As many of you know we don't do trends. Never have. Never will. But others do. And back in 1964 the trend in West Germany was leather furniture. At least according to Der Spiegel. In "Haut und Haare", a delightful article, that admittedly probably shouldn't be read by anyone planning buying a Barcelona Chair for Christmas, the unnamed Spiegel author not only explains just how much of a trend leather had become in the West German living rooms of the day, but exhibits a wonderfully casual
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Part of our motivation for visiting Neue Räume Zurich 2011 was to try to gauge and get a feel for the current state of the designer furniture industry in Switzerland. Hidden as it is behind its Alpine shroud, it's all to easy to assume everything is always rosy in Confoederatio Helvetica, and that it's furniture designers and producers have little to do all day but count their cash and try to avoid losing their fillings to chewy, pointy, chocolate. However as the Swiss Franc rose skyward like
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After bringing you things you have to be in Paris to see. We bring you something you'll have to be in Stockholm to see. Helpful as we are. We first saw Spiral Shelf by Stockholm based Argue Design at DMY Berlin 2010. And fell in love with it pretty much straight away. We then met up with Matilda Nordgård from Argue Design at Stockholm Furniture Fair 2011, where we conducted a very interesting and entertaining interview with her. An interview we really must get round to writing up sometime
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As reported last week we sadly couldn't make it to the opening of Cirkel by Daphna Laurens at Galerie Gosserez in Paris. Because we were at the opening of Kibbutz and Bauhaus in Dessau. However Daphna and Laurens were kind enough to send us a few photos of the works. As older readers will know we are always very wary about judging articles on the strength of photos alone; that said, the Cirkel collection does look very promising. For us the highlight is probably "Leaning Lamp". Resembling
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If purple is the second colour of mourning; then citrus colours are unquestionably the second colour(s) of Christmas. Be it the orange of an orange, the lemon of a lemon or the dark lime of a Vitra Panton Chair. Launched by Vitra in July as a special summer 2011 edition the Dark Lime Panton Chair was released as a strictly limited edition piece. And the (smow)warehouse is down to the last few examples...... And just like mince pies - when they're gone. They're gone! Unlike mince pies
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Very occasionally we see something that makes us stop in our tracks. At Neue Räume Zurich that something was the Milanese producer Plinio il Giovane. We know we moan a lot about Italy's over-rated position at the top of Mount Design. But just as they seem to have an unending reserve of corrupt politicians, so do they also seem able to produce quality designer furniture producers out of thin air. Handmade from oak the Plinio il Giovane collection not only looks fantastic; but many of the
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When is a lounge chair not a lounge chair? When it is a loving eulogy to the noble art of sailing. Designed by Linda Steen and Lena Axelsson and produced in Norway by Hødnebø, the Spinnaker Chair wonderfully mixes the classic form language of the lounge chair with upcycled sail canvas. Held on a powder varnished spring steel frame the canvas is stretched over three carbon ribs to provide maximum support and comfort. Foam and cospoflex cushions is a range of fabrics provide that final touch
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One of our favourite projects during Vienna Design Week was the Passionswege project "The Swing" by Warsaw based Beza Projekt at Atelier Telliez. Philippe Telliez is a "tapessier" - a profession that can only be truly described in paragraphs, but essentially is an upholsterer who primarily works with wall hangings, tapestries and the like. Anna Łoskiewicz and Zofia Strumiłło-Sukiennik from Beza Projekt combined this "hanging" aspect with the materials Atelier Telliez's use on a daily basis
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Janne Kyttänen never intended to be a light designer. Fate meant that he became known as one. Fortunately Janne Kyttänen understands the art of 3D printing better than most practitioners and in the past decade has created a truly unique collection of illumination objects that grace the permanent collections of all the most important design museums. And with versions for wall, floor or ceiling the Freedom of Creation lighting collection offers a design classic for everyone. Among the many
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Launched in 2002 with just one product, Fatboy has grown to become not only one of the most instantly recognizable designer furniture brands on the market; but has expanded to become home to a whole range of objects created with one aim: Making relaxing and unwinding even easier and more enjoyable. And so what could be more desirable gift for the festive season, than an oasis of calm and comfort. Fatboy - The Original As the name implies, "The Original" is the product that started the whole
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Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. Commissioned to undertake a Vienna Design Week Passionswege project with Viennese hat maker Mühlbauer Hutmanufaktur, Slovakian designer Tomas Kral focused on the visual - and in many languages linguistic - closeness of a lamp shade and cap visor to create a delightful series of hat themed table lamps. All the lamps have a ceramic base; and the shades are created from "normal" hat making materials using "normal" hat making processes A real fun
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Although we beef a lot about the amount of time we have to spend travelling to ensure that the (smow)blog remains Europe's premier product design blog, there are a lot of nice things on the European design circuit. Stockholm on a crisp February evening. The vegetarian catering at Neue Räume Zürich. Daphna and Laurens. Two of the nicest people you can meet. As they once again proved when we bumped into them in Eindhoven during Dutch Design Week. And you've got the chance to meet them as
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Back in the summer we ran a highly entertaining "Summertime in Dark Lime" Panton Chair Cocktail competition. The judging was certainly highly entertaining. The winner was Italian designer Alessandro Barison aka abitudinicreative Chatting with Alessandro after his cocktail “Spritz Upgrade” was selected the winner, we discovered that while he was a student at the Scuola Italiana Design (SID) he had taken part in a workshop cum competition that involved redesigning - or better put - extending
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We must start this post with a small admission. We lied to Illuminartis managing director Thomas Germann. It was however a very necessary lie. In short, Thomas asked us what we thought of their lamps; and we said we weren't really lamp people. The truth is that after two weeks of non-stop design shows our collective cache was full and we were simply unable to process new information at any sort of useful rate. Our brains were full. But we didn't want to bore the poor man with our lives.
