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News: Milan is “sitting in the past” and Italy is “losing the culture behind production,” according to Patrizia Moroso, head of leading Italian furniture brand Moroso (+ interview).
“There are so many reasons, but we are losing the culture behind production,” she told Dezeen. “I don’t know how many more years we have production for because also companies are dying every day in Italy.”
Moroso made the comments during an interview with Dezeen at the designjunction show – part of the London Design Festival in London this week – where the brand has furnished the VIP room.
When asked to compare the design scenes in London and Milan, she said: “Milan unfortunately is sitting in the past and the past is gone. All the most important people of the beautiful past of Milan are very old or dead. I don’t see energy now; the city is like a closed box.”
London, by contrast, is “a sort of belly of the world,” she said. “London is the centre of many kinds of thinking. Many people, young people but also people from all over the world, are attracted because London is open.”
Moroso is creative director of the eponymous Udine-based company that was started by her parents, who asked her to help reinvigorate the firm during the recession in the eighties.
Under her influence, the small, craft-driven company began to collaborate with international designers including Konstantin Grcic, Patricia Urquiola and Ron Arad. Moroso is now one of Italy’s most highly regarded design-led furniture brands, yet it continues to manufacture all its products in workshops close to its headquarters in north-east Italy.
However Moroso fears that Italy’s craft-based manufacturing excellence is dying out. “Italy in a way is very much in a crisis because it doesn’t want to change, doesn’t want to move and is becoming very old,” she said. “We have had more than 20 years of bad management of our government, society, schools, institutions. Everything has almost disappeared, so this is very bad for culture and design is part of that.”
Milan remains the world’s most important centre for furniture design but there are concerns that it is losing its influence. Earlier this year Claudio Luti, president of the Milan furniture fair, said that poor planning was damaging the city’s reputation. He told Dezeen: “If things don’t work in the right way, they damage Milan, they damage our future.”
In April, Former Domus editor Joseph Grima told Dezeen that “an era is drawing to an end for Italian design.” He added that the Italian apprenticeship system, where crafts skills are learned directly from masters, is “in a little bit of a crisis” as the rest of the world moves towards a schools-based system.
Moroso agreed that Italy’s design schools were suffering. “The schools are collapsing,” she said. “When I see our universities and design schools, they are not the best in the world, they are not so important unfortunately. If you don’t give importance to learning, not immediately but in ten years you loose a generation of material culture.”
Moving production to emerging economies like China was not a solution for her company, Moroso added. But she laughed off concerns about Chinese companies copying her products.
“In China they have all the copies of everything, especially Supernatural chairs by Ross Lovegrove,” she said. “In every coffee bar you can find them. They’re not ours but they’re very famous so I’m happy!”
See all our stories about Moroso. Here is a full transcript of the interview:
Marcus Fairs: How does the design scene in London compare to Milan?
Patrizia Moroso: The differences are so many, of course. Milan unfortunately is sitting in the past and the past is gone. All the most important people of the beautiful past of Milan are very old or dead. I don’t see energy now; the city is like a closed box. There was a fantastic moment in the past but they are not changing or accepting influence from outside. Italy in a way is very much in a crisis because it doesn’t want to change, doesn’t want to move and is becoming very old.
Marcus Fairs: Are you talking about design or everything?
Patrizia Moroso: The society, unfortunately. For instance all the young people, many, many of them are going away. Especially from what I know, I have kids that are now starting university. One of my sons is here, in Oxford. Many other young people came to university in England, but also elsewhere. So that is strange because you see your best people, the young and the interesting people, going away because in Italy now it is very difficult to start to do something after your studies. It’s not a problem of money and financial price, it’s because people don’t want to think in another way. It’s very rigid.
So London, for me, is a little bit different. Many people, young people but also people from all over the world, are attracted because London is open. Of course I know that also here it is very expensive, from what I hear. England has lots of problems in terms of society. I was talking with a taxi driver yesterday and he said to me: “You know, I was living in London with my family and my son is obliged to go and live in the suburbs. Every day I have to drive for an hour to come into London because it’s no longer possible to sustain this level. Here, rich people come from all over the world, from Russia, from China, and they are buying houses that they stay in one week per year, and we’re losing our city.” This could be the beginning of something very bad I think.
