The Survivor Sofa Story

I'm very much looking forward to this on Monday;

A documentary about pioneering design and recycling on Monday 14th December at 10pm on the Community Channel but if you're busy you can watch it here. It features my friends the lovely Urban Uphostery. See the trailer here.

Featured!

My copy of Upcyclist arrived today - I am so proud to be included in this beautiful book. It really is gorgeous and full of great artists and photographs - no dabblers here - this is seriously good design only.

And perhaps most importantly.....Otis made the edit....in what is perhaps his best portrait to date.

Handsome and well dressed.

Colourful

By coincidence I've been working on two very colourful commissions this winter. It shows how far we've come in being more adventurous with our homes and especially lighting. When I started out - a long time ago now - the only lighting with bright coloured glass seemed to be in Barcelona or Milan but not customary on this island, but then again continental cafes were rare and so was a good coffee. Even if you always had adventurous taste you just couldn't get the stuff. We've clearly learned alot from mainland Europe.

London Design Week 2014 Highlights

It's always great to see what Paul the Rag and Bone man has been up to and these lamps were on show before they go to a hotel in Australia. I wish there was more one-off invented hand-made stuff like this in London Design Week so this was a real treat. Seeing that they all wind I think I have an old mincer to give to Paul. I used to have it screwed to a bench and kept my pencils in it but people kept winding it and crushing them!

If you didn't see Kevin Mccloud's Supersized Salvage where Paul and 2 other designers set to work on re using an old aeroplane do watch it on 4oD here. It's interesting to cost it all as it's a tragedy that it can be cheaper to discard than re-use, something we are trying to turn around.

I went to a big show too but it felt a bit like a department store, everyone's marketing is very smart and shiny these days, probably a good thing but I like things that are a bit rough around the edges or more accessible. For this Designers Block seemed the best to aim for in the big fairs.

And here I was completely taken by Camilla Barnard's prolific amount of carved and painted sculpture, beautifully done, charming and witty - I was so refreshed to see this. The little carved shreddies just made my heart sing. I love just knowing that there are people who spend there time obsessively working away enriching our culture making these objects from their imagination. So hats off to Camilla and to Paul my personal faves of London Design Festival.

Another hit was Old Sessions House the building Designers Block was in, I really wanted to see inside and it didn't disappoint, it's very very beautiful inside with amazing stairwell's and a huge dome but.....

....I discovered afterwards that it has a horrible history - read here. On the top floor the walls were part plastered and patched with layers of historic colour - very Rough Luxe I know - but very beautiful, the latter photo is definitely enhanced by my god-daughter elegantly stepping into the photo. They must surely use this place for shoots and filming - it is such an amazing backdrop and atmosphere.

A Really Good Coffee

I've been working on a chandelier that I had to put on hold but I hope to finish it soon, it's called All Day Breakfast and uses little croissant moulds. I didn't know whether to add colour but then decided - since it was a breakfast theme - on different coffee colours from dark espresso through cafe au lait to a creamy colour. I am a lover of cafe culture and it's hard to beat the fix of a really good coffee mid morning, very often though you can get served a massive bowl of milky soup - yuk. Many years ago I met the designer Antonio Scarponi of Conceptual Devices when I was on a residency in Cork city during European Capital of Culture year. We were eating in a great wholefood cafe but never had the big mug of coffee there and I discovered he was even more particular than me about what a proper coffee should be. I think the Italians got the proportions perfect, the big cups are all wrong and the cocoa powder should go between the espresso coffee and frothy milk. 

Happily I had 2 really good coffees out and about in London recently so let me share with you a cappuccino that was less than £2 - yes! £1.70 in fact, nice and strong, perfect size at EATalia on Bermondsey Street. Another at £2 was in Waterloo, near Lambeth North tube at Perdoni's (also known as Riverside 2). It's amazing what we will pay for coffee caught with the urge - a powerful drug indeed. Do take a look at Antonio's devices: clever design with a social responsibility.

Tent London 2013

So London Design week ended last night after a hectic few days, though there are still lots of shows on around town. Thanks to all you lovely visitors who came to say hello. I didn't get to have a thorough look in the other halls at Tent, but one of my favourite things were these pots by Tortus.

I like their simplicity and especially the matt glazes.

I bought the little lemon cylinder vase below, it has a pinky red interior. Alot of the colours were subtle but appetising.

Top tip: Companies from other countries may want to sell their show-ware on the last day so as not to have to carry it all back home. Tortus' work can be bought at Flow gallery in London and no doubt they'll have found other stockists since this show.

Tent London 2013

I'm really looking forward to showing my chandeliers at Tent during London design week. I've never done a trade fair before but I thought Tent London really exciting last year so I applied and happily got accepted. If I'd known my mum would have a stroke and my local council would launch aggressive eviction action against our 30 year old housing co-op this year I probably wouldn't have applied! But the show must go on as they say. I like to work flexibly making things up as I go along and changing them but with rigging the stand there wont be time so I've made a mock up of it in my studio to test everything out and save time on the day.

Tent doesn't have the corporate feel of 100% design, it's worth going to if you love great objects as there is a good cross section there so you're bound to find something that interests you. As you may have gathered from previous posts I'm not always enamoured with new design as I find so much of it gratuitous (I wish I felt more generous but some things don't need redesigning) but I spent most of the day there last year and really got into it. My 5 sq metres will be home from 19th-22nd September - come and say hello. Our co-op goes to court (again) before then, so fingers crossed our creative community survives Brixton's gentrification a while longer.

Tent

This one is almost finished - it was in progress here and going a bit Jules Verne..... you can see how it turns out if you come to Tent during Design week in September. Hall T1 Stand DO9. I thought this was possibly a change from slick product shots. I tend to like things a bit rough around the edges, think branding is overrated and get disappointed when people re-do their blogs so they look like a magazine. I'm not sure why this is; perhaps it's like preferring drawing to a finished painting - you can feel all the workings, the journey and struggle.

Graphics for Screw Boxes

I picked up this box from a pile of rubbish spotted while walking through Soho this morning. I LOVE the designs you get on screw boxes. I realised I had a very small collection - you'll have spotted one on my blog header.

This one - but I also had this one below,

Aren't they lovely? I can't wait to find the next one for this collection now, I think it should be green. I'm not much of a graphic designer myself, I'm messier but I'd love to have a go at designing some of these boxes.