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We seem to remember getting really annoyed once by the number of platform seats on display at European design events. However two projects have renewed our faith in the possibilities offered by raised seating. Tur-Tur by Eric Degenhardt from the Richard Lampert Kids Only Collection. And Konstantin Schmölzer @ Verdarium The project sadly doesn't seem to have a name; however, in essence it involved creating a space that offered stability, security and a place from which to quietly observe and
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"Wooden spoon for pickled vegetables by John F. Kennedy" ? ? ? John F. Kennedy. Green Mountain Woodcrafters, Vermont. And no relation of Teddy or Robert. Still cheered us up. From March 20th until April 25th 1951 Stuttgart hosted the first post-war exhibition of modern American home furnishings and appliances in Europe. Organised by the New York Museum of Modern Art under the title "Design for Use, USA", the exhibition featured a cross section of American domestic design. And a Who's
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We imagine most of our readers don't understand that much about drums. We certainly don't. Or at least didn't. At Designers' Open we learnt a lot more. And it's a lot more fascinating than you might imagine. Specifically we learnt about the Zoom Bass Drum System from Leipzig based Rockstroh Drums. In essence, in order to change the sound of a bass drum, you have to adjust the tension of the skins. Which involves a lot of work. And takes a lot of time. Rockstroh Drums, working in
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One of our highlights at Dutch Design Week 2010 was Made Out Portugal #1, and so logically we were keen to see how the project had developed over the past 12 months. At the most obvious level, in comparison to their first show the project has expanded and now includes Portuguese designers who aren't based in Holland. Which was of course one of the aims of the project, to create a network of exiled Portuguese designers. And so in that sense the project certainly appears to be moving in the
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Although it has been quiet around Erik Wester of late, it's fair to say he remains our favourite Norwegian designer. However he now officially has competition. At Designers' Open 2011 a group of 10 Norwegian design students presented examples of their work on a joint stand under the title "Look to Norway" Quite possibly, the first ever Norwegian design to be seen at Designers' Open. For us the most interesting pieces were Le Korpusiør by Jørgen Platou Willumsen - a very simple yet endearing
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Back in the 80s there was nothing Hannibal Smith liked more than when a plan came together. Obviously we don't know such a feeling, but nothing gets us reaching for a hand-rolled Havana and grinning somewhat malevolently as much as when Lady Luck binds the various strands of our Blog together to give the impression of a coherent plan. Back at Norm=Form, Timo de Rijk argued that all modern design is simply a recreation of older standards - because the public expect a product to have a specific
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Where photographic evidence exists that indicates the possible existence of the Loch Ness monster or the Yeti, until recently no photos existed of a mythical beast twice as shy and eight times as hirsute. The simple reason being that with over 60 years experience and a natural mistrust of cameras, the (smow)blog photographer can hear a lens cap being removed at over 1 kilometre. However during the Hölle Von Aschau, Siebenschläfer designer Christoffer Martens managed the unmanageable. As a
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Pretty much half-way between Piet Hein Eek's design wonderland and Sectie C, with among other tenants Nacho Carbonell, is Atelierdorp. Based in an old office block near the middle of town, Atelierdorp is both a workspace for designers and platform for contemporary design and research. With a wonderful view over, but sadly not into, the PSV Eindhoven stadium Under the title "In Between" Atelierdorp's exhibition during Dutch Design Week 2011 explored the relationship between the fluid state of
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During Dutch Design Week 2011 Premsela, the Netherlands Institute for Design and Fashion, opened an exhibition in the Designhuis Eindhoven that both celebrates Dutch Design Week's 10th anniversary and honours 15 Dutch designers who got their break and/or made their name in Eindhoven. Rather than simply present the 15 in isolation, curator Miriam van der Lubbe presents them in the context of a young designer they admire and of someone who inspired them. And so, for example, Richard Hutton is
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Twenty four hours before Sebastian Vettel sealed his second F1 drivers title in Japan, Markus Jehs and Jürgen Laub were securing victory in an event that stands a vertical cliff face higher than F1 on Mount Motor Sport and to which Vettel himself hopes to ascend, once he gets a bit better at driving: The Bookinist Cup. For many the Bookinist was developed as an armchair in which one could sit and read; surrounded by your favourite literature. This however is one of the crueler droplets in the
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