But anyway, London is still alive. Probably because so many people are coming to study and are making their own things here, sometimes establishing themselves forever. Some of the big names in London architecture and design, friends of ours, they all come from outside, countries from far away. Turkey, Iran, Israel, Italy, France.
Marcus Fairs: Why is London important to Moros? Is it because of the contract market, with all the architects here?
Patrizia Moroso: It’s important first of all living or working in a place that is so exciting is always an occasion to stimulate your brain. That is for me, the first thing. But of course to have a showroom in London is because London is the centre of many kinds of thinking. Architecture is one of these and some of the most important studios in the world, of architecture and interior design, are based in London. Maybe then they have other studios around the world, but the main studios are here. Of course for that reason it is important to stay close to them. It’s a sort of belly of the world.
Marcus Fairs: Will Milan be able to retain its importance as a creative city, as a design city?
Patrizia Moroso: Milan is not my reality. I’m living and working in the countryside north-east of Italy [in Udine]. Milan has a lot of important human knowledge about making things, and I think we in Italy are fantastic at doing what we are able to do.
We have an incredible heritage of a very high quality of craft, but also transforming craft during the 60s and 70s in industry. Maybe not big industries because you know that the design industry is never that big, companies need to be medium-sized to work in a good way, but the companies began as little companies of craftsmen or things like that. Why? Because Italy is a country where the people have an incredible talent to make beautiful things in wood, in glass, in metal, whatever. Very refined. Still, for me, a country that can produce some of the best things.
For instance, in furniture it’s one of the best places in the world and one of the few places in Europe because we maintain these capabilities. In England, for some reason you lost these capabilities. You also were making, now I don’t know. You are great at thinking; that is something important. The reverse in Italy: we are great at making but unfortunately thinking belongs to culture and culture belongs to society. We have had more than 20 years of bad management of our government, society, schools, institutions. Everything has almost disappeared, so this is very bad for culture and design is part of that.
When I see our universities and design schools, they are not the best in the world, they are not so important unfortunately. For me one of the reasons is the schools. If you don’t give importance to learning, not immediately but in ten years you loose a generation of material culture. In Italy I believe some schools are still important because the teachers are very, very strong and make them good schools, but they are not paid very well. The schools are collapsing. For instance, design schools need a sort of laboratory. In Italy design schools are usually very academic and they are not letting the students try or make because there is no money to do this and no spaces for this kind of approach to design that is so important.
The most important schools that I know, like the Royal College of Art and Design Academy Eindhoven, they are factories for young designers and they can try to make what they think. There are so many reasons, but we are losing the culture behind production. So I don’t know how many more years we have production for because also companies are dying every day in Italy. This is so sad for me because really the craftsmen and the people that used to work in the factories have an incredible mentality, so I hope this will change.
Marcus Fairs: You don’t sound very optimistic about Italian design and manufacturing.
Patrizia Moroso: I’m not optimistic because I see what happens. I think the companies have the knowledge so all of them together can really teach a lot because they are going on making beautiful objects designed by designers from all over the world, usually. Some are also Italian, but not so many unfortunately. Thirty or 40 years ago Italian design meant not only production but also Italian people as designers, architects, but now fewer and fewer. Now we have to do something to start again and think about making projects.
Marcus Fairs: Can Moroso still survive in Italy or will you have to move your business to a different city?
Patrizia Moroso: I’m very nostalgic; my roots are very deep. I’m living there, staying there. All our production is done in our little city and we’ll go as long as I’m there. Of course we are curious and why not if you want to develop something that belongs to another culture and manufacture.
For instance, I remember when we went to India for hand embroidery. In Italy nobody knows this any more and Nipa Doshi [of Doshi Levien] was designing something that had to be done by hand in India, so we went to India but only for that. Or if I work with Tomek Rygalik, who is Polish, I want to develop some wooden chairs with him in Poland because he is living there, he knows how to work that wood in that factory, which could be our supplier.
So outside of Italy it is interesting if you have a reason to go, not to spend less money. The quality in Italy is very high and we want to keep it, so taking business somewhere else is stupid. Many of the companies that went to China ten years ago, they stopped production. First because the quality went down, then when China increased the quality. Now they also have good quality. The balance was not so convenient so they came back.
