London Design Festival 2011 | Part 01.

DesignersBlock 2011 venue courtyard at the Farmiloe Building.

Entrance to DesignersBlock Farmiloe Building.

Hello y’all! We are super duper lucky to have a review of the recent London Design Festival by a dude who is now becoming our [unofficially] official first ever international correspondent – give it up for Mister… Maaaaaark Leeeeeeib!! [***insert sound of crowd going nuts here***] Some of you will recall Mark’s review of last year’s London Festival in Part 01 and Part 02 series. Mr Leib (or Libeskind as I like to call him) is an old colleague and a friend who creates magic as a senior designer at the fabulous Blacksheep studio in London. I featured some of their clever handi-work in this post. Huge thanks to Mark for his brilliant photos and for his effort to bring us this fantastic report despite his many deadlines. Everyone together now – We love your work, Mark!

And because Mark sent me so much juicy content, look out for part two of the post tomorrow.

x dana

This year my festival didn’t go to plan as our studio was slammed by a huge workload and I didn’t get out much. I made it to hardly any social gigs, so appologies – no shots of handbags at B&B this year, mostly a report on actual product! I did make it to the the Wallpaper* party-they had great cocktails but unfortunately they don’t bring the Handmade show over from Milan.

Due to time constraints I stuck to East London shows. Overall there seemed to be even more events than last year. The V&A had loads going on and there were more big events such as the Superbrands show on Brick Lane. The quality was varied – Tent show was busy and with lots of exhibitors, but there were few ideas or surprises. Here is the lowdown on the highlights of the East.

“A world of yesterday’s tomorrows” by recent gradyate Nadine Spencer. “Illusion features in my work where I use printing and cutting techniques to change the appearance of the mountboard.  An ostensibly grand city is in fact composed of 2D, cut-out components that are glued together. “  Contact [email protected].

Left image –  POSTextiles. Right image –  “Plantable” by JAILmake. [I recently blogged about this table here.]

Left image – ” Peg Leg” table by Benjamin Boyce. Right image – “Dauphin” chandelier by O’Hare & D’Jafer.

Contemporary ceramics by Paul Bishop/ The New English.

Future Folklore Textiles by Emma Lundgren. “Textile innovation and the implication of technology within textile/fashion design through the complex synergy of 21st century techniques with artisan tradition such as print, knit and embroidery. Future Folklore is a hand-crafted folklore collection for the future, by combining time-honoured Swedish tradition, with contemporary East London flavour.”

Left image – Manolo Lounger by John Galvin.

Knit Stools by Claire-Anne O’Brien. 

DesignersBlock Auction Room on the left. Image of venue posters on the right.

DesignersBlock at the Farmiloe building, Farringdon (above).

A former Victorian lead and glass merchants with over 100 exhibitors in courtyards, large warehouse spaces and old timber clad offices. Highlights included the joinery of John Galvin, Nadine Spencer’s decorative fittings and the hand crafted tiles and furniture of Benjamin Boyce.

The DesignersBlock team commissioned The Auction Room project consisting of sixteen designers that donated one off pieces for a cashless auction. I bid on a bentwood chair customised with a Faroe Island knitted wool cover by graduate Jórun Høgnesen, but I missed the auction and the chair! [*eyeroll*… well played Mark.]

Cape Sofa by  Konstantin Grcic and Surface Table by Terence Woodgate and John Bernard for Established & Sons.

Entrance to Main Room of Established & Sons on the left. Drift Bench by Amanda Levete on the right.  

Detail of Established & Sons “My London” installation by Nendo.

“Quilt, The New” By Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec on the left. “Hay Bale” by Sebastian Wrong and Richard Woods on the right. 

Side Room with “Wood Rug” by Richard Woods on the left. New book by E&S on the right.

Detail of Phaidon book display on the left. Side room detail on the right.

Established & Sons (above).

I missed a great party apparently, but made it over to the studio on Thursday lunch. Oki Sato of studio Nendo interpreted the theme “My London” with an installation of hundreds of random maps of London neighbourhoods on trace paper. In addition, the art and design publisher Phaidon created a reading room and library in the super slick Established studio.

[All images © Mark Leib for yellowtrace.]