Established & Sons have produced and ombré version of the Bouroullec’s Quilt chair.

At Milan Salone del Mobile Moroso showed a very controlled Ombré sofa that graduated from a light to dark pink. Incredibly confusing for the camera to shot.

Flip Flap Fold by textile designer Margrethe Odgaard. The dye seeps across the folds of the fabric enhancing the effect of the delicate origami folds

Textile designer  Josefine Wiel Fredén produces some beautiful fabric that has less control than the previous examples. The dye is allowed a little more of a free run. Huge patches of indigo and scarlet dyes have been manipulated just enough to create a repeat pattern; but not enough to feel mechanical produced. Each bolt of fabric is unique.

Alexa Lixfeld’s Cashmere throw uses the old method of tying the fabric to prevent the dye taking in those areas.

Underfull Tablecloth by Kristine Bjaadal At first glance the tablecloth appears to be an ordinary damask tablecloth. Its only when the cloth has been used and abused that the pattern really forms. “Some stains , like red wine, are hard to clean, but since they will be formed as figures, the tablecloth will not look stained. The figures will form a pale, shadowy pattern that will grow as the tablecloth is used over time. This creates stories and can contribute to giving the tablecloth a sentimental value.”

Sonya Winner’s After Matisse rug is inspired by the paper cut outs of the painter. Blocks of colour are overlapped like floating pieces in a kaleidoscope; the thick New Zealand wool pile is hand carved to give variations in depth. Its a beautiful piece that I had the chance to stroke at Super Design so I can personally vouch for its vibrancy and soft touch. You can also read an interview with Sonya on Pop Art Rock Girls blog

Plaid Bench by Raw Edges for Dilmos

“Each of the designs can stand alone however, Raw Edges has made the three benches in such a way that they interlock into one another horizontally and vertically, creating a large rectangular platform forming a vibrant plaid pattern.”

Boca do Lobo’s Pixel Cabinet features 1088 individual triangles of lacquered wood. The pieces have been overlay ed with gold and silver leaf and translucent lacquer applied to give the cabinet a lustrous shimmering finish.

Bashko Trybek’s Color Wheel Clock  “A Color Wheel clock provides a new per­spect­ive on the way of com­mu­nic­at­ing time. This idea refers to the Sun — the first, primt­ive clock in nature, reflect­ing the passing of time. The Sun emits light, a spec­trum of col­ours vis­ible while going through a prism. This phe­nom­ena was an inspir­a­tion for design­ing the face of the clock. Read­ing the time from the color wheel clock is simple: red stands for noon, the wheels from biggest to smal­lest stand, respect­ively, for hours, minutes and seconds.” I found it a bit tricky to read at first but pop back to his webistie and you’ll see an online real time version.

Bright vibrant colours have also been used in a couple of Hotel refits that have opened up this year. In Paris Matali Crasset has designed the interior for Hi Matic

The hotel contains 42 flexible cabins that allow the visitor to use the space as a home from home. With 100% internet access a memory foam bed that serves a sofa during the day the cabin is designed to change with with your needs througout the day. Each cabin features bright panels of colour with translucent panels allowing the light to filter through.

In Barcelona the Hotel Mimic aims to further enhance your mood with a shot of colour. As designer Xavier Claramunt says “Colours provide a dose of optimism: vibrant colours are capable of lifting the morale as a palette of dull greys is to make it sink. Colours will not raise the economy but they can brighten your mood”

Nendo created an installation for Established & Son’s in their London showroom for this years London Design Festival.

The installation was inspired by looking back at nostalgic images of London fog; with the “fog” appearing to emerge from the wall to engulf pieces from the current collection . Created from thousands of pieces of transparent paper depicting random maps of London the fog engulfs the full height of the cavernous showroom.

At first I thought it rather funny that London’s reputation for fog has lingered for so long. It was a man made phenomena created from pumping out so much coal smoke from power stations. I live near to the carcass of one of these power stations; Battersea Power Station and another has been turned into Tate Modern.  Both are well loved landmarks despite the fact its noxious fumes probably killed thousands of Londoners!

So just as I was thinking “how odd, we never have fog now….” this morning Battersea Power Station was covered in the soft fluffy harmless fog that Nendo envisaged!

The Victoria & Albert Museum holds an amazing collection of works from across all fields within Design and the Visual Arts; and for the London Design Festival it is showing 12 installations across the site. I had a preview of the pieces yesterday and its certainly a “must visit” on the design trail. If you’re not able to get into London for the Festival here’s a look at some of the pieces on show.