But what happens is that China is very fast, and people from China are running like trains. So in one second they see what is good and they are doing that. But if you go there and give all your information then it is obvious that someone can copy you, and very well. In China they have all the copies of everything, especially Supernatural chairs by Ross Lovegrove. In every coffee bar you can find them. They’re not ours but they’re very famous so I’m happy!
It’s a country that is changing, also for them things are deeply changing. I saw architects that are fantastic. Young architects that are coming out of China that can be interesting working here, why not? What is more global, I don’t know. But the work we are doing in Italy, in our cities, is very peculiar. And this is, in a way, the ratio we can give to the world. We don’t want to disappear, making things all over because that is what happens every day for dresses, for everything. We want to be very related with our country.
Marcus Fairs: You’ve done the VIP lounge here at designjunction. Tell us what you think of the show.
Patrizia Moroso: Designjunction is a new fair but it’s very interesting with a lot of young people here. I saw many young productions and designers, like in the past when I first went to England to meet the young Tom Dixon, the young Ron Arad, that generation. Every one of those people were making everything themselves, that was the beauty of English design, British design as they called it. This is also the secret of good design, to experiment in a moment of your profession with making by yourself. A good designer has to be able to produce something.
So that age in London was fantastic because all these names then became very famous. They were just doing things by themselves and I see a little bit of the same at this fair now. Some are very interesting, and why not help the fair to have a little place as a lounge.
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London Design Festival 2013: British brand Another Country has launched its third series of wooden furniture and first range of patterned textiles at designjunction (+ slideshow).
Another Country has created a range of beech and oak tables, stools, benches and desks modelled on Edwardian workshop furniture.
Trestle-style tables and benches have rounded corners, with legs and edges of flat surfaces coloured grey, red or green.
Textiles for blankets and cushion are made from hand-dyed wool in three colourful geometric patterns.
The collection is on display as part of designjunction at The Sorting Office, 21-31 New Oxford Street, in London’s West End until Sunday.
Other products on show at the exhibition include a furniture collection by new brand Joined + Jointed and a set of wicker lights by Claesson Koivisto Rune.
Also during this year’s London Design Festival, Another Country launched a collection of bedroom furniture for London retailer Heal’s.
See more design by Another Country »
See all our stories about London Design Festival 2013 »
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More details in the text from Another Country below:
Another Country launches Series Three and Soft Series at London Design Festival
The blockbuster contemporary design show; designjunction, is back for another outing at London Design Festival 2013 and so is Another Country; who will be taking their place amongst the three floors and 120,000 square feet of contemporary design in the 1960s Postal Sorting Office in Covent Garden.
Another Country has a spectacular show planned for this September that includes the launch of Series Three, the latest collection of designs inspired by Edwardian workshop furniture, and a new textiles range; Soft Series, which includes cushions and throws. There will be some new adaptations of old favourites; new additions to the Pottery Series and a spectacular stand design besides.
Series Three
Another Country has applied its extensive knowledge of producing craft-inspired contemporary objects to create a series of Beech and Oak furniture that is their most functional to-date. The tables, stools, benches and desk that make up the Series Three collection is intended to be the perfect marriage of traditional craft construction and contemporary form.
A trestle-style table base was inspired by the utilitarian and adaptable design of Edwardian industrial workbenches. The base supports a solid Beech top and the joint where these two elements meet is a decorative craft detail that is carefully celebrated. Series Three is an articulation of Another Country’s mission to produce furniture that is efficient to make and to use; unconcerned with fashion and unfussy it is charming and hardworking. The rounded corners, thoughtful scale and splashes of colour – ‘Chamberlayne Grey’, ‘Wellington Red’ and ‘Oxford Green’ are the points of difference to note.
Beech is an underused but effective timber: hard, handsome, uniform and plentiful. Another Country is championing its revival as a contemporary wood in their Series Three collection alongside the equally beautiful oak.
Finishes: white oiled and waxed beech, white oiled and waxed beech + stained colour oiled and waxed oak, oiled and waxed oak + stained colour
Soft Series
Another Country is pleased to announce the launch of its very first textiles collection, which acts as a perfect accompaniment to each collection.
Another Country’s first textile collection is something special. The blankets and cushions that make up their Soft Series are jacquard woven, meaning they could produce complex patterns, and are made from soft, hand-dyed, 100% wool. We worked with Scottish textile designer Ruth Duff and acclaimed weavers Gainsborough Silk to produce three different graphic fabric designs.
