Young Serbian Designers | Ana Kraš, Antipod Studio, Jovana Bogdanovic & Miljana Nikolic.

I realise that this could be seen as a slightly biased post as I am very much a bias person by nature. My decisions and feelings are based on instincts and gut feelings, and these are often influenced by natural affinity I feel towards some things over others. It comes with growing up in a “Wog” country where passion and emotion are number one drivers for pretty much all decision making. {I am extremely lucky to be married to a level headed, rational and diplomatic individual who provides much needed balance in my life – hallelujah!}

Naturally, seeing the Young Serbian Designers stand at this year Salone Satellite made my heart skip a beat, and I pretty much loved all the pieces straight away. The stand also awoke in me a huge sense of national pride and I was drawn to all the product and their creators almost instantly. And now that I’ve had the chance to dig a bit deeper, I have firmly fallen in love with many of the pieces having gone through all the press information these clever designers supplied me with.

Having said all this stuff about me being bias by nature, I hope that you all agree with me when I say that there is something quite special about these designs – and I say this not just because their creators are from my “old country”. I am particularly drawn to the way they have been photographed in real settings, with real people, and real stuff around them – rather then meticulously staged and styled.

Young Serbian Designers. Keeping it real. Word.

I’d love to hear what you think.

Ana Kraš

Ana Kraš was born in Belgrade, Serbia, in july 1984. She works on various personal and commissioned projects. Five of Ana’s designs have been selected to be exhibited at SaloneSatellite this year.

I predict that big things are coming for this talented young woman – prepare yourselves to hear her name and see her work a lot more in the future.

BONBON LAMPS, 2010 by Ana Kraš.

Family of lamps, where colorful strings are knitted over steel wire frame by hand. Cotton used for making prototypes was leftover from knitwear company, Ivko-knits, previous collections.

HIVE LAMP, 2010 by Ana Kraš.

Floor version of bonbon lamps. Frame made of oak, lamp shade made of coated steel wire and cotton strings. The shade is hung on the wooden console with cottong strings – the position of the console and the height of the lamp can be changed by adjusting the cord.

KSILOFON CLOTHING RACK, 2010 by Ana Kraš.

Ksilofon is made in wood – oak sticks and plywood panels. Construction components are attached with basic wing-screws and pins. There are also some side elements to help organizing the clothes (shelving units and boxes).

M LAMP (MILANO-MORIMONDO-MAURO), 2009 by Ana Kraš.

M lamp is a lamp Ana made for an exhibition called redesign your mind. It was inspired by a friend who was always putting dresses and scarves on a floor lamp
in order to achieve some softer, nicer light. M lamp has no real lamp shade, only the frame, so you can put over a shirt, a dress, a scarf, a piece of fabric. This way you can change both the amount of light and the color of the light you want at the time, but also the look of the lamp.

NOODLE, 2009 by Ana Kraš.

Side-tables family inspired by plastic baskets for garbage, placed in corners of all classroom. {Yes, I can vouch for this – every easter european classroom had paper baskets that looked similar to this table!} Noodles are made of steel wire with loose circular plate metal top, which can be used as a tray. Table base can be turned upside down creating two different looks.

Antipod Studio

Antipod studio was founded in 2007 by Branko Nikolic, Petar Savic and Milan Stefanovic. The studio’s multidisciplinary practice encompasses architecture, furniture design and interiors. They are active on the Serbian design scene, participating in numerous exhibitions and competitions, like Ghost Project (Mikser dizajn expo), Belgrade Design Week, Redesign Your Mind… They were also involved in a number of pro bono projects.

Their idea was to include consciousness as one of the key pointers in the design process – ethics before esthetics. “We would like to believe that we have adopted certain principles from people we highly respect: simplicity, innovation, sincerity, adequacy, inconspicuousness, sustainability.”

VIME, three-legged stool by Antipod.

A contemporary interpretation of side seating, inspired by the rural. The idea was to achieve a contemporary form, but to remind us of the primeveal. {By the way, “vime” in serbian means “udder”.}

TRIANGLE, modular tables by Antipod.

A cube is cut diagonally, which makes it combinable. It can be placed alone or combined into larger, more diverse compositions, placed in a corner or stacked one upon the other as an improvised shelf.

Jovana Bogdanovic

Jovana Bogdanovic is a 5th-year student at the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade. She participated in numerous design exhibitions, like Redesign your mind 2, Ghost Project, Dream Office, Rest Wood design, as well as Salone Satellite in Milan in previous years.

SUGAR BEARS by Jovana Bogdanovic.

How many polar bears have you drowned in your life?

Due to global warming, polar bears are an endangered species. They live on the ice, the ice melts and more and more polar bears drown. Global warming awareness can be raised even with the smallest of gestures. A sugar bear drowining in your coffee or tea is an everyday reminder how fast these creatures can disappear.

Miljana Nikolic

Miljana Nikolic was born in 1984 in Smederevo. She graduated in 2008 from the School of Architecture at the Belgrade University. Currently she is completing her doctorate studies at the School of Forestry, Department of Furniture Design.

PLAY ME CHAIR by Miljana Nikolic.

Play me chair resulted from an effort to create a wooden chair of simple symmetry and sharp, angular lines that would adjust itself to the human anatomy. A simple structure, which at first seems to disregard the ergonomic principles, unexpectedly becomes soft and comfortable, visually reminding the user of a piano keyboard.