The third stage on the (smow) design marathon 2010 was the Grassimesse at the Grassi Museum here in Leipzig. First hosted in 1920 the Grassimesse has established itself as one of Europe's most important sales fairs for contemporary arts and crafts. And felt. It also spawned Designers' Open and always invites a wide range of art and design schools to present a selection of their students work; consequently, and although as a matter of principle we can't get excited about jewelry, pottery or
read more
One of the worst things about being out on the road is that there is much news to catch up on when you get back.... The news that Rui Alves a.k.a. My Own Super Studio had won the Red Dot: Best of the Best Award reached us just before things really hotted up ..... and news that another (smow)blog favourite had also been recognised was waiting for us on our return. And so congratulations to Jason Miller who has been awarded Brooklyn Museum of Art's 2010 "Young Designer Award" We first came
read more
On the opening day of Orgatec we managed to grab a quick 10 minutes in an Alcove Sofa with Erwan Bouroullec. Aside from not showing us what was in his sketch book, Erwan told us about one of the brother's forthcoming projects. A sail boat. Yeah, yeah we thought, the cheeky Breton is having a bit of fun with the naive (smow)blog crew. A sail boat! However, and despite our doubts, we're professionals and so we sought independent verification. The problem with the secretive world of
read more
At the 2010 Marianne Brandt Contest, Halle based designer Caspar Huckfeldt won the (smow)/Vitra Special Prize for his "Damensattel" In essence a removable plastic saddle that attaches to the crossbar, Damensattel allows a bike passenger to carried sitting side saddle. Think of the scene with "I'm singing in the rain" from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and you've got the idea. In selecting Damensattel the Vitra judges praised the design as being "a real charmer" that draws people
read more
Mannno! If we're honest we didn't expect Orgatec 2010 to be such fun, or to be so sorry to leave. For us Orgatec is one of those "must dos" Not must do as in the sense of, "If you don't go you'll regret it for the rest of your life" but more "your going, stop your bleating and accept it!" But at the end of the day we could have happily spent another couple of days in Cologne. Aside from a range of interesting new products at Vitra and Thonet, we discovered a host of new office
read more
The good news for Rui Alves is that he remains our favourite Portuguese furniture designer..... ..... but the competition is out there. Made Out Portugal is a show from 6 young Portuguese designers who all live, work and study in Holland. During our conversation with some of the participants it turned out that the Portuguese government offers it's design students extremely generous grants to go and study overseas. Which of course they all then do. As a consequence a network of Portuguese
read more
Manno! We've only just got here and now we've got to go! Despite the number of shows, products and designers we've seen, tested and talked to - we can't shake the feeling that we've only scraped the surface of what can be found in Eindhoven. Which if we're honest isn't a negative feeling - because it implies that the Dutch Design Week is a very healthy event. And makes us all the keener to return next year! But for now its a train journey to Cologne, Orgatec and contemporary office
read more
Under the title YP - Young Professionals SintLucas College of Applied Design is running four shows at the 2010 Dutch Design Week. Two of them in Pennings Inside, even if we say so ourselves a very agreeable designer furniture store on the edge of Eindhoven city centre. YP (Young Professionals) - Out of the box, is a collection of stools from fourth year students made using differing materials. So a standard student project exhibition. As such the exhibition is full of the sort of fanciful
read more
Not a word of a lie, we're sitting here in Eindhoven planning an interview for later on today with some Portuguese designers - and we receive news that our current favourite Portuguese designer Rui Alves a.k.a. My Own Super Studio has been awarded a Red Dot Design Award: Best of the Best 2010 for his "Welcome to the Jungle" shelving/storage series. Which is just wonderful, and deserved, news. Congratulations to Rui, and enjoy Singapore! Our (smow)introducing Interview with Rui Alves can be
read more
According to the ever accurate wikipedia Eindhoven has a population of some 214,000. On Sunday's the population of Eindhoven is around 214. Eindhoven on a Sunday morning is a lonely and forbidding place. Gesloten is Dutch for "Closed" The parallels - typographic as well as semantic - with Get Lost are unmistakable. Even the bakers are closed. We can't remember the last time we were in a century, sorry city, where bakers close on a Sunday. Eindhoven on a Sunday morning is not for the faint
read more
At a gala ceremony in the Eindhoven Muziekgebouw Frits Philips on Saturday evening the Dutch Design Awards 2010 were presented. In its 8th year the 2010 Dutch Design Awards attracted over 700 entries from which the International Jury awarded 17 16 awards in the three main categories - a small scandal being caused by the jury's decision not to present an award in the category "Fashion, Jewelry, Accessories" - numerous special awards and the "Golden Eye" for the "Best in Show" In addition
read more
Every year the Vienna Design Week places a special focus on one district of Vienna. This year it was Hernals. The industry and agriculture that once dominated Hernals have long since vanished and the streets of Hernals are dominated by telephone card shops, fruit shops and those curious businesses with the red curtains that dominate what politicians call "problem areas". Hernals of course isn't a problem area. As with all similar inner-city districts it is an area with infrastructure
read moreThere are some design blogs who simply retype press releases, resize press photos and abracadabra - a blog post. Our standards are a little higher. Which is why we visit design fairs, design weeks, design competitions and design exhibitions. Because only by talking to designers, talking to producers and by actually testing the products can you decide if the PR hype is justified. The minus is of course that design fairs being the new film festivals - our schedule is an absolute nightmare.