Patterns: Small Cubes Green, Small Stars Blue and Large Cubes Purple
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by Another Country appeared first on Dezeen.
London Design Festival 2013: design firms Studio Glowacka and Maria Fulford Architects have installed 1500 metres of undulating paper strips to create a pavilion at trade show 100% Design in London this week (+ slideshow).
Studio Glowacka and Maria Fulford Architects draped streams of white paper over a square frame to create a temporary ceiling for the Paper Space auditorium.
Additional strips of paper drop vertically to the floor and create a perimeter for the hub.
Visitors are encouraged to share ideas on rolls of paper within the structure, which can then be torn off and taken away. “Paper is a blank canvas for communication and a receiver for ideas,” Maria Fulford said.
“Paper Space is illuminated by borrowed light from the adjacent exhibitor structures, changing character like a paper chameleon depending on the neighbouring light conditions,” she added.
There is also a bespoke table inside the space that was hand crafted by students at UCL Bartlett School of Architecture. It is made from five-millimetre-thick steel plates and white oak.
Paper Space is being used to hold events, talks and debates during 100% Design, which is open until tomorrow.
Other installations at London Design Festival this year include 5000 spinning paper windmills in a doorway at the V&A museum and an Escher-style installation of fifteen staircases positioned on the grass outside Tate Modern.
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Photographs are by Alastair Browning.
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and Maria Fulford Architects appeared first on Dezeen.
London Design Festival 2013: Japanese architect Jo Nagasaka has developed a range of resin and wood furniture for Established & Sons.
Jo Nagasaka of Tokyo practice Schemata Architecture Office peels away parts of the surface of Douglas fir boards to expose the grain, before encasing the wood in brightly coloured epoxy resin. The addition of the resin transforms the uneven texture of the wood into a smooth and practical surface, while variations in the depth of the peeled wood affect the intensity of the resin’s colour.
The new coffee table, side table, credenza and chair combine the resin-covered wood with simple geometric frames to create updated variations on a project that Nagasaka presented at the Milan Furniture Fair in 2011.
The furniture is on show at Established & Sons‘ north London showroom as part of the London Design Festival, alongside an installation of pulsing fluorescent lights controlled by analogue switches by Faye Toogood. See all of our stories about Established & Sons »
Amsterdam designer Roel Huisman is also showing a desk made from resin with a lamp and vase embedded in its surface during LDF, while Tord Boontje has created a series of resin surfaces covered in patterns created using magnetism.
See more furniture »
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Photography is by Colin Streater.
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for Established & Sons appeared first on Dezeen.
London Design Festival 2013: Amsterdam designer Roel Huisman has created a desk with an ash lamp and glass vase embedded in a thick slab of resin.
Writing Table by Roel Huisman is the first in a new series of polyester resin tables by the designer.
It features ash legs, an aqua-coloured resin table top, an inset glass vase, a desk lamp and a small storage compartment that is concealed by a sliding ash writing surface.
Huisman added coloured pigment to a transparent polyster resin to achieve the desired pastel tone. The material was then cast, milled, sanded and polished.
“I like to combine the polyester with wood, a natural combination since the resin was developed for the naval industry,” said the designer.
Two ash poles make up a pivoting desk lamp, which is connected to a power source by a bright green cable.
Writing Table is a continuation of Huisman’s wall-mounted resin shelves.
This table is on display at the Cabinets of Curiosity showcase at Mint Shop, 2 North Terrace, Alexander Square, SW3 2BA until 22 September as part of the London Design Festival.
See more tables »
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Photographs are courtesy of the designer.
Here’s some more information from Roel Huisman:
The experiences I have had in designing for theatre performances and living in an interior I designed myself have made me become more and more interested in the interaction between the objects that I design and it’s users. The pieces I design are meant to easily blend into your interior to form a pleasant everyday encounter.
This writing table is the first of a series of tables in polyester resin and a continuation of the Shelves series. Polyester resin is used for its amiable appearance. The resin that is used has a base that is transparent and non-coloured. With pigments we achieve the desired colour and opaque quality. The piece undergoes a series of steps in which it is casted, milled, sanded and polished.
I like to combine the polyester with wood, a natural combination since the resin was developed for the naval industry.
I use ash-wood to accessorise the tabletop with several functional elements; a lamp, a vase and a small storage compartment to become an object you will enjoy for it’s humble aesthetics and elegant functionality.
