After watching a fantastic short documentary titled ‘GLAS’ yesterday, directed by Bert Haanstra in the 50?s, I had the inspiration to write about some glassware that I’d come across late last week. If you’ve yet to watch the piece, it’s definitely a must for any creative, or anyone who’s a fan of mesmerising production type films. The video is about the glass industry in the Netherlands, it …
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I thought I’d update the blog with some new craft work that I found on my travels around the web last week, it seems to have become absent from the blog lately. But I have to say I feel like we’ve been doing a good job on the shop. I mentioned before about us getting some lacquerware in the store from Japan, but I’ve also been contemplating on glassware, which is a new category that we’ve decided to push. It’s funny that once you latch …
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Often a company’s product line-up is dictated by the type of designers that they get on board, individuals like Jasper Morrison and Naoto Fukasawa are synonymous with a simplistic / functional ideology, so it’s obvious when they’re hired what sort of ethos that company is striving for. Companies like Plus Minus Zero and MUJI, for example, are intriguing to say the least. Although I love the fact that everything is based on function …
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I realised earlier that I’ve had a little hiatus from any films or videos on the blog, which is a shame really as one of my favourite things about the internet is short films made by fellow creatives, you can always find inspiration that you’d of never seen otherwise. Unfortunately, pictures don’t quite convey the same message as what a video can. Plus, whe it comes down to craft or design you really want to see the stuff being made or have …
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When viewing works made of glass I usually have two thoughts in mind: simplicity and functionality. A lot of European glassmakers tend to have this idea that they need to separate artwork from design work, ie they won’t make glassware that doesn’t have some sort of ‘style’ attached to it. This may mean making an object that’s purely decorative, or alternatively attaching a particular style or colour scheme to each one. Personally, I don’t feel …
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How about we add some superb glass tumblers and vessels into the mix today. I’m a big admirer of functional items that serve a humble purpose in day to day life, often the ones we take for granted and that slip in to the back of our mind without a second thought. These tumblers by Sempli remind me of this exact scenario, and surprisingly they haven’t gone unnoticed in this day and age where we tend to favour flamboyancy and egotism. You’ll see …
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I bumped into this superb collection earlier which really intrigued me, a series designed by BCXSY and was commissioned by Japanese company Inframince. It’s part of project called ’tile_objects 01′, which I don’t know too much about myself, but I do know that Inframince have got together with a few other other design studios to produce one of a kind products for an exhibition. What drew me towards these in particular is the fact that they …
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So last week was pretty hectic here, we were running between London and the office for Design Week, but it was great to step outside the bubble and get inspiration in other creative fields. One particular place where we picked up a few ideas was at the Victoria and Albert Museum, although not packed full of design work like we expected the glassware section threw up an array of names that I’d never really heard of before. You had some …
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Putting together yesterday’s post on Andrew Geller and getting my hands on the vintage photographs was really exciting for me, it’s perhaps my favourite post I’ve put together here. So whilst I was in the process of compiling this I started thinking to myself, there must be so many archives out there with vintage photographs of other creative companies just waiting to be shared. I start …
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After visiting the studio of Mari Andrews in yesterday’s post I’ve kept my nose to the ground in the search for another super creative individual and thankfully I stumbled upon the website of Finish designer Tapio Wirkkala. Now Tapio is unfortunately no longer gracing this earth since his passing in the middle of the eighties, however he has left behind him an expansive array of designs that have in some cases come to typify what …
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Even though we don’t necessarily work on weekends here I’ll still keep my eyes open for inspiration, beautifully designed objects and information that’s new and exciting in the design world. Sometimes it’s just luck of the draw to what you’ll find but generally I discover something that’s really intriguing or positive, I guess that’s the nature of the web right now, since it’s so big and so vast. Plus, so many creatives are updating their …
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Last time I talked about Iittala I highlighted their new ceramic collection titled Sarjaton which is based on Finnish heritage with a crafted touch. At the time I was actually hunting for some photographs of the glassware that Iittala produce being made in their workshop, I was particularly interested in this because I heard they used a wooden mould which is hand carved. This instantly peaked my interest and I had to hunt around for …
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