The Cromwell Road entrance has undergone a dramatic transformation with the installation of a 12m diameter timber wave cascading down the steps.  Architects AL_A (winner of the V&A’s recent international competition to design a new courtyard and exhibition galleries) collaborated with structural engineers Arup in the creation of Timber Frame, a striking three-dimensional spiral made from oil-treated American Red Oak. This material is usually used in the construction of furniture and its the first time it has been used structurally and on such a large scale.  Ultra thin laminates have been glued together and bent to create the tightly curved shapes.

The second dramatic piece is by design duo Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec collaborating with Kvadrat(if you click the link they have a lovely stop animation preview). Textile Field takes over the entire gallery that holds the Raphael Cartoons and gives the visitor an entirely new  angle to view Raphael’s work.  The gentle undulations of the fabric pieces allow you to lay back and look up at the huge canvases. Its a wonderfully playful piece, the springy foam lets you bounce along as you decide which art work to lie infront of. I’d just love to know how they chose the colour pallette I’d like to think they pulledcolours from the Raphael’s.

Beyond the Valley also created an interactive piece, inviting visitors to try out digital design. The iPad ‘Granimator’ gives you an assortment of patterns and wallpaper designs that you can remix in your own interpretation. You design can then be uploaded on to a website for all to view. Surrounding you in the room are digitally remixed pieces by Beyond the Valley.

The other installations are dotted across the gallery for you to seek out. And I personally like the way they encourage you to  hunt down pieces sited next to works in the collection that you may not have noticed before. Its a vast collection and you can be tempted to only go for things you already like; its refreshing to be sent into rooms you might walk past.

New York design gallerist and curatorMurray Moss’s collaboration with Belgium-based  Materialise takes you on such a journey. Industrial Revolution 2.0: How the Material World Will Newly Materialise used cutting edge laser and digital technologies to build 3D objects.  Angel is a wearable piece that has been placed in a spot that has been unoccupied for years. It references the classical statues that line the stairwell where the empty plinth in sited.

The dress, again wearable, pulls you to a phenomenal rococo fireplace that despite numerous visits I’ve never seen before!

I was lucky enough to chat to Murray after the tour and I’m gutted that I didn’t record everything he said. What I will take with me is the idea that museums can be seen as radical spaces; they contain the cutting edge work of their time. Its a great mind shift, you can all to often look at a museum or gallery as a place for old things but if you shift your thoughts and look at objects as radical and new it gives you a greater insight.

Do have a look at the V&A programe of events they have some great talks and activities going on across the Festival.

Its their first venture into creating a Home store and its a huge step up from the conventional DIY warehouse. I’m using this comparison because they offer paint by Dulux, a number of DIY tools, flooring and a gardening section. The first thing noticed was the light – it was natural and flooded deep into the store. It made viewing the Dulux paints so much easier, how on earth you’re supposed to look at colours under artificial light? No so here.

The garden section was also a huge difference from the usual dull garden centre choices – I was particularly impressed with this section mainly because of the plants. They were selected to fit into room sets which makes sense; we think of gardens as additional rooms so why not select plants in this way.

Moving back inside the home here is a pick of a range products from Next. I think you can see they’ve taken inspiration from designers. Theres a bit of a Jaime Hayon look to the Bardot coffee table, (pictured above) a bit of Moooi in the bunny light (1st image).  Its rather like when you see a fashion magazine that shows you the couture piece and then the affordable retail version.  All in all its an interesting customer focused concept, deliberately designed to take some of the frustration out of shopping for the Home. Its not a huge IKEA bunker that leads you down a long path to find the bay that doesn’t contain the 1 item you came for.

Other major UK retailers have also changed their tactics in selling to interior enthusiasts. John Lewis have collaborated with Ercol to produce limited edition furniture. And Marks & Spencer have brought in designer Marcel Wanders to breath new life into their home area. We may have lost one design institution in Habitat but there are others lining up to reinvigorate the market.

Pictured below Kane Light

Inga Sempe’s Ruche bed for Ligne Roset was a last minute change. “I thought this was going to be blue!” she said as she bounced onto the bed shown at  Maison et Objet. A quick change  had been made to a softer feminine nude tone for the room set. As you can see from the image Inga left the bed unmade!

Also at Maison Object the Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec display had their Slow Chair for Magis in brighter ice cream pink.

The theme continued into Milan where any number of chairs appeared in fleshy tones through to deep raspberry.

