Flicking through a fashion magazine the other day, I found myself noticing how the models were using their limbs to great effect, creating awkward angles that produced stunning poses. Making me turn my attention across the room towards my trusty old Anglepoise desk lamp, it made me realise that all this time I had been harbouring a model capable of these poses, without ever acknowledging just how beautiful a product the Anglepoise was. It looks so elegant, statuesque as a flamingo and graceful as a swan, it is hard to believe that an automotive engineer, George Carwardine, designed this iconic British design classic desired by many.

Read the rest of this entry »

As the lights go out and the whole room turns to darkness, an electro funk beat emerges from the sound system, causing vibrations to bellow up through the ground and seep into my body. A single beam of light cuts through the artificial-smoke-filled air shooting down to the far side of the catwalk. I begin to get goose bumps knowing the show is about to start. This isn’t any normal catwalk though; it looks like a blinged-up airport luggage conveyor, with each segment moving in unison to the music.

First design to hit the runway is the Socialising Sofa by Ditte Hammerstrøm; the fabric is exceptional and the detailing exquisite and wonderfully precise. Random sewn sections create wrinkle-like patterns to great effect, a sign that these sofas don’t use Botox, and rightly so. Hammerstrøm’s second piece, Loungescape, now graces the runway with beautiful insect qualities for the leg detailing, whilst ribbon and buttons complete the high-end look to dress these “top model” stools. Hammerstrøm certainly shows that fashion strongly influences her designs; the upholstery and fashion detailing her products are truly stunning and prove that fashion design doesn’t have to just dress human models.

Read the rest of this entry »

Three designers who are breaking away from the “normal” approach to design are Tom Gyr, Lil Yates, and Philip John Luscombe. Not content with following the crowd and just creating nice pieces, these three are proving that you can be crazier than Britney Spears with hair clippers and still create beautiful and intriguing products with a story behind them.

Product Designer Lil Yates looked towards OCD suffers when designing her latest collection made up of Checking Dice, Checking Stamp, and Symmetry Card. I’m not entirely sure her Checking Dice, designed to aid and reduce any stress suffered by OCD patients, met the needs of her brief. Inspired by cult book The Dice Man, Lil’s dice have been created to show tasks the OCD sufferer must perform, such as check the oven, while the second and third dice determine how many times the task must be completed. Does this help or hinder an OCD sufferer though? Does it add yet more things to be performed every day or control what has to be done? If the dice do fail the brief and in fact don’t help reduce stress, then they are, in effect, about as useful as an inflatable dartboard. I actually love these products as nice things, however, and believe that they show Lil has earned her place as one to watch in the design product world.

Read the rest of this entry »

Brandon Flowers from the Killers once said in an interview that he wishes he had written the hit song “America” by English indie band Razorlight. I don’t know why that quote has always stuck with me, but perhaps it’s because I’ve often had a similar thought. As a designer you look towards other designers, and you admire them from a different perspective. You don’t just see a chair or a lamp, but you see the materials used, you analyse how it was designed and made, and you question whether you could have designed it better. And if you could not have designed it better, then you admit you wished you had designed it yourself.

A design that I have long admired is the Isokon Penguin Donkey 2, designed back in 1963 by Ernest Race. For years I have longed to own this little bundle of fun that stores Penguin reading books and also acts as an occasional side or coffee table. It is the piece that I wished I had designed-and no, I could not have designed it better. Race, though, obviously believed that he could design better when he first set eyes upon the original Penguin Donkey.

Read the rest of this entry »

Are you, like me, one of those people who has to know everything before anyone else? You’re always the first with the daily gossip on the neighbours; you know which celebrities are sleeping together even before Perez Hilton has written about them-and as for the latest designer trends-you’re already wearing them before they hit the runway. That’s why I love July. I pack my trusty brown vintage suitcase, very Paddington Bear, and head for the bright lights of London to discover the new breed of emerging graduate design talent at the New Designers exhibition.

Furniture and product designer James Plant recently won the New Designers 100% Design Award. Inspired by his experiences travelling around Europe, James believes his work “is a reflection on the world around him, his experiences and feelings” whilst “trying to find graceful solutions in playful design.” “Odd Couples” bench is a design James created from a live project set by furniture brand Ercol. Retaining classic Ercol qualities of turned wood, but presented as a modern design piece, the bench houses two starkly different, individual back rests-very Jekyll and Hyde. Each bench is created to represent the dual nature of a couple: seen as one entity, but made up of two different personalities. It is James’s Ready Made collection, however, that reels in the attention, as found objects are retired from their old duties and retrained as eye-catching products. Used clamps from the workshop, combined with flower planters, create the obviously named “Clamp Light,” whilst an old fishing rod attached to a breezeblock base creates the stunning, adjustable pendant light, “Arco Rod.”

Read the rest of this entry »