February 2012
2 posts
Bee-ing Sustainable
Preparing for a recent lecture on sustainable design was an eye-opening experience; wading through the myriad issues and approaches made me realise, as many others already have, of how complex and contested this area is. We know that design is part of the sustainable problem, and that it is and can be a part of the solution – yet exactly what are the best ways that designers can use their skills...
Ideas of the Handmade: Histories and Theories of... →
I’m not the only one thinking about objects, and one of the reasons I set up this blog was to gather what else was out there, rather than just provide a platform for my own reflections. As part of this, I’m co-organising a one day symposium at ECA called Ideas of the Handmade: Histories and Theories of Making on the 20th April. Funded by the Design History Society, it is free and open...
January 2012
1 post
All sewn up: Antique Singers and (de)industrial...
Walk past a branch of the UK clothing brand All Saints, and you’ll come across an arresting sight; rows and rows of vintage black Singer sewing machines, occupying the entire shop front from floor to ceiling. From London to New York, Singers have become All Saints signature: there are apparently anything between 10,000 and 40,000 of these antique sewing machines in All Saints’...
December 2011
1 post
1 tag
November 2011
1 post
Pastiche and Parody, from Pomo to the Present.
Recently I gave a lecture to my design students on three interrelated Ps: pastiche, parody and Postmodernism. The first two are strategies widely associated with the latter, from Charles Moore’s Piazza dell’Italia to Vivienne Westwood’s Harris Tweed collection and Cindy Sherman’s Untitled film stills series.
Piazza d’Italia, Charles Moore & Urban Innovations Group (with Perez...
October 2011
2 posts
Like Mother, Like Daughter: the Broadheads at...
Taking the Chair is the name of the current exhibition at Marsden Woo, the crafts-based gallery in east London. This is the first collaborative show between Caroline and Maisie Broadhead - the mother and daughter pair who are respectively two of the most interesting established and emerging practitioners in contemporary jewellery practice.
The seven chairs and seven photographs that make up...
September 2011
5 posts
Design Digest: LDF 2011
Lola Lely, Kinetic Frenetic, made from Fendi Selleria leather for LDF. Photo Wallpaper.
I’m clearly getting old, as I’m starting this post with a grumble. Crowds and queues: these increasingly seem to be key components to experiencing the London Design Festival, an unwelcome trend that nevertheless illustrates the growing popularity, and scale, of this exuberant and eclectic...
materiality, marble and a sense of place
Pop quiz: 1. What’s this? 2. What’s it made from? 3. Where does this material come from?
While the answer to question 1 is a no-brainer, and 2 slightly shaky, 3 might comes as a bit of a surprise; the limestone columns whose colour are key to the White House’s name are not all-American but were outsourced, from the Croatian island of Brac renowed for the purity of its local...
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August 2011
5 posts
The Wooden Handle: Tools and the Utility Fetish
I’ve got a thing about tools. Actually, that’s not quite right: I’ve got a thing about the thing about tools. From Formafantasma to Studio Toogood, it seems to be hammer time (sorry, I couldn’t resist) for designers and makers alike at the moment. Some elements of this trend seem to fit in with the outdated ‘Design Art’ label, like Studio Job’s cast...
Ettore Sottsass: Enamels
Enamelled copper vases on a wooden base, Ettore Sottsass, 1958. Photo courtesy of Wallpaper.
As reported in Wallpaper, a show of enamels by Ettore Sottsass at the Vitra Design Museum. Designed by the Italian maestro in 1958 for Il Sestante, a Milanese gallery that, alongside Danese, exhibited and promoted some of the most interesting examples of art and design-led craft in the 1950s and...
Materiality and Interaction in Digital Craft
An intriguing article on Iconeye about Collective Works, a new project by Mischer Traxler for Design Miami. The Austrian-born Dutch-educated design duo designed a machine that weaves wooden baskets, in a project that nods both to the influence of digital technologies on craft and design, but the groundswell of interest in interactivity. Collective Work only gets onto making the basket if...
Material Essence: Jerwood Makers Open 2011
Earlier this month saw the opening of Jerwood Makers Open, an exhibition of newly commissioned work by Farah Bandookwala, Emmanuel Boos, Heike Brachlow and Keith Harrison. The four were the winners of the Jerwood’s open call to those working in the applied arts, for which they received a bursary to create new work which is currently being exhibited at the Jerwood Gallery in London before going...