London Design Festival has grown tremendously since its inception 10 years ago. Sprawling across the city, in a way that once felt haphazard, it has now embraced zoning and is a better experience for the visitor as a result. Brompton Design District (including the V&A), Fitzrovia, Shoreditch Triangle.....all bite sized and easy to digest. Spend an afternoon in each and you don't come away feeling overwhelmed by the scale of the Festival.
As we were really rather late with our roundup of the Festival shenanigans, and as everyone has blogged, tweeted and Instagrammed the star attractions, we thought we might mention some of the smaller gems the Festival had to offer.
Crockery by Max Lamb was shown at Bramford on Draycott Avenue, Chelsea and also cropped up at the SCP Design Department Store in Shoreditch. Commissioned by 1882 Ltd. this series of jug, bowl and cup in fine bone china, looked anything but fine. Cast from plaster moulds hand carved by Max, these were super chunky, sturdy and imagined for everyday use. Not something to be left on a dresser for special occasions.
Michael Anastassiades has been mentioned before on this blog, and for good reason. His new showroom on Lower Marsh is the perfect setting for his minimal works. Detailing and his use of materials are what elevate Anastassiades' work beyond desirability. Smaller in scale to the pieces shown in Milan and LDF in 2011, these pieces were subtle yet alluring.
The Conran Shop went RED to celebrate 25 years at the Michelin building in Brompton. Pillar box red to be precise. Confusingly, the exhibition was held in the Blue Room. Limited editions and one off pieces from Nendo, Jasper Morrsion and younger designers like Jonah Takagi in a single shade of red all made for quite an impact.
Gallery Libby Sellers hosted HOT TOOLS, a show of glass works by Masters students at ECAL (The University of Art and Design Lausanne). The result of a workshop run by Ronan Bouroullec, the pieces were experiments in glass, not necessarily complete works. However, we would have been happy to take any of them home.
London
Design Festival was the last hurrah for
what has been an amazing summer in the city. The rain arrived on the last
day, and just like that, summer was gone.
London Design Festival came, saw, conquered and has already left the building. The 10th anniversary of the LDF also marked the 2nd outing for designjunction.
Moving to a new
venue, the former Royal Mail sorting office on New Oxford Street,
designjunction has mushroomed from its initial incarnation in 2011.
Visitors and exhibitors alike were staggered both by the scale of the
building and just how quickly designjunction has grown. Featuring top
quality pop up shops, flash factories, temporary bars and restaurants as
well as a high standard of trade exhibitors, we presented Young Sweden
and were delighted to be involved.
Focusing on young designers like Jonas Wagell, Form Us With Love and Joel Karlsson working with older, established brands like Mitab, Ӧrsjӧ and Trӓullit, Young Sweden was an opportunity to showcase the design talent coming from Sweden. It also served to highlight the bonds between some of our differing brands.
Note Design Studio are a design collective we've mentioned before. Back in February, a prototype of their Boet stool featured in the Work in Progress show curated by Jonas Wagell. Now, it is being produced by Mitab and we took great pride in launching it at designjunction. Available in 2 heights, the contrast between the rounded cork seat and the smooth metal frame drew many admiring glances. This is the first collaboration between Note and Mitab, but probably won't be the last. In February they will design the Greenhouse area of the Stockholm Furniture Fair and they just may have another product launching with one of our brands, but sssssh....it's top secret for now.
We also showed the Trӓullit Dekor acoustic hexagons by Form Us With Love for the first time in the UK. In just over 4 hours and using 300+ hexagons, our lovely intern Liz created a real showstopper. People gravitated towards the installation and couldn't help but touch it.
Daniel Svahn's Quiet Riot screens were also a UK first, and complimented Jonas Wagell's Montmartre Bar series.
While Jonas Bohlin may not be the youngest designer featured on the stand, we feel his Kvist is a young design, and as he has had a prominent role in educating the next generation of designers, he is more than deserving of his place.
The rough copper of Kvist, the warm cork of Boet and the woodwool of Trӓullit made for a very tactile stand and visitors couldn't resist running their hands over them.
