Look under the table or chair and you will probably see four tidy straight legs, but increasingly designers have been playing with this convention. You can change the height of your table, use other materials for legs or if you can't decide if you want to go contemporary or traditional have both! Here are a few of the great legs I've seen trotting around some of the shows this year. Jaime Hayon's Multileg Table for BD Barcelona Four different wonderfully weighty ...Read More
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 ...Read More
In an area of London know for its design companies Clerkenwell Design Week popped up last week. Its a bit of a stretch calling it a week (its only 3 days) but its a great opportunity for designers to gain some exposure away from the big design shows. This year there were two main sites; both fascinating buildings in their own right - the Farmiloe and the wonderfully named House of Detention as well as showrooms opening up and other ...Read More
A warm glow that harks back to an era of candle light; that's all we really need now. We have so much light coming from the screen of a laptop or the television we don't really need much more. Lighting can offer a sense of warmth, intimacy and enchantment; becoming a tactile experience with different pools of light dappled across the room. Such a contrast to a bright single central light. The Light Tray by Daniel Rybakken The tray obscures the ...Read More
Strictly speaking this should be titled cube as all the images on this post are based around the cube. Square seems more appropriate as the discussion of a square deal for designers was posed over on Twitter during the Milan festival. #Milanuncut was a discussion kicked off by writers Marcus Fairs and Max Fraser who'd both heard and reported the anonymous grumblings of young designers at the level of work and payment they got for producing the prototypes that were ...Read More
An overdue post on Milan! Here are some of my favourite shots from this years events in and around Salone del Mobile. Hopefully it'll give give some sense of what was shown. There will be more to follow! 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 ...Read More
We use so much paper in everyday life - even in this digital age we still rely on paper for news, packaging, and all manner of print outs, the list is endless. Recycled paper reduced to a grey pulp doesn't sound appealing but can be transformed in remarkable ways. Claesson Koivisto Rune have developed two products made from DuraPulp, a mixture of pulp and PLA, (an oil-free plastic based maize starch) developed by Sodra. First came Parupu, a bright fun eco ...Read More
Here are some products that have been stripped down to a single black line. There is no superfluous decoration, they're structural sketches brought to life. Optically playing with our perceptions, 2D suddenly becomes 3D as you move around the pieces. Christian Hallerod and Johannes Svartholm Mobile Office & Art for arts organisation Mossutställningar. A conceptual piece consisting of four unique modules representing archetypes from the office contained within a frame. The pieces can be used separately or in formation to create ...Read More
Here are designs that appreciate iron and steel in its raw state. They've been allowed and encouraged to rust and corrode, the natural state of decay seen as something beautiful as opposed to being a sign of a fault, fatigue or mistreatment. To prevent further decay the works have been preserved with a transparent matt layer of varnish otherwise you'd have little flakes of rust dust gradually depositing its self. Although Corton steel, the type of steel used in theses ...Read More
10 images I shot at Maison et Objet in Paris First theres a look at the three trend and inspiration areas. Haute Tension by Elizabeth Leriche Displayed designs that stimulate the senses. "Design is blowing hot and cold, modulating between heavy and light varying the intensity of light and colours, increasing the tactile effects of surprising materials" Unplugged by Francois Bernard "Unplugged doesn't imply "doing nothing", "creating nothing", "producing nothing". Unplugged is first and foremost an aesthetic form that considers it more important to use ...Read More