Bouroullec’s Quilt chair for Established & Son was updated in a faded pink.

Stefan Diez Houdini Chair mixed pink with dark leather.

Floris Schoonderbeek’s Axe chair also has a pink version.

Patricia Urquiola’s Klara Chair for Moroso was amongt many pink pieces on the Moroso stand.

Comet Chair Gunilla Allard for Lammhults comes in a range of pinks from soft light through to raspberry.

Maarten Baas used very fleshy tone of pink for his Clay range at Spazio Rosana Orlandi

Home accessories have also had the pink treatment Established & Son’s new Serve tray is edged in raspberry.

For textiles pink is an accent. Seen here Sebastain Wrong’s Zig Zag rug for Established & Sons, and finally Studio Makkink & Bey for Hay Studio who’s rug also appeared on the Vitra stand.
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Jaime Hayon’s Multileg Table for BD Barcelona Four different wonderfully weighty wood turned legs made of Alderwood.

Boca Do Lobo’s Royal Dining Table transforms from  traditional  chippendale legs at one end then blasted into a vectorised future at the other. The vector pattern continues across the table top mixing old and new pattern with very high traditional quality.

As you can imagine there were plenty of fabulous legs at Milan this year.

Floris Schoonderbeek’s Axechair Chair uses a traditional axe handle from Swedish axe maker Gränsfors as its legs.  Set into a cast iron chair base it  maintains the connection with the axe.

Thomas Schnur Rubber Table is inspired by the humble sink plunger and made entirely of rubber. You could stick the whole table onto the wall… but then it wouldn’t really be a table. It might me of more use outside on an uneven surface as each of the rubbery legs are bendable.

The final set of super legs from Milan I’ve shown before but are worth looking at again and were from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago

I’m looking forward to seeing the final set of legs in the flesh at next months London Design Festival

Bambi Table by Norwegian designer Caroline Olsson is an adjustable two-height table with legs that fold back underneath, the joints inspired by the movement of the knee joint. The table will debut at 100% Design as part of the 100% Norway stand from September 22 to 25, 2011.
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Advances in LED’s have allowed lights to slim right down; lighting design is no longer dominated by the shape of a bulb and the bulky electrics. The softer light emitted has taken away the need for a shade. LED’s embedded in the piece allow for more fluid and sculptural forms.Yes there will still be a need for our old bulbs  (see an earlier post Lightbulb on beautiful alternatives) but within new homes and commercial projects lights will become subliminal, glowing in whatever colour to suit our mood and environment.

Japanese company Kaneka’s light installation “Pieces of Light “ demonstrates the next generation of LED the OLED (organic light emitting diode) One of the innovators; they invited artists and designers to use their new generation of LED to create a Japanese Saki Bar. The effect was soft dappled wave of light that gently changed from red to orange and white diodes like petals of cherry blossom.  The piece may have been an art installation and incredibly beautiful but it also demonstated the practical commercial application – if the development in manufacture can bring the price down.

OLED may be a little way off into the future but LEDs are now, with  Flos displaying some amazing examples at Euroluce this year.

Wall Rupture by Thierry Dreyfus for the Soft Architecture Collection is a dramatic demonstration of the versatility of the LED. A huge rock fissure breaks open the wall creating a visual trick, golden volcanic light pouring out.

Ron Gilad’s Wall Piercing Lamp  (seen above in the background) slowly changes colour going through the entire spectrum. His sculptural 2620 Chandelier has been added to his range for Flos this year.

Royal College of Art graduate Hanhsi Chen combines LED technology with the ancient use of shadows to tell the time. A poetic use of light and shadow this small wall lamp is easily integrated into interior decoration.

Artist Dan Flavin made the unloved fluorescent tube into beautiful works of art but with the work of these designers they haven’t left that much space for the artists to explore.
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A wonderful tweeted interview by Max Fraser with Guido Cappellini  included the percentage range a designer could expect in royalties from a work in production.  A royalty payout is roughly between 1.5- 5% on the cost or wholesale price of an item, though I would think the bigger the designer the more flexibility there is in the percentage. So for and item that walks out of the shop at £100 the designer would take 60p – £2 using a mark-up on the cost price of 2.5 times. Its not a lot really is it. An anonymous designer complained that his last royalty cheque was for £600 “it won’t even cover half a months rent”  (he obviously lives in London) But if a design takes off you could be gradually raking in the royalties for years and as you establish your name you won’t be relying on 1 or 2 products; some designers must have launched 10-15 products at Milan this year. But to really build up an income will take years of work and  products with a long shelf life.

