Kate Arends founded Wit & Delight in late 2008 while working as a graphic designer as an experiment in discovering and developing her own personal style. Nearly a decade later, the blog has expanded to become a lifestyle website, a boutique branding agency, and with a series of product collaborations with Target under its belt, a brand in its own right.
Recently, Kate Arends opened Studio 125, a collaborative studio space in partnership with event planner Bridget Borden and photographers Chelsey and Brandon Werth. Located at the newly renovated Fisk Building warehouse in Northeast Minneapolis, the expansive space features two shooting bays, one kitchenette, one full kitchen, a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, glass garage doors, and exposed ceilings.
The space will not only serve as Wit & Delight’s home base, it will also host its own curated workshops, speaking engagements, retail pop-ups, and other events, including a recent event focused on beauty and wellness. It also offers studio rental space for photo shoots and workshops, in addition to renting the space to external clients interested in hosting corporate and social events. Studio 125 will be hosting three different workshops, lead by Arends, in August and September focusing on growing small businesses, branding, and social media. (Check back to studio125.co for dates and registration to be posted soon.) They are also planning a home decor retail pop-up for the end of September that will be open to the public.
For the design of the space, Arends partnered with Wit & Delight clients, including Cambria, CB2, Article, Rejuvenation, and Hunter Douglas, to furnish the space in a minimal, modern style that complements the clean look of the Wit & Delight aesthetic. The conference room was built using the same aluminum materials used for the building’s windows, while a Cambria quartz island (surrounded by leather roadhouse stools by CB2) acts as the focal point for the space, doubling as both a kitchen countertop and a work table. (Find out more about the design of the space at witanddelight.com.)
“The goal of Studio 125 is to create a space that is focused on design and versatility,” says Borden, “and styling it in products from our partners helps us maintain our design edge.”
