Wednesday, 28 September 2011

My Designersblock 2011 highlights

This years Designersblock, part of the London Design Festival, was held in the Farmiloe Building in Clerkenwell last week. As well as the Puff Up Shop and workshops run by Puff & Flock, my other highlights also included....


Elisabeth Beucher's Siamese Twins costumes:


Originally introduced by Elisabeth Beucher (of Puff & Flock) at the V & A last year, costumes such as the one pictured were just as popular with the visitors as they were for us Puff & Flock interns! It was great fun to see the public's reaction to them, especially in the busy Private View.





POSTextiles:


This design collective are all graduates from the same MA Textiles Futures course at Central Saint Martins previously attended by all of the Puff & Flock designers. POSTextiles hosted an interesting debate and kicked off the first of the workshops organised by Puff & Flock last week. POSTextiles' extensive research and practice has included the study of nanotechnology and microbiology. Pictured here is the work of Natsai Chieva (above) & Ann-Kristin Abel (below).





Design in Science from Cambridge University:




The Design in Science project is a collaboration between scientists and designers at Cambridge University. Using Biophotovoltaic technology they create energy from the photosynthesis of living organisms, such as the moss used to power the digital clock above and The Moss Table (below).






Yung Kyoo Kim's furniture design:


The seat above can be adjusted to sit or lie down on so that its design fits the contours of the body. The table below can take the form of different shapes depending on the shape of the glass table top that could be placed on it.





Lukas Dahlen of ung8:


I like the way that the blown glass of Lukas Dahlen's light looks as though it still continues to melt into the wooden legs. When you get close to it you can see the burn marks on the wood around the glass, that adds to this effect.





Nadine Spencer's A World of Yesterday's Tomorrows:



This beautiful light is made of hand and laser cut pieces of mountboard that were screen printed on using mixed media. The mirror below it further enhanced its eye-catching effect.





SAFGOS STUDIO's bicycle:



This bicycle that was used as a piece for their show mainly to exhibit the designs on its handlebars is actually quite interesting in its own right too. It was found buried in a field, so its extremely rusty. I like the fragility of parts of it, such as the wheel spokes.

Saturday, 17 September 2011

London Design Festival begins today...

http://www.londondesignfestival.com/content/browse-category

...and I am very excited to be helping out Puff & Flock there next week!

I enjoyed my internship with this innovative design collective last year and the placement was one of the inspirations in the change in direction my work took before the final year of my degree.

At the festival this year Puff & Flock are running a series of workshops in the DesignersBlock space at the Farmiloe building (at 34 St. John Street, London, EC1) from Thursday 22nd to Sunday 25th next week.

Amongst others things, Puff & Flock will also be running the Puff Up Shop and a souvenir shop. More detailed information is on their blog:

http://puffandflock.blogspot.com/



There is information on the other designers that make up DesignersBlock 2011, and a link to register (for free entry before 22nd September), on the DesignersBlock website:

http://www.verydesignersblock.com/