfectly still — a structure built from contradiction
About
AW Design operates as a hybrid art and engineering practice. We create large-scale kinetic installations and immersive environments for festivals, public spaces, and cultural institutions. Projects are conceived, designed, and led by the artists.
We fabricate, deliver, and commission projects end-to-end in-house, bringing in specialist collaborators only when projects demand advanced structural analysis, precision machining, or uniquely complex systems.
Our approach ensures that each project maintains artistic continuity while meeting the practical demands of large-scale deployment.
Alexander is an artist and technologist whose practice centers on creating the conditions for feeling: work that is sculptural, spatial, or temporal, and often rooted in illusion.
His background spans major Hollywood film and television production, large-scale experiential design for Fortune 500 brands and cultural institutions, and broadcast systems development including custom infrastructure produced for DARPA. He studied Radio/Television/Film and the interplay of science, technology, and human culture at Northwestern University.
In 2017 he co-founded AW Design with his brother Aric, and the two share credit for conceptual and artistic direction across all studio work. Alexander leads technical direction, fabrication, and deployment, designing and building control systems, electronics, kinetic mechanisms, and structural metalwork.
Aric is a multidisciplinary artist who works in hot glass, sculpture, painting, installation, and experiential forms, guided by the conviction that the medium serves the art, not the other way around.
Among his mediums, glass holds a special place: a lifelong love formalized through training at Pilchuck Glass School, work with artist Rob Stern, and his ongoing role as lead assistant to Brenna Baker. He holds a BA in Art Theory and Practice from Northwestern University. His practice ranges across sculpture, painting, installation, and experiential work.
In 2017 he co-founded AW Design with his brother Alexander, and the two share credit for conceptual and artistic direction across all studio work. Aric leads sculptural design, spatial composition, and material execution, with particular depth in unconventional materials, surface finishing, and aesthetic development.
Work featured in My Modern Met, 2025.