Hasta La Ideas

There are times when I want an L-shaped worksurface, like when I’m working on something requiring a lot of different materials or tools, and times when I want one long table to accommodate a lengthy piece. I figured I couldn’t have it both ways, so I built a long nine-foot surface for my main workbench. But the folks over at the design/build firm Because We Can figured out that you can have it both ways, and now I’m intensely envious.

This awesome, custom desk they built for a client features two pivot points, enabling the super-long worksurface to go from straight to “L” to “U.”

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Fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi has sold his licensing business—think the IsaacMizrahiLIVE QVC range, not his vastly underrated Bergdorf-level collection—to Xcel Brands, a freshly formed brand licensing and management company headed by Robert D’Loren. New York-based Xcel, which will debut as a publicly traded company through a deal with a shell company called NetFabric Holdings, valued the sale of Mizrahi’s brand at $31.5 million, nearly half of which ($13.8 million) is in the form of Xcel stock. The designer is staying on as chief designer, and up to $32.7 million in additional cash or stock is up for grabs over the next four years in earn-out provisions. “This is a spectacular opportunity for our brand,” said Mizrahi in a statement issued Friday announcing the deal. “We’ve spent nearly a year working closely with Bob D’Loren and look forward to joining him at Xcel. I’m thrilled to be such a significant shareholder in the company and believe that we are poised for growth.” And that means looking beyond QVC. According to Xcel management, new licensing agreements are in the works for various Mizrahi-branded apparel, footwear, and home lines to launch at better retailers beginning next fall.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

London Design Festival 2011: here are some photos of a collection of furniture and lighting by industrial designer Benjamin Hubert for Portuguese brand De La Espada, presented at the Tramshed during the London Design Festival. 

The project involved working with with hand-turned marble, granite and leather craftsmen from the car industry.

Pieces include a pedestal dining table that’s weighed down by granite balls in a steel cage, a lounge chair with a seat woven from strips of leather and a dining chair with a leather seat strapped over its ash frame.

The Quarry lamps were each carved from a solid block of marble and retain the tool marks inside the cavity.

Since founding his studio in 2007, Hubert has designed pieces for brands including Casamania, Zero, Örsjö Belysning, Viaduct, Decode, De Vorm, Heals, Blå Station and more, but this is the first time he’s been invited to design a complete collection.

See all our stories about Benjamin Hubert here and watch interviews we filmed with him in Milan and in Cologne on Dezeen Screen.

Tramshed was part of Shoreditch Design Triangle.

See all our stories about the London Design Festival here.

Here’s some more information from Benjamin Hubert:

Benjamin Hubert x De La Espada

The collaboration between Benjamin Hubert and De La Espada presented the opportunity to develop a range of interior products utilising the skills and knowledge of artisan craftsmen, affording fewer compromises than more industrialised projects.

This allowed for greater exploration in the handmade and manipulation of natural materials with greater emphasis on quality.

The result is a range of crafted products with an industrial aesthetic, made utilising tactile materials where the hand of the maker can still be seen and valued.

This is  embodied in hand-turned marble with the organic marks of the cutting tool clearly visible, woven automotive leather with hand-stitching and overt timber joinery detailing.

The range has an industrial, minimal language with a playful look at functionality, honest construction and engaging materiality.

Above: Cargo. Perforated automotive leather, ash, steel fixings. A leather panelled dining/occasional chair. Hand-crafted self-supporting leather panels attach to a light Ash timber frame with mechanical fixing. Cargo is inspired by the automotive industry’s use of leather, specifically in convertible soft tops with pronounced fixing details and tailored panels.

Above and below: Quarry. Marble, acrylic, LED. Hand-turned, thin-walled marble pendant lights with roughly finished interior, to add texture and describe the story of stone production.

Quarry utilises the marble’s translucent properties to diffuse the light and reveal its veining.

The traditional material is offset by the use of an LED, which allows the large hand-turned internal cavity to remain open and uncluttered.

The interior surface is reminiscent of the first cut by renaissance sculptors to rough out a form.

AKFD manage the factories the lamps are produced in, ensuring fair working terms, and actively pushes for safer working conditions.

Below: Perforated automotive leather, steel. A hand-woven leather lounge chair with stitched automotive leather and a leather-wrapped steel frame

This large lounge chair is inspired by the small ‘coracle’ boats traditionally used in Wales since the Bronze Age, with its woven construction used to support the user.

The crafted ‘tri weave’ is complemented by a leather wrapped steel frame with industrial reference points found in bike handles, creating a tactile touch point for the chair.

Below: Gabion. Ash, powder-coated steel, granite. A pedestal dining table with a metal cage base containing the ballast that creates the structures stability.

Subverting the idea of traditionally hiding ballast in pedestal tables, most commonly sandbags, the dining table utilises an overt granite ballast as its focal point within a steel frame with ash surface.

Below: Silo. Granite, Ash. Turned Portuguese granite storage/side table for magazines, soft goods etc finished with an ash surface.

Inspired by grain storage devices with its crafted stone aesthetic, the Silo tables utilise the space normally reserved for a solid base or table legs, as storage. The tables’ focal point is created by a graphic interpretation of a traditional grip feature cut into the timber surface.

See also:

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Cast Desk Tidy by Benjamin Hubert	Chimney by Benjamin Hubert	Maritime by Benjamin Hubert

Dezeen Wire: design critic Alice Rawsthorn dicusses the difficulty in accurately defining design, suggesting that more “open” design processes mean anyone can claim to be a designer – The New York Times

Two days of non-stop design and innovation had worn us down, so we missed most of the morning panels. However, we did wake up in time to attend the annual A Better World By Design Expo, featuring both students and professionals exhibiting their organizations, products, and ideas.

1/2 Project’s half-items caught our attention right away. The half-wine glass was especially fun and playful, as were the fork and spoon, and conveyed the organization’s mission of helping consumers perceive donations in a different light.

This silicone take-out container called “I Am a To-Go Box” from McKenzie Powers (Art Institute of Boston) was a runner up in ABWBD/DCI’s Consumer Product Challenge. The product rethinks the idea of a disposable container, turning it into a washable, reusable container instead. Although the concept is extremely similar to DCI’s “I Am Not a Paper Cup,” it still made a great follow-up product.

The winning product from the competition, the Trilife Ecotray from Angie Lee and Queenie Fan of RISD, was also on display. The tray is a single piece of plastic and allows users to hold it balanced on one arm and hand while placing food on it with the other.

These plates were made out of the fallen leaves of a tree from India. We never thought of leaves making their way into our kitchens as anything other than decorations!

Shelter Box, among other disaster shelters, was on display at the Expo, keeping with one of the conference’s themes for the year. The company’s representative stated that the Box contained everything a family could need post-disaster, but apparently had never considered the inclusion of a toilet in the collection of necessary goods. This followed right on the tail of yesterday’s keynote panel, where Mobilize for Haiti’s Dominique Toussaint preached, and rightfully so, that designers should never design a shelter they wouldn’t want their own families to have to survive in.

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