For our third report from London Design Festival, our intrepid trend reporter, Naomi Shedden, hit Designersblock, which was held in the spectacular surroundings of the Farmiloe Building in Clerkenwell. With over 100 UK and International designers setting up camp to showcase furniture, lighting, textiles, ceramics, concepts and installations, we had a tough job choosing our favourites. Here are our highlights from the show…
Raise Me Up
Texture was a key trend across surface design and ceramics at Designersblock. We especially loved the intricate raised textures across Graphic Relief Ltd’s work and Maria Sikstrom’s innovative textile designs below. “Textures that demonstrate irregularity and accidental elements are particualrly important, this isn’t about uniformity or perfection, but about knowing that something has been lovingly hand-crafted,” explains Naomi.
Above left-right: Graphic Relief Ltd and Maria Sikstrom
Lace
There’s no doubt that lace is a continuing trend through 2011, but we’re seeing lots of evidence of lace influences moving from textiles through to hard goods like metal and caramics. Imogen Luddy’s tableware does exactly this, mixing plastic, laser cut metal and printed ceramics to freshen up this vintage tea trend.
Please Be Seated
Above chairs by Ornella Stocco
An abundance of interesting seating featured at Designersblock. We love Ornella Stocco’s creations pairing pale wood with brightly coloured wool. We first spotted her work at New Designers this summer along with other designers exploring the boundaries between furniture and textile elements - see our blog post here. Trend Bible favourite Claire-Anne O’Brien had her new season collection of Knit Stools on display, and featured them in a sub-exhibition, entitled The Auction - an auction of chairs where literally everything in the room went under the hammer, from the seating to the auction hammer itself. And the best part? “Monetary offers not accepted, be imaginative.”
Above left-right: stools by Claire-Anne O’Brien & stools showcased as part of sub-exhibition The Auction.
Above chairs featured by Jorun Hognesen in The Auction
Puff Up Shop
Textile collective Puff and Flock also curated the wonderfully titled ‘Puff Up Shop’ showcasing fashion and jewellery designers from Designersblock.
Want to know what we saw at 100% Design? See our report here and for our report from designjunction, follow this link. Watch out for reports from Tent and Origin coming soon.
