One more item of interest: If you live in the Denver area, ‘Haute: Art +Fashion’ is opening tonight at the Fabric Lab. 25 local artists will be displaying their work, (including some of my own buddies), so stop by and check out the show.
7 pm – 12 am. The Fabric Lab. 2 blocks west of the Bluebird Theater (Colfax). Denver.
Next time someone asks you to pass the salt you can just roll it down the table with Soda Design’s Sale & Pepe. Magnets hold the two halves together…making it a lot more fun than the box of Morton’s I currently use.
Austria: home of the ‘Sound of Music’, schnitzel…and some very cool design. For the next few days I’m going to focus on the often overlooked designers of Austria. I’ve written about a few of them already, (even though I meant to save them for this piece), but there’s plenty of good design to go around.
First up is Buchegger, Denoth & Feichtner. Their ‘Table Chair’ is another clever multi-purpose piece (I seem to be talking about these a lot lately). The concept is simple enough, but it’s the bold interior graphics that really grab your attention.
Just like the average busy person, it seems like today’s furniture is expected to function in multiple capacities. Take the ‘Campo d’oro’ table by the Italian furniture company DePadova. Through a simple system of hinges this table can transform into two desks, three small workstations, a long dining room table and several other clever combinations.
I can’t make up my mind about this one. Kitchenfloorbags are shoulder bags constructed out of PVC flooring. Their website says they use the end pieces left over from the production process…not quite the same as recycling used flooring, but I guess it’s better than just tossing the scraps. I like the idea behind the bag and I appreciate the durability, but something about these doesn’t quite make the cut. Maybe I’m just getting thrown off by the ugly samples used in the bags above, but no…it’s definitely the cheap black webbing. Well, perhaps if you like Freitag, you’ll like these too! (Warning: the website plays some pretty obnoxious music you can’t turn off)
Oh, how I love the ‘Campanela’ light by Spanish designers Herme Cisca & Mónica Garcia. The combination of a matte white ceramic cone and a colorful length of rope is about as simple and elegant as design can get. Sometimes you just don’t need to complicate things. (found in April’s edition of Wallpaper)
Ho Chung-Tang’s ‘Volume of Symbiosis’ reminds me of those 3-D pin toys that were all the rage in junior high. Only Tang’s version is much bigger, acts as a bookshelf…and seems to work in reverse. By pushing in the wooden blocks, you create a space that’s perfectly molded to all your little treasures. I’m sure it’s a pain to get the blocks flush again, but hey, how often do you really take the books off the shelf anyway? It’s much more important to have the coolest shape-shifting piece of furniture around.
When I was in Copenhagen last summer I saw these ceramic bags by the Danish company Fabula. This picture doesn’t really do the product justice, click to the Fabula website to see a slide show of the bags in use – holding flowers, knitting supplies, mail…it’s much more impressive than just an empty sack sitting on a white table.
Just found the work of Maxine Sutton on Bientot Demain. Maxine uses a combination of hand and machine embroidery, screen printing and needle felt punching to create a lovely line of textiles and accessories.
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Denyse Schmidt while she was in Denver setting-up for her new exhibition at the P Design Gallery. Denyse created six couture quilts specifically for this show, which runs at the P Design Gallery from March 17 – May 12. The day before the opening I recorded Denyse, Paul Hardt (co-owner of P Design Gallery) and myself in designklub’s first ever podcast. There is a slide show of images from the exhibition to accompany the piece – many are close-up shots, revealing the beautiful detail in her work. I’ll also create a Flickr album of all the images over the weekend.
I hope you enjoy the podcast, I already have plans for several more. (Now that I have spent countless hours in garageband forums and testing my mic, I might as well keep going). Thanks again to Paul and Denyse, it was great talking with both of you!
* Update – The podcast is now available on iTunes! Woohoo iTunes.
