fair & market research: TOP TEN HIGHLIGHTS- LONDON 100% DESIGN & TENT 2011

1. exhibitions

1.1.MUSEUM OF EVERYTHING-illustrated living

Opened in early september and and up until 25th October 2011, The museum of everything is both a shop and an exhibition space located at Selfridges, London.The exhibition #4 hosts a bunch of international illustrators and artists holding a common manifesto: ask visitors and shoppers to allow them to tell stories, to be respected, to be ART. Certainly with a flair of workshop scénario, the exhibition space brought you emotionally close to the artists’ creative process. You can visit the digital exhibition to get to know all the artworks and artists.

The window displays at Selfridges exemplify the scribbly & naif approach of the artworks, mainly using cardboard, with imaginary architectures, moving pieces, and huge figures. In the shop, you enter a cocoon full of everything illustrated. You could find product applications of these art pieces, from shoes, to t-shirts to household items. To be mentioned is Clement’s Ribeiro printed artworks for dresses, tops and skirts.

/ 1 to 6: The museum of everything window displays and products

1.2. POWER OF MAKING-Tok-tok-tok

Tok-tok-tok is the sound of hammering, a repetitive proof of someone’s making something. At the Victoria & Albert museum’ temporal exhibition “Power of making-the importance of being skilled” these repetitive sounds surround you. Commissisoned by V&A and Crafts Council, it is a great place to get inspired on the upcoming ways of design: Making is one of the strongest of human impluses, and it is also a way to express, to know how things are made, to create VALUE through our skills, to exercise (free) will. The general feeling is that we are facing a sort of New Craft, a New Bauhaus period in which working with your hands, in-house manufacturing, having control of every aspect of the process and hacking the post industrial milieu are key. “Social making” and learning from other skilled ones is a way of gaining universal knowledge.

We could find at the exhibition traditional highly skilled makers of suitcases, of quilts, of dry-stone walls, but also high tech skilled makers of other modern applications such as space suits, surgical implants, 3D printing and robot-making.

Here are some examples of the exhibited products, but please take also a look at the exhibition film and the interesting exhibition book (purchase available on-line).

Think: What are your skills? what do you DO?

/ 7 Michael Eden‘s works of art through additive manufacturing / 8 precisely executed coat hanger gorilla sculpture by David Mach / 9 L-shaped suitcase by Sarah Williams-Williams British handmade

2. materials

At the 100% materials installation by Chris Lefteri  “Hello future: the A to Z of Smart materials”, you could manipulate an array of materials, ranging from anti-slip coatings, conductive textiles to nano wallpapers. Throughout the fair we could see some other interesting materials and techniques: the robofold machine, a chair with integrated leds in the upholstery, laser cut metallic foils and wallpapers (with a peel off effect), the hi-macs (natural acrylic stone) design competition projects, or the 3D surfaces by Giles Miller. Also interesting to see @TENT was the Melting chair by Philipp Audatz, made out of glassfibre reinforced polymer with a mirror coating.

Please refer to our previous materials: upcycling post for more materials also found during this design event.

/ 10 100% materials installation / 11 Hi-macs 5th competition winner Daniel Abendroth (E-moke) / 12 Philipp Audatz Melting chair

2.2. Concrete & leather

Ivanka, from Hungary,  is a design lab and concrete factory that presented @TENT a whole range of products using this material, from clothing and accessories to household items. Quite impresive their unexpected use of concrete, it is one of our “materials” favourite company. Lowinfo is another company that relies on the potential of concrete for future spaces and interior products and offers coloured options; and Concrete wall presented also a “concrete” effect wallpaper.

Leather is the key material for Michael Young’s Trussardi MY collection which commemorates their 100 years of the foundation of this fashion house, presented previously at Milan 2011. This immaculate 100 collection combines italian leather-working expertise with the shapes and technologies of modern Asia, being pleated leather the main feature of the collection.

We found also interesting the way that Studio Pepe HeyKoop furniture was all wrapped in raw-edge leather patches, be either a lamp, a rocking chair or a small bureau, giving them a “rustic chic” feel. This Skin collection has a sutainability approach, since they use existing furniture and leather leftovers.

2.3. acrylic & rubber

Coloured transparent material, such as laser cut acrylic is a material to follow. Sarah Angold studio presented their new range of lightning using this “ethereal effect” material. As opposed to this light weight, transparent layers, we can see the use of rubber in various projects-Gitta  Gschwendter balloon bowls and Suzie Button‘s stools and side tables made from newspaper bundles coated in coloured natural rubber. The colour flooring company presented their nice range of colours of their rubbery-feel vinyl friendly flooring.

 /21-22 acrylic lightning and bracelet by Sarah Angold/23 coloured vinyl flooring by colour flooring company/ 24 balloon bowls by Gitta  Gschwendter/ 25 “no news is good news” newspaper bundled papers+latex rubber by Suzie Button

3. micro trends

3.1. creatures

Located at ORIGIN fair, LUX CRAFT showed lighting installations by craft makers. Many of the exhibited lighting pieces ressembled soft body animals emiting bioluminiscent light, as if they were deep sea creatures. At 100% design we could find also the lighting glass sculpture of Preciosa, a sort of jellyfish ceiling-hanging lighted sculpture and that of Puff Buff, using inflatable PVC and LEDS.

In contrast to these ethereal “creatures”, Maximo Riera presented his stunning seating elements featuring superlative size animals such as the Rhino and the Walrus, perfectly transmitting the weight and presence of the real animals.

/ LUX CRAFT @ ORIGIN fair participants / 26 Tsai-Yoshikawa /27 Loop.pH / 28 Kirsti Taiviola / 29 Johannes Hemann

/30 Puff Buff / 31 Preciosa / 32-33 Maximo Riera

3.2. Tubular (shape the fluid) vs Geometric (fold the layers)

We have seen now a new way of creting shapes, by adding or bending tubular constructions. From plumbing pipes to instrumental tubes to wire structures.

/ 34 folded paper screens by Mie Matsubara /35 timber & textile wooden carpet by Elisa Strozyk / 36 digitally crafted chair from Zhang Zhoujie /37 Tamasine Osher Design /38 Nef /39 “Icons” outdoor-indoor furniture by Jan Plechac

4. 100% futures & design-healthy countries

Korea, Slovenia and Hungary showed excellent design health. With innovative proposals, each country showcased some award winning products, most of them marrying traditional crafts with technology.

At 100% futures we spent some time at the [re] design stand learning on friendly & real sustainable design, admired the two-halves cabinet by Charlie Crowther-Smith + Christian Taylor and the vivid upholstery fabrics by Corita Rose.

5. retail

Marks & spencer launched its preview collection in collaboration with Terence Conran. Full collection, including bed, bedroom furniture, upholstery and textiles will be presented coming spring 2012. H&M HOME corner shop in Oxford street sells their home collection through self-service magnets that you pick and hand at the cashier, bringing you all your chosen items, much as if it was a mix of physical and virtual store. ESPRIT showcased the winners of their knitwear annual competition together with Royal College of Art.

/ 46 Terence Conran for Marks & Spencer /47 H&M home / 48 Esprit + Royal College of Art

6. kids

Although the kids design is a growing market, we are missing more exhibitors! However, we saw interesting graphic ceramicware by Meyer-Lavigne, wallpapers by Paperboy & Katie Bourne and various proposals at the 100% Argentine design stand.

/ 49 Meyer-Lavigne / 50 wallpapers by Paperboy / 51 wallpaper by Katie Bourne / 52-53 Masekos table and chair Escuadra / Miga de pan Bosque collection, crocheted pieces

That’s all so far! Don’t miss future post entries!