We are proud to be a media partner for this year’s Vienna Design Week. Stay tuned as we bring you coverage of the best and brightest from Austria in the festival’s 5th year.
Vienna Design Week
September 30th – October 9th, 2011
Outline Editions is pleased to present an interactive solo exhibition by graphic designer Noma Bar on the occasion of London Design Festival 2011. Bar’s work explores negative space—the artist often limits himself to two colors—and figure-ground optical illusions that, in Milton Glaser’s felicitious phrasing, “inform and delight.”
With bold colors, shapes and pared-down iconography, Bar can capture the spirit of a person or the heart of an issue with arresting clarity and humor.
The centerpiece of the exhibition is “an amazing, interactive art-making machine for the event. ‘Cut It Out'”—pictured above—”is an especially commissioned, Heath Robinson-esque embossing device/sculpture in the shape of a giant dog, that will allow visitors to feed paper, rubber and other materials into its mouth to produce their own cut-out Noma Bar images.”
Viennese designer Philipp Aduatz recently completed his Ph.D. in Natural Sciences, but it doesn’t take an advanced degree to see the strong sense of organic form that inspires and informs his work.
Aduatz will be presenting a couple of new chair designs at Tent London, at the Old Truman Brewery in East London from September 22–25: “Melting Chair,” which “captures a transient transformation within a sculptural object,” and the “Flower Chair,” a further exploration of a theme that Aduatz has explored in the past.
Glass fiber-reinforced polymer with a silver coating and scratch resistant polyurethane lacquer
The “Melting chair” represents Aduatz’s attempt to capture an otherwise ephemeral state of transition—”either as a solid chair melting away or as a solidification of a liquid melt”—when a material “seems utterly fragile and filled with fascinating possibilities at the same time.”
Athanasios Babalis and Christina Skouloudi, independent industrial designers based in Thessaloniki, Greece, recently collaborated on a collection of six objects that were inspired by the myth of the Argonauts.
This year, they decided to work together in order to create objects with clean but intense sculptural forms, with respect to the material’s qualities and an unconventional approach in the objects, utility. The objective was also to collaborate with local but highly skilled crafts people and companies and together redefine the limits of design and craft.
The six pieces share a distinctly minimal design philosophy, and while there is no uniform aesthetic, all of them reject traditional tropes in favor of a more experimental formal approach. Thus, the underlying theme—again, taking a cue from Jason and his intrepid shipmates—is simply exploration:
The Argonauts, went on a long journey to seek the “Golden Fleece.” Metaphorically, the modern Argonauts: the team of designers, makers and their work, are on a long journey in search for design excellence.
The “Actor” notebook case is a slimmed-down wooden suitcase, designed to house a laptop, its power supply and mouse in the felt-lined interior. It comes in one size that accommodates notebooks up to 17”, with an innovative hinged opening: “The stainless steel door can be secured with a lock or a thumb screw.”
The “Atalanta” fruit bowl—available in a variety of solid woods and three sizes—is an “interactive” take on an otherwise mundane article of tableware, designed to shift depending on the distribution of its contents.
Similarly, the “Atalanta” salt and pepper shaker (below) also resemble spinning tops, plumb bobs or even little creatures that “are lying there waiting to serve you.”
At first glance, I thought the “Lolas” serving tray started as a flattened cylinder with a hole cut in it, yet Babalis characterizes it as “a light wooden tray with handles that are an extension of the tray surface.” Either way, it is available in two sizes (47 and 60 cm) and two veneers (Oak and Walnut).
The “Staphylos” fruit bowl is arguably even less conventional than the “Atalanta”: its form is based on “the variety in size of the fruits themselves and especially the shape of the grapes.” The solid wood piece comes in an off-white or black finish.
The last, most abstract piece (and only one that isn’t made of wood or veneer) is, fittingly, a lighting element: “Asterion” draws inspiration from nature and manufacture alike: “Inspired by the fish gills and the magnificent three dimensional form that the metal sheet acquires when it is cut. The light in the center plays with the metal gills and casts amazing shadows on its surface and the surrounding walls.”
View the full “Argonaut” collection in person at 100% Design at Earl’s Court from September 22 – 25 during London Design Week.
Get a preview of the Designers in Residence show at the Design Museum featuring works from Jade Folawiyo, Simon Hasan, Hye-Yeon Park and Will Shannon. Crane.tv did a great video interview with the designers where each shares a bit about their process and previews their pieces for the show, In Pursuit of Imperfection. Check Part 1 with Jade Folawiyo and Hye-Yeon Park below and Part 2 with Simon Hasan and Will Shannon after the jump.
Designers in Residence
In Pursuit of Imperfection
Through January 22nd, 2012
Design Museum
28 Shad Thames
London SE1 2YD
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