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Roel Huisman appeared first on Dezeen.
London Design Festival 2013: concave bookcases and furniture with hotdog-shaped legs feature in the first collection by Joined + Jointed, currently on show at designjunction (+ slideshow).
Joined + Jointed was set up by designer Samuel Chan as an online store, selling furniture by a selection of designers.
A bookcase by British designer Simon Pengelly has a concave front, with shelves spaced closer together at the centre and becoming more curved at the top, bottom and to one side.
The wooden bookcase can be used side-by-side with another that has a mirrored pattern to create a concave front.
Pengelly has also created a set of sofas, chairs and benches with simple grey or beige upholstery.
Lazy chairs and tables by Freshwest have legs similar to strings of sausages, finished in a colourful stain except for a single chipolata-shaped element on one leg. On other models, just one sausage is coloured while other elements are left natural.
The British studio’s Inside Out cabinet has line drawings of possible contents on its doors.
Simple wooden furniture designs by Sean Yoo, Alex Hellum, Henrik Sørig, Wales & Wales and Samuel Chan also feature.
The collection is on display at designjunction, which continues until 22 September, along with wicker lighting by Claesson Koivisto Rune.
See all our stories about London Design Festival 2013 »
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Here’s some more information from Joined + Jointed:
Joined + Jointed, a new online concept offering contemporary furniture pieces from a global collective of established and emerging designers, announces its launch in the UK in September 2013.
Working to the principle ‘creation through collaboration’, Joined + Jointed brings together designers, craftsmen and production experts to create furniture of unique design and exceptional quality – at attainable prices.
Available exclusively through the Joined + Jointed website, the debut collection will include inspired new furniture designs from: Simon Pengelly, Sean Yoo, Alex Hellum, Henrik Sørig, Wales & Wales, Freshwest, Samuel Chan.
Highlights include a monumental bookcase by Simon Pengelly, a graphic drinks cabinet from Freshwest, Samuel Chan’s stacking pallet drawers and a broad selection of tables, chairs and cabinets from the design collective.
Joined + Jointed is being launched by Samuel Chan, an award winning furniture designer and founder of bespoke furniture brand Channels. With more than 18 years in the industry, this new venture expresses Samuel’s desire to collaborate with like-minded designers, using his artisan production experience to bring their best furniture concepts into being.
The end result is a collection of more than 80 brand new furniture pieces, intelligently designed and beautifully crafted, to be discovered now and appreciated forever. All are available to buy online.
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collection appeared first on Dezeen.
London Design Festival 2013: fluorescent lights are controlled by analogue toggle switches in this interactive installation by Faye Toogood for design brand Established & Sons (+ slideshow).
London designer Faye Toogood responded to Established & Sons‘ invitation to produce an installation for the London Design Festival by replicating the appearance of a giant equaliser inside the brand’s 550 square-metre showroom.
A hundred and sixty fluorescent tube lights flicker in alternating sequence and can be controlled by toggling switches mounted on a central switchboard.
The switches are embedded in blocks of coloured resin, through which the cables can be seen.
Beneath the switches the cables drop down through a metal mesh table and spill onto the floor, creating a tangled pile that carries current to the lights.
Iridescent panels fixed to the wall behind the lights are made from zinc passivated steel, a material commonly used to provide insulation from electronic interference.
Toogood developed the installation in response to a new series of colourful resin furniture by Japanese architect Jo Nagasaka, which Established & Sons is also launching during LDF.
Faye Toogood recently designed the interior for a London boutique with a bright white basement and a moody blue ground floor, and used raw concrete and colourful fabrics for the interior of a fashion store in Dubai. See more Faye Toogood »
Established & Sons launched a table supported by four chairs in Milan earlier this year and commissioned designers including Jasper Morrison and Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby to design benches for an exhibition at the V&A museum during last year’s London Design Festival. See more Established & Sons »
Here’s some more info from Established & Sons:
Established & Sons at The London Design Festival
14th–22nd September 2013
Established & Sons – A Vivid Interval
The Conductor
Established & Sons is delighted to announce an artistic collaboration with London designer Faye Toogood during the London Design Festival.
Faye has been invited to create an interactive installation at Established & Sons’ 6,000 square foot studio showroom. Titled, ‘The Conductor’ the creation will allow guests to watch and control a rhythmic symphony of light played out on a giant circuit board of iridescent zinc passivated steel – an industrial material used to provide insulation from electrical interference.