So is the way to go abandon designing for others and set up on your own? Seen here is Dave Keune’s Standard Primatives Lamp. He’s an example of a designer who’s set up their own. And its certainlyworked for Tom Dixon creator of Etch 100  (1st image above) a design inspired by the logic of pure mathmatics; but only after years of designing for others. Starting out on your own can take some serious money; Benjamin Hubert tweeted that he’d spent £30,000 of wages from day jobs into creating prototypes before he started to make any money. And its not quite so simple to set up on your own – with so many jobs to do running a business; it always helps to have interns. Hmmm yes interns; another sensitive subject thrown up by #milanuncut. They can either be seen and used as slave labour (the bigger the company the worse the experience so it would seem) or  vital to the growth of a new business that otherwise couldn’t progress. Fresh out of study with so much expectation you can’t help thinking students may expect a little too much out of an internship? But then it is the responsibility of the employer to ensure that in working for free they do gain something from the experience; even if it may only be to realise that a lot of work isn’t as intellectually stimulating as college life has been!

Philippe Malouin used interns to create the Yachiyo metal rug; and he even named it after one of them and credited everyone who worked on the piece. This really was a team effort and with over 3000 man hours to create; it would have been impossible without his interns. I couldn’t resist the urge to work out what this would have cost to make had he been forced to pay the minimum wage of £5.93 . It actually works at a staggering  £17,790!

Yes ok this doesn’t make this a commercially viable piece to put into production (even if you farmed it out to a $1 a day wage in developing nation!) but  I can’t help feeling that they all got a sense of satisfaction in the creative process, even if they don’t feel the need to repeat it.  You can see them making it over on Dezeen. And from that idea and process and experimentation that having  a group of interns can allow a creative cloud can form and out pops another idea, process etc,etc.

Over at Established & Sons a remarkable similar  Cubiod rug appeared in their new collection. They’re not giving away the name of the designers in this range, but I was assured that they did hire some very talented names from the design field.  I can’t say for definite that Philippe designed this but…..any way it does offer another way for a young designer to use existing ideas for a nice design fee rather than royalties.I am making an assumption  that this is a fee rather than a royalty but it would make commercial sense to do it this way. Say they had an initial production run of 5000 at retailing at £80, that would be a £2400 royalty. I think a one off design fee would be a bit less.

Another direction for the designer can be into that hazy would where art and design collides. Marcus Tremonto produced these Hexalights. Is it art? Is it design? Oh I can’t be bothered to work it out anymore! They are glowingly beautiful either way.

Sadly the final tail of  #milanuncut was that too many students don’t even attend the classes that are aimed at giving them the business knowledge to succeed in a very competitive environment.

So for my final cube spot from Milan is Konnex by Florian Gross for Müller Möbelwerkstätten Great for the frustrated designer who has given up on the design career and is left to redesign their home. The pieces can be added to and slot together to form your own unique layout – that way you can still feel like a designer.

Ron Gilad added to last years Wall Piercing Lamp for Flos (seen below in the background) with his stunning 2620 Chandelier

At Moroso’s Milan showroom  Tokujin Yoshioka created an installation entitled Twilight to display his Moon chair. A mist hung in the air with beams of light shot thorough like moon light.

Volcano by Klaus Haapaniemi & Mia Wallenius for Established & Son reminded everyone of the volcanic cloud that hung over last year festival; when that unpronounceable Icelandic volcano stranded visitors!

Formafantasma presented Botanica a range of vessels created from polymers derived from plants at Spazio Rossana Orlandi. Each had a tag with the name of plant the polymer came from.

Also at Spazio Rossana Orlandi was the School of the Art Institute of Chicago presenting Loaded; works created from iron and sugar. It was also a lesson in looking at not just what is on the table but what is underneath. The table legs created by the students were beautiful.

Andere Monjo at Salone Satellite Milano presented a poetic collection of handcrafted pieces that lie between the boundaries of art design and craft.

Going back to the industrial Studio Job created a cabinet for Lensvelt featuring  a giant brass key.

They also presented their Gothic chair and Firmship Carpet for Moooi

Casamania had a wonderfully woven chair called Loop by Sophie De Vocht -it reminded me of my Knit Loop post of last year.

Jamie Hayon collaborated with traditional Japanese pottery studio Choemon to create Hayon x Choemon Gama. A combination of traditional techniques and Jamie’s graphics.