Hasta La Ideas

The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center won’t be opening its doors for the 25th annual ICFF for another week, but the NYCxDesign festivities are well underway as of this weekend, and besides the second edition of Frieze New York and its satellites, today also saw the opening of BKLYN Designs at St. Ann’s Warehouse in DUMBO. After a brief hiatus (including a stint at the Javits in 2011), the showcase of independent designers from the borough du jour is back in Brooklyn for its tenth anniversary.

Organizer Karen Auster and the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce have wisely opted for first weekend of the inaugural NYCxDesign festival so as not conflict with ICFF—the exhibition will be on view through this Sunday, May 12. (BKLYN Designs is rather more accessible than Frieze, both geographically and metaphorically, though we recommend the humble bicycle as the most pleasant mode of transportation to either location; rest assured most of next week’s events are clustered in the more central districts of Soho and Noho. Check out our NYDW Guide for more details.)

Here are some of the standouts from our quick tour of the space this morning:

Palo Samko, an elder statesman of the Brooklyn scene, has been exploring with casting in earnest ever since he started making his own brass hardware (drawer pulls, table legs).

As with many of the woodworkers at the show, Bien Hecho was a custom/contract studio for years before debuting their first collection at BKLYN Designs.

Founder John Randall noted that “Water Tower” was made of reclaimed wood from the very same; it’s intended to hold a standard five-gallon water bottle, as an alternative to the mundane water cooler.

What’s that around the corner…?

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Blake Tovin and Matt Richmond of Tovin Design Limited are furniture designers first and foremost, but as they’re also huge audiophiles their newest line, Symbol Audio, might just be their biggest indulgence yet. So far there are three products in the line, the consumer friendly Tabletop HIFI, a luxe set of subwoofers that can plug into everything from your iPhone to your record player, the LP Storage Cabinet, which has two CD/DVD drawers and four pull-down storage bins that can hold up to 640 LPS, and the flagship of the line, the Modern Record Console.

With vinyl record sales doubling every year since 2008, Tovin and Richmond think it’s high time the all-in-one record player console came back on the market. But the MRC isn’t for your average vinyl enthusiast; The electronics on this player are serious business. Open the lid and feast your eyes on “a hand built tube amplifier and turntable set into patinated steel plates” that merge analog sound with a modern wireless system. “Tucked out of view into the steel base is a second dedicated amplifier and subwoofer designed to extend the low end frequency and provide added richness to the sound. For the convenience of streaming digital music. just switch the selector from turntable to WiFi and stream from any digital source through the built-in wireless router.”

The same level of detail is paid to the exterior, which is made from solid American Walnut that rests on a steel base. The entire console in made and assembled by hand in the US, but unlike the comparably affordable-ish Tabletop HIFI ($1,800) and the LP Storage Cabinet ($2,750 – $5,250), the MRC will run you about $15,000.

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When we checked-in with our student designers this Saturday at WantedDesign, they had just started on their challenge with the straight-forward parameters: make a light using laser-cut acrylic and 3M-donated films. Students representing six design schools from the United States and France were hard at work sketching, modeling and exchanging ideas on how to best execute forms and functionalities with the given materials. Participating schools are Art Center College of Design, Parsons The New School for Design, Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), ENSCI les ateliers, Ecole Boulle and Ecole supérieure d’art et design