Claire-Anne O'Brien - Knit Stools

Following on from Amy's blog post on Yvonne Fehling and Jennie Piez's chair, here are some cute little knitted stools by RCA graduate Claire-Anne O'Brien. I'm not sure if I want to eat these ones but I do rather like them! C

Sand machine at Diesel - Bread & Butter, Berlin

Back in July I visited the Bread & Butter tradeshow for my day job, and I spent most of today editing images of the most innovative stands (a tad late, but better late than never). I came across these images that I took at the Diesel stand – when I say stand, I mean huge entrance surrounded by oversized denim flags, followed by a rickety path which led into a-whole-nother building in the middle of the airfield. 

I loved this little machine that spelled out letters by strategically spurting out sand on the pathway. How cool would it be to have this plodding along in the background of the store! Messy, but cool! I have to admit I did stand and stare at it for quite some time – who said it was all about digital these days! In reality it’s not very practical but it's a great guerrilla marketing tool if ever we need one. C

Yvonne Fehling & Jennie Peiz

Today I came across some chairs by the uber talented duo of Yvonne Fehling and Jennie Piez that I could actually eat. They just look so delicious and edible.

Like custard ice cream candy...whatever that concoction is...I need these in my life!

A x

Few and Far

Few and Far is one of those hidden gems in London's retail scene - hidden by the fact that I have little else reason to be hanging out in the midst of Chelsea on my Sunday afternoons. It's so beautifully executed, and although it does have that high-end polished feel, there's also something homespun and fragile about it. Here are a few of my favourite images from today. C

The Pavilion at Serpentine

Peter Zumthor's 'Hortus Conclusus' is the 11th commission in the Serpentine's annual series and is right up our street! I took a wander through Hyde Park this afternoon and came across it by chance, and what a lovely surprise. From the outside it's actually very uninviting and I spent some time sat outside of it wondering whether I could be bothered to go in. I'm so glad I bolstered up the energy to take a look because inside, through dimly lit corridors it opened up into a lovely oblong garden surrounded by tables and chairs and loads of people sat taking in the gorgeous autumn day.

It was a lot busier than this today!

The concept for 'Hortus Conclusus' is provide a garden within a garden, a contemplative space away from the noise and traffic of London. And it really was like a vacuum from the city, I couldn't hear any noises other than those of the people sat next to me and I became very aware of the light. It's amazing what four walls and some flowers can do!

A x

Images courtesy of www.serpentinegallery.org

Pop-up houses

As we're still in the design stage of our Three Corner project, we're thinking about what different materials we could use to create fixtures for our pop-up events. I've come across some lovely card houses which got me thinking that although card isn't ideal, it may be good for the pop-up event as it cuts down on the installing time, not to mention costs (somebody please give us funding! :-) These are obviously all small scale so just try to imagine yourself sitting inside a much, much bigger version with a cup of hot milk and a freshly baked cookie!

I also came across the image of the 1950s pop-up doll's house below. I love the illusion the 2D vs 3D creates - would love to attempt an oversized version for the Three Corner pop-up! C

Image credits:
1 - Pop-Up Paper Structures by Heidi Pridemore as seen at mycasestudies.blogspot.com
2 - Pop-up house as seen at karenburniston.typepad.com
3 - Gingerbread house, as seen at whiskpapersilver.blogspot.com
4 - 1950s pop-up doll's house as seen at www.alephbet.com

Design, design, design

The Three Corner's To Do list is becoming increasingly long, the more we get done the more we need to do! I'm currently spending my hours searching for designers and artists we can hopefully collaborate and work with once The Three Corner Collective is on it's feet..currently we're scraping along the floor trying to figure out how to crawl but we'll get there eventually!

The art and design side of The Collective is what really gets me excited and I'm currently having a furniture design overload. It's so hard to focus on one aesthetic when there's so many cool things out there, and I've only just started looking at furniture! Feast your eyes on these beauties by Florian Schmid:

Florian, an industrial design graduate, has made these stunning stitched concrete stools. They combine the softness of cloth with the stability of concrete. Using concrete canvas the pieces are stitched together and then watered. After 24 hours they're tough enough to perch on. I'm in love.