Echoing the graphic of an equaliser, 160 fluorescent bulbs fed by intertwined wires and cables, light up in alternating sequences. The circuit is completed by the audience themselves, who can ‘conduct’ this electrical spectacle from the centrepiece switchboard; itself an array of intricately pigmented resin blocks and archaic-looking analogue toggles, which operate the light orchestra. The result is a macro-electronic display that redefines the notion of son et lumière.
Maurizio Mussati, CEO of Established & Sons says, “We are delighted to welcome Faye Toogood to transform our showroom this year. Established & Sons provides a creative platform for innovative concept ideas inviting the use of visual imagination in design. Faye’s interactive creation will be an immersive and inspiring visual experience, with light and colour dancing across the eyes. It provides the perfect platform for the launch of our stunning new resin series, designed by Jo Nagasaka and should make a memorable impression. I recommend bringing a pair of sunglasses!”
Japanese architect, Jo Nagasaka’s new resin series, was the inspiration behind ‘The Conductor’; the idea of a symphony of colour and industrial materials. These stunning pieces; a coffee table, side table, credenza with sliding doors and a new chair, remain true to Japanese minimalist style whilst being elevated to avant-garde status through the use of brightly coloured resin. The elegant and smooth finishing highlights the beautiful properties of the natural grain of the wood.
Opening Times/ 16-21 September:
10am – 6pm, 22 September: 12pm – 4pm
Established & Sons Showroom, 5-7 Wenlock Road, London, N1 7SL
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for Established & Sons appeared first on Dezeen.
At the Global Design Forum on Monday night, graphic designer Peter Saville revealed that he’s working on a logo for musician Kanye West. In this transcript of the conversation Saville had with journalist Paul Morley, he discusses the project and what it’s like to work with the rap star.
Saville spoke at the V&A Museum on Monday for the forum, which is part of the London Design Festival. Saville was yesterday officially awarded the London Design Medal.
Earlier last year Kanye West announced via his Twitter feed that he is to launch a design company named DONDA and claimed to be assembling a team that will include architects, designers and directors. We’ve previously published Kanye West’s Claudio Silvestrin-designed apartment and a seven-screen pyramidal cinema designed by OMA to show his first short film at Cannes Film Festival last year.
See all our stories about Peter Saville »
See all our stories about Kanye West »
Here’s the transcript of the interview:
Paul Morley: I must just ask a question I think puts us in two degree of separation with Kanye West because Peter’s last engagement [before coming here tonight] was with Kanye West. I love that idea that you’ve gone on to do the Manchester thing [Saville has been working as creative director for his home city], gone off to do grown up things but that there are still loads quite high up in the pop culture world that are still chasing you for your imprint. What exactly are they chasing you for?
Peter Saville: He’s charming, he nearly came [here tonight]. I said I’ve got to go, I’ve got a gig at 5. He said where and I said somewhere called the Victoria and Albert museum. He said he’s doing [TV show] Jools [Holland] tonight. He would have come.
Paul Morley: So he’s your new mate.
Peter Saville: He’s not my mate. One thing that you learn, in music I learnt this, just because you’ve been to see somebody, doesn’t mean that they’re your mate. So when you get called to meet Paul McCartney or I got to do Roxy [Music] covers, I got to meet Brian [Ferry] who I’d spent my teens trying to be like or look like, but you’re not friends and don’t call us, we’ll call you. Some of the younger ones, the dynamic changes when you’re older than them, Kanye is kind of weird, he…
Paul Morley: I guess he’s interested in you doing design for him, he wants you to be a graphic designer.
Peter Saville: He wants me to be Cassandre. Today I told him all about Cassandre and Cassandre did the Yves Saint Laurent logo. Cassandre, France’s greatest graphic artist in a way of the early 20th century. Cassandre was friends with Christian Dior, I guess they were contemporaries and pals and young Yves worked for Dior as an assistant and when Yves was leaving to set up his own label, it’s quite sweet isn’t it? He asked Cassandre to do the logo for him and Cassandre just rattled off YSL, which was pretty good.
And Kanye said to me, you’re Cassandre, thats what I want. Kanye wants me to do a YSL. And he’s collecting people. He said today he likes great people and wants to put them together and get them to do some great things and get some great people to check the things by these great people and really end up with some great things.
