As we believe we've said before it is always especially pleasing when a designer you first got to know as an unkempt, idealist student, finally signs their first serious contract with a major manufacturer and so sets of a, hopefully, long and successful career. Similarly it is always very pleasing to watch a newly established business grow and develop; especially when it's one established with the goal of advancing contemporary design and the designer's lot rather than simply generating a fab
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As we all know life isn't fair. But imagine, just for a minute, it was. Over the past 12 months we've found numerous items that in a fair and just world we would find under our tree on Christmas morning..... Endless by Jason Miller for Roll & Hill Spotted at Roll & Hill's Milan debut back in April Endless by Jason Miller is a modular lighting system that can not only be extended and shaped to fit any space... but positively cries out to be allowed to do just that. In the Roll & Hill shop
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As you know we are big fans of Brooklyn designer Jason Miller. And of the from Jason Miller established lighting company Roll and Hill. Launched in January 2010 as a high end manufacturer of contemporary lighting, Roll and Hill currently features the work of 6 design studios and aims to bring an "American perspective" to the international lighting market. In Milan Roll and Hill presented their second collection, or at least the first part of the second collection. A further two pieces will
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In the history of (smow)blog only two designers have contacted us to comment on our comments. The first was Brooklyn based Jason Miller and the second was SintLucas student Vivienne van den Dungen. Writing about a stool she was exhibiting at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven we commented that : "Our one complaint would be that the current version doesn’t really seem to know what it is: the higher component being to short to be a back rest and to narrow to be used for holding, for example, a
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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
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We're not in New York for ICFF this year. Last year was just toooooo traumatic... Which is a shame because our inbox is full of the most wonderful shows and products - not least the lamp collection from "the new American lighting company" Roll and Hill. In many ways a vehicle for Brooklyn designer - and our personal highlight from last years ICFF - Jason Miller, Roll and Hill carries a wide range of lighting from contemporary US designers including Lindsey Adams Adelman, Paul Loebach,
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The Top 5 chairs from the smow design spring. In no particular order. We lie: there is a slight order. First up is our favourite chair from the smow design spring: Stuart Miller's unnamed foldable cardboard chair from the designersblock showcase in Milan. Over the course of the smow design spring we didn't see any thing that even came to close to capturing Stuart's simple, practical and comfortable chair. We've sadly lost sight of the project a little, and lack the requisite degree in
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Lets get the tricky one out the way first. The Top 5 Tables from the smow design spring. In no particular order. Liesmichl by Nils Holger Moormann for Moormann. If there's one thing Moormann excel at it's producing book friendly furniture. From the outrageous Bookinist over the classically overtoned Bookstabler and onto the book-friendly desk Kant, the Allgauer always seem to have readers at the forefront of their thoughts. And Liesmichl is no exception; space for books your going to read, a
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The NYC Post Police - tailed our every move and word Your (smow)blog team didn't become the internationally feared and monitored crew we are simply because we travel the world fearlessly attending opening night parties. Oh no! We achieved our notoriety on account of our excellent network of contacts among designers, producers, critics and delivery drivers. Nothing but nothing passes us by. As observant readers may have noticed, during our visit to the ICFF we did spend quite a lot of time
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What first attracted us to the work of Jason Miller at ICFF was the fact it was dirty. Obviously not pysically grubby, but dirty. As in a get down, funky, sort of dirty. Downtown Manhattan circa 1976 dirty. And we liked that. A lot. A similar emmotion grabbed us here at DMY Berlin as we walked past the stand from Design Apparat. The furniture was filthy. Again not in a grubby, don't sit down you'll ruin your jacket sort of way; rather in a "did you find that in Warsaw Pact appartment
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For us one of the discoveries of the ICFF was Brooklyn based designer Jason Miller. Miller's design contains undeniable elements of contemporary European design, albeit effortlessly combined with, for our opinion, classic European stereotypes of retro-NYC style. We promised a text on post-colonialism in US design ... and like all at smow we always keep our promises. Miller's Duct Tape Chair, for example, is more than a wonderfully comfortable armchair. Reminiscent in many ways of Easy
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