Thin Black Lines exhibition

Japanese design studio Nendo presents an exquisite collection entitled Thin Black Lines at the Saatchi Gallery in London. The exhibition is open until October 31st, so if you are around, drop by!

read more about the exhibition here: Thin Black Lines by Nendo

Ora-Ïto: the industrial designer's apartment

Ora-Ïto's apartment seems like an imagination laboratory where anything can happen: designer furniture, geometric art, Japanese antiques and... a  giraffe - all enclosed in 17th-century mansion with original, beautifully ornamented wooden ceilings. The building is located in the atmospheric, trendy northern part of the Marais district in Paris.

photos by Birgitta Wolfgang Drejer, via: Interior Design

The surrealist eye

Straight from Salvador Dali's paintings... the surrealist eye spotted:



Le telefon from Sundayland




Tiuku clock by Ari Kanevra




Kapstokstoelen by Sjoerd Vroonland




Peg chair by Alex Hellum

Gipsy Furniture Collection by A+Z Design

The London Design Festival brought new inspiring discoveries, and I will definitely remember Hungarian studio A+Z Design as one of the most interesting this year. Creative, fresh thinking and fascination by the beauty of disappearing local traditions - these make the design duo from Budapest truly unique. Attila F. Kovacs and Zsuzsa Megyesi founded A+Z Design last year and Gipsy Furniture Collection was launched at The London Design Festival in september.

The collection is inspired by the folk culture of Hungary and Transylvania. A+Z Design revives traditional objects into contemporary context, but preserves their original identity. All the furniture pieces are made with use of traditional craft techniques such as enamel, embroidery or woodcarving, and I think this is the reason why we experience them in a very emotional way.

Styling inspiration: whites

A very nice mixture of scandinavian, industrial and bohemian styling inspiration from the Dutch magazine vtwonen. I like all the airy whites!

Daylight entrance by Daniel Rybakken

I saw ‘Daylight entrance’ project at DogA last month and felt very impressed by the originality of the idea. The led lamp disguised under the wall surface creates the illusion of sunlight reflection lightening up the whole interior. The design plays with our perception of light and what is more: just think how positively it can affect your mood!

The young Norwegian designer, Daniel Rybakken worked with natural daylight effects in his earlier projects: ‘Daylight comes sideways’, ‘The subconscious effects of daylight’ and ‘Surface daylight’. Current light installation, collecting all the ideas and incorporating them into architecture, was realized in the entrance of the office building in Stockholm.

Daniel Rybakken was awarded recently Norsk Form's Prize to Young Designers 2010.

www.danielrybakken.com

New Folk

I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed recent design trends turning more and more often towards folklore and native craftsmanship traditions. We all begin to honour the beauty of folk patterns, embroidery and handmade lace from all over the world. Traditional craft is a box full of trasure!

New Folk furniture collection designed by Anna Stępkowska is one of the first signs of awakening fascination with polish cultural heritage. Not only the form of individual furniture pieces but also all the decorative elements were inspired by motifs from polish regional craft.

The collection was accompanied by unique art project: a photography series "Borders". Both authors, a photographer Piotr Sikora and an artist Piotr Bondarczyk live and work in New York. And both, of course, are Polish. The idea was conceived by multi-talented Piotr Bondarczyk, a painter, graphic designer, photographer, actor and stylist. The series tell a story about opening Polish society, once closed and homogeneous, now growing from cross-cultural interaction. Beautifully photographed by Piotr Sikora, the intriguing portraits of foreigners in national Polish folk costumes symbolize the unity between the past and the future.