Paul Morley: The other side of the membrane, does this still have value in the world that we’re going into? That is now being shattered into so many surfaces, does a logo or image like that have a value? Does it join the glut? Join the status quo itself no matter how stylish it might be?
Peter Saville: I think I can sometimes say I don’t know. I get asked things and I feel obliged to know something or have an opinion and actually some things I don’t know. It’s sort of significant. Depends how you work. Some people just do stuff and it’s cool. A lot of people just do cool stuff. Then there’s other people that are doing something but that’s how they do it. That’s how they work. They’re trying to achieve something. That’s the pathway by which they make something happen.
I tend to – this old-fashioned slightly analogue idea, there is a way a problem to solve and the problem to solve is as much the context of the now as the thing itself. What is a logo now, what might a logo be for Kanye in a particular context?
I mean I like him, I didn’t expect to like him. I didn’t meet him to do work. Someone said to me that he would like to meet you so I thought it would be rude to say I’m not available. So we met six months ago and had a cup of coffee and that was it. I didn’t know his music and I still don’t know his music. I met him as a person, who wanted to meet me and he was nice and intelligent and an astonishing energy and astonishing intelligence.
I mean he is alive, he’s super live and he has talents. Sometimes you meet people who are talented and they don’t have energy and you meet people with energy but no talent. Every so often you meet a talent who has energy. And Kanye without a doubt is a talent with energy. At the moment he said can I help him with something, and I said ‘I don’t know, I’ll try’.
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– Peter Saville appeared first on Dezeen.
London Design Festival 2013: Swedish studio Claesson Koivisto Rune launches a collection of wicker lighting at designjunction this week.
Claesson Koivisto Rune designed the wicker lamp shades for Chilean brand Made in Mimbre by The Andes House.
Named Medusa, Chinita and Bellota, the three designs are meant to resemble jellyfish, ladybirds and acorns.
The small and large jellyfish lamps feature woven shades with long wicker tentacles left dangling below to disguise three thin metal legs.
The designers also created small, medium and large rounded floor lamps with four legs teased out from the corners of each one, which they liken to ladybirds.
The third product in the range is an acorn-shaped pendant, which is available in three sizes.
The wicker lamps will be presented at design show designjunction at The Sorting Office, 21-31 New Oxford Street, WC1A 1BA until 22 September as part of London Design Festival.
Other projects by Claesson Koivisto Rune featured on Dezeen include a stove for the developing world that uses two-thirds less wood than a traditional cooking fire.
See all our features about Claesson Koivisto Rune »
See all our stories about London Design Festival 2013 »
See Dezeen’s map and guide to London Design Festival 2013 »
Photographs are courtesy of the designers.
Here’s some more information from Claesson Koivisto Rune:
We are impressed by the achievements of the young team at Made in Mimbre. They have succeeded in creating and manufacturing their beautiful lighting collection locally. Not only that, their whole ethos of employing local artisans to create contemporary objects in a professional context and in so doing preserve their wicker weaving techniques makes us profoundly happy to be a part of.
Not only do we see great potential and intrinsic value in the handicraft of their products, the quality of the light from within their lamps is fantastically warm and atmospheric. Collaborating with Made in Mimbre on our first collection has been a pleasure and a joy!
In honour of the origins of the manufacturer we have chosen to give the lamp designs Spanish names: Medusa, Chinita and Bellota.
The Medusa lamps, with their oval-shaped lampshades, appear to balance on numerous thin, spindly supports. Rather than trimming the excess lengths of wicker, as is usually done, we have kept them and hidden three, thin metal legs amongst them. The resulting designs reminded us of jellyfish, floating, with their many trailing tendrils.
Almost as if they have been nipped and then pulled, four ‘feet’ appear to have been stretched from the bottom edge of the Chinita lamps. We think that the gesture results in a series of lamps with a cute, creature-like character. Like small, friendly bugs. Like ladybird bugs, for example.
The Bellota suspension lamps are two, similar forms combined to make a whole. Yet there is a clear division between the two. In keeping with the nature theme, the inspiration for the BELLOTA design is derived from the distinctive form of the acorn, where one form can be seen to partially ‘cover’ the other.
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lamps by Claesson Koivisto Rune appeared first on Dezeen.
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