ISOKON PENGUIN DONKEY

Writer: Paul Taylor

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.

ZOE MOZERT: PIN-UP ARTIST

Writer: Gracie Leavitt

Zoë Mozert did more than lead her little brother to New York, did more than hem him in the art scene once he was there. Whether by collusion or coincidence, the siblings shared a philosophy and endeavored to arrange for beauty in the world. Both did this by capturing the typical, the quotidian, the run-of-the-mill within various pretty fictions that had unreal but commercial appeal.

The sister studied illustration in Philadelphia before heading to NYC in 1932. There she generated some very impressive success painting bawdy pastel sirens, the likes of which beguiled from book covers, batted lashes at the newsstand, and adorned many a gilded marquee.

Why so impressive? Zoë had managed to gain a foothold in a business driven by sex and dominated by men. Sure, the images were ultra-feminine, but just a handful of lady pin-up artists triumphed to hold contracts. In 1941 Zoë signed an exclusive deal with publishers Brown & Bigelow, cementing her career. She worked often as a calendar artist, but also designed magazine and book covers along with movie posters for such films as True Confession (1937) starring Carole Lombard and The Outlaw (1943) directed by Howard Hughes and starring Jane Russell. Her most famed, and perhaps her most significant series, “Victory Girls,” was painted during World War II.

PRODUCT DESIGNERS OF THE FUTURE

Writer: Paul Taylor

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.”

EL PALACIO BAROLO IN BUENOS AIRES: GOTHIC MEETS GOTHAM CITY

Writer: Melanie Kramers

Probably the only building in the world whose design was inspired by Dante, the highly impressive neo-Gothic Palacio Barolo, on a central avenue in Buenos Aires, is modeled on The Divine Comedy. The brainchild of Italian architect Mario Palanti, who was part of a religious order called La Fede Santa (The Sacred Faith), which revered the poet, this wholly unique construction is divided into three sections representing Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. All aspects of the complex design are related to the epic poem; the number of floors (22) mirrors the metric count employed by Dante in his verses, the nine vaults leading off the central hall signify the nine steps towards paradise, and the 100-metre height matches the text’s 100 cantos. Symbolic flourishes abound—from inscriptions in Latin of biblical texts and quotes from Virgil to a pair of carved dragons watching over the entrance.

WIS DESIGN: RECYCLED SWEDISH FURNITURE

Writer: Paul Taylor

Lisa Widén and Anna Irinarchos formed playful design duo Wis Design in 2006 after both graduating from Beckmans College of Design, Sweden. Just like the latest American Idol prodigy, Wis Design have become an almost overnight success producing work for big-name clients such as Design House Stockholm and Casamania, to name but a few. You could say they’ve become the darlings of the Swedish furniture design scene.