Meet Little Wing Lee, the Up-and-Coming Designer Taking Home This Year’s FDC + NICOLEHOLLIS Grant

Today, the Female Design Council (FDC), together with AD100 designer Nicole Hollis, has announced its newest grant recipient will be Brooklyn-based designer Little Wing Lee. This year marks the second collaboration between Hollis and the FDC to support BIPOC women in design and architecture, following an initial grant in 2020 that provided $2,500 to two emerging Black female-identifying designers. For 2022, that grant amount has been upped to $15,000 for a single recipient. In addition to financial support—which is intended to be used to expand firm size or produce new design collections—Lee will also receive mentorship from Hollis’s studio.

In April 2021, Hollis initiated a benefit auction through her Instagram account to raise money for this year’s prize, receiving extensive support from establishments like Friedman Benda, Gallery FUMI, the Future Perfect, and others.

“We are fortunate to be able to provide financial support and mentorship to advance equity in design,” Lora Appleton, FDC’s founder, says. “Nicole Hollis and the larger design community came together to provide resources for this much-needed grant program. We are humbled by the action and look forward to continued success supporting womxn of color in design.”

Lee—who has more than 15 years of multidisciplinary design experience—works across interiors, architecture, and environmental design. The designer started her career in documentary television and film, where she worked on numerous Oscar- and Emmy-nominated projects. After studying landscape architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and earning her Master’s in interior design at Pratt Institute, Lee worked at several prestigious studios, including Apparatus, SOM, Rockwell Group, and Ace Hotel Group (where she remains the current design director).

In 2019, Lee started her own firm, Studio & Projects. Since its debut, the multifaceted design office has been a projection of Lee’s unique vision, offering all aspects of home projects—from interior design and architecture to custom furniture, lighting, and finishes.