read more
Name: Eva Marguerre Alma mater: 2004-2010 Product design/Exhibition design Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe Internships: 2005 Luigi Colani, Karlsruhe 2006 Magazine "Brigitte", Living Section, Hamburg 2008 Designbüro Stefan Diez, Munich Products: Tagträume Nido MOA (smow)blog: Why Product Design? Eva Marguerre: That all started relatively early. For example, as a child I was interested in furniture and interiors and used to steal my mother’s magazines and cut out the things I liked.
read more
" .... says Erwin Perzy III. He is the third generation of family snow globe makers. His grandfather invented the snow globe" The grandson of the man who invented the snow globe! As we read the Vienna Design Week programme introduction to "Wunderliche Kugelkammer" by Julia Landsiedl @ Erwin Perzys Original Wiener Schneekugeln we knew that there was no way we could miss it. The grandson of the man who invented the snow globe!! Somewhat amusingly we did then very nearly forget to go, thanks
read more
Timely to the end of our rantings against the current state of Danish design - the Danish Design Centre in Copenhagen recently hosted the Danish Design Prize awards 2010/11 In his introduction the Danish Design Centre CEO Christian Scherfig asks " ... what is good design in the 21st century ?" The DDCs answer is 11 prize winners from 17 nominations in 4 categories. Whereas most would have also been good design in the 20th century, and a couple even in the 19th, all of the featured designs
read more
The first station on the 2010 Vienna Design Week Passionswege was "Reichtum. Wasser + Glas" by Berlin designer Mark Braun and the Viennese crystal producer J & L Lobmeyr. Established in 1863 J & L Lobmeyr were one of the key players in the Wiener Werkstätte movement and so also in the development of Art Deco, working with designers such as Josef Hoffman, Adolf Loos or Carl Witzmann. In addition J & L Lobmeyr are one of the true stalwarts of the Passionswege series and participate every year.
read moreAs the Beatles almost wrote: When I was younger, so much younger than today, I never needed any cake in anyway But now those days are indeed gone and there is nothing the (smow)blog crew enjoy more than a nice bit of cake. And fortunately as we tour the designer furniture museums of this world we always find just that: a nice bit of cake. And so we've decided to start a photo gallery in order to present the baked gems we find on our travels. First up a Strawberry Cake from the Vitra
read more
As any football fan or star-crossed lover knows only too well: passion means suffering. In Christian theology "The Passion" is specifically the suffering of Jesus in the moments leading up to and including his crucifixion. Passionswege - can therefore be seen as equivalent to the 14 stations of the cross. The Passionswege at Vienna Design Week has only very little with the morbid brutality of Jesus' walk to Calvary and has much more related to the modern definition of passion; affection,
read more
Although trained as a sculpture Henning Koppel is probably best remembered for his work as a silversmith; be it designing jewelry, cutlery services or other table and household wares. Henning Koppel also designed lamps, and Pandul have now re-issued his 1972 creation Bubi. Originally produced in brass by Louis Poulsen, the 2010 Pandul re-issue comes in chrome, an aesthetic nod towards Koppel's mastery with silver. What we particularly like about Bubi is that you can use it as a pendant
read more
Ask most people to name a Danish furniture designer and they will probably reply Verner Panton or Arne Jacobsen. Ask them to name a Swedish furniture designer and the answer will probably have four letters - three of which are vowels. Flat pack furniture is in itself no bad thing, but it is a little bit sad when a country that has so much furniture design talent to offer, is represented in the public consciousness by a universal brand. Sweden are the partner country at this year's Vienna
read more
We didn't make it to SaloneSatellite at this years Milan furniture fair. We we're, somewhat ironically, to busy getting wound up at the fact that Milan is now so big and expensive it's all but impossible to find anything. Fortunately Thomas Geisler from the Vienna Design Week organising team doesn't let such things annoy him and did go to SaloneSatellite. Where he saw Antoinette Bader and her LacesLamp. With whom he spoke. Who then applied for a space on the Carte Blanche programme at
read more
For us the Wiener Palais Liechtenstein is a building with almost religious meaning. For it was, in many ways, the place where Michael Thonet got his first big break - and so the point from where the Thonet story starts to turn and to become a success story. Some have Mecca, others Bethlehem - and we have a 17th century garden residence in north Vienna. All of which speaks volumes for the quality of our social lives. For the Vienna Design Week, in contrast, the Liechtenstein Museum is the
read more
"What, another design week?!" While the rest of the (smow)HQ tried to work out which city we hadn't been to this year; we quietly packed our cameras for yes, another design week. And certainly design weeks are the new film festival - every self-respecting city has to have one. Which is fine by us. And this week it's Vienna Design Week. The 2010 Vienna Design Week programme features - in addition to the usual array of exhibitions - a series of workshops, installations and talks with and
read more
