When we spoke with designer Patrick Frey in context of our #campustour, the plan was quite simply to discuss contemporary design education; however, the natural flow of the conversation took us in a raft of interesting directions, including his experiences as a freelance designer, the question of development payments in the furniture industry and the background to his and Markus Boge's joint diploma project, a project in many regards personified by the tables Kant and Marketing. Kant by
read moreJust as the Eamsien adage proclaims that "the details are not the details; they make the product", so too are a design school's teaching staff not the teaching staff, they make the school. Consequently, it follows that to better understand not only an individual institution, but also both the wider contemporary condition, and possible future directions, of design education, it is important to talk to, and understand, design school teaching staff; both those full-time Professors, and also those
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In addition to his Kids Only Collection, Richard Lampert presented two new products in Milan: Stijl by Alexander Seifried and Stak by Patrick Frey. Just as developing a kid's range was long a wish of Richard Lampert, so too was the rehabilitation of the much-maligned kitchen corner bench, once so popular in alpine homes. We know people who are of the opinion that there is no need to rehabilitate the unparalleled genius that is the corner seat bench. Why have your kitchen chairs standing in
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Or indeed any side table from Moormann. Based in a remote alpine valley hard on the Germany/Austria border it is hard to imagine a designer furniture producer who better fit into our modern White Christmas romantic than Nils Holger Moormann. Especially given the elven-esque Moormänner who assist Nils Holger with the construction and distribution of his products. And so a few suggestions from Haus Moormann for those of you looking for wood based Christmas presents a la days of yore: Mini
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Congratulations to Vial, Patrick Frey and Polymerpark for winning a 2010 iF Matrial Award At the moment we can't actually say any more - because details of exactly what they have won is top secret until the official prize ceremony in Hannover on April 20th. But well done. More details can be found at Nook by Patrick Frey for Vial or at the (smow) Nook page.
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In a previous life Patrick Frey created one of our favourite Moormann products: Kant. And we think he may have done it again with Nook his new stool for vial. Manufactured in a single piece from VarioLine - an injection moulded plastic - the folded form is held together by an aluminium catch in the base. The tension generated in the VarioLine give Nook its stability and durability. In addition, thanks to the nature of the VarioLine Nook is weather and UV resistant and so can be used just
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Over Easter we had hoped to hoped to get to Karlsruhe to have a look at the exhibition: Interface Desk, or against Thinking in Categories. Billed - quite rightly - as possibly the first exhibition in history solely devoted to desks, the exhibition examines the role and function of the "desk" and in doing so possess the question "what is a desk?" But we didn't. Instead we were in Bad Muskau- which was also fantastic. And now we are back at our desks.... and still thinking "what is a desk?"
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The (smow) blog has more than once suggested that designer furniture is more than just a comfortable place to sit of an evening or a convenient ledge on which to place your coffee while reading the paper; and that a well constructed piece of quality designer furniture can be a real investment. Proof of this theory, if it were needed, can currently be found at the TEFAF Maastricht - one of the world largest and most important art and antique fairs. For the first time in its 34 year history the
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The dollop of cream atop the perfect office is a practical, aesthetic and user friendly trolley. In general an office trolley fulfills several roles: As a convenient depository for heavy folders or a pile of uncompleted jobs or occasionally as a bar trolley. smow currently offers five different trolleys, that in addition to providing work-based mobility can also be used as side tables and/or mobile bars: Gastone from Kartell (Design: Antonio Citterio & Oliver Löw) Gastone is an elegant
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Six years ago Nils Holger Moormann, designer and furniture producer, started a process against Ikea - accusing the Swedish company of ,how shall we put it, „borrowing“ one of his companies designs. Despite the pessimism of colleagues and industry insiders, Moormann won at every trial and Ikea were eventually obliged to remove the offending article from sale. The process may have cost Moormann lots of effort and resources, but it also won him a lot of recognition in the industry for his
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