Tortie Hoare's designs fulfill my adoration for leather and blooming good furniture. Simple, understated and pretty damn cool. 

However, I need to focus on the brief at hand! So to redeem myself...and so Claire doesn't tell me off for looking at furniture that doesn't fit our 'playful' concept....here are some amazing designs for those of us who fit in to the lazy bones category of life. We need these in our life!

A x

Back to school.

Phew...it's been a long week! Claire and I began our first days back at school with scary (but sweet) Headmaster Doug Richard taking the lessons at School for Creative Startups. We are now super tired, super overloaded but also super inspired! The business side of our endeavour in to the world of establishing a creative collective was always our biggest fear but listening to Doug, of Dragon's Den fame, for the past few days has given us a hefty dose of testosterone!...don't worry we haven't started growing chest hair or getting all laddy about the Rugby World Cup (although...come on England!). We have however met some amazingly talented people also stepping out in to the world of creative business, learnt some amazing facts about how hormones can help us (hence the testosterone reference) and we have a new found belief in what we can achieve with some business skills to help us get there. Yay!

Picture courtesy of the lovely ladies from 'Teas Knees'. Ed Vaizey and Doug Richard cutting their lovely cake to kick off the opening party.

View from the penthouse as dusk was settling in. Not bad eh?

A x

London Design Festival: Tracey Neuls & Faudet - Harrison

Another favourite was the Tracey Neuls pop-up shop in Shoreditch - which they love so much it's set to become permanent! Tracey is a huge fan of car boot sales (think we'd get on!) and has re-purposed everyday objects to become fixtures for the shop. Favourites include the lamp that has been crafted from a school-table leg and the shovel which has been slimmed down to create a shoe horn (Tracey Neuls is a footwear designer in case you don't already know!) I also loved the random little animal ornaments that Tracey insists on scattering throughout the store!

London Design Festival: Silver-Where?

Seeing as the weekend has now been freed up because of the blip with the installation, I decided to have a little wander through the East End to see what London Design Festival creations were on offer. One of the highlights included this beautiful little exhibition just off Brick Lane called Silver-Where?

Everyone involved was either a silversmith or jeweller, however, there was not a piece of either in sight. The thing that appealed to me most was the curation - all of the pieces were displayed on cardboard furniture which followed the overall concept that all is not what it seems. I also absolutely loved the space and couldn't help but think it would be just perfect for a Three Corner pop-up some day!

Phyllida Barlow at Hauser & Wirth

I found myself with a spare hour to kill today, something which feels like a rarity at the minute! What better city to be in with an hour spare than London, I made my way over to Hauser & Wirth to see Phyllida Barlow's latest showing, 'Rig'. Barlow, although one of Britain's greatest sculptors, is still shamefully relatively new to me. I've only recently taken notice of her work, probably because of my own foray in to the world of sculpture, so I had to make the pilgrimage to Piccadilly (via sunny Green Park for a 10 minute kip in the sun!) to see this show and oh-by-gum what a treat. I felt like I was wandering through a South American shanty town post-festival season. I won't spoil it for anybody who hasn't yet been but the piece at the top of the ladder made me feel warm and fuzzy inside...here are a few pics...

A x

A minor hitch

After working our finely formed asses off this week to try and get an awesome installation designed and made for Monday's School for Creative Startups launch we have unfortunately had to postpone...sad times at every three of our corners but I guess starting a business was never going to be all plain sailing! Due to a difficult venue and minimal installation time allowed we were advised to hold off on our super-dooper installation and save it for events to come...

All is not lost however as we do have a beautiful array of fabrics ready to be made in to.....well I'm not going to divulge what they're going to be made in to, you'll just have to wait and see! But here's a sneak peak at some of our fabrics...

A x

Typo

This week Claire and I have been working on business card designs and logos with Robin White. I got caught up in looking for typography inspiration and was happily distracted by this cool illustrator called Mark Addison Smith, I'm loving his process; "Each day, I write down dialogue I hear spoken around me from honest-to-gosh real people. At the end of the day, I turn my jot-list into a stack of tiny sketches. I post one a day. Twenty four hours later, a new collection begins". 

Here are a few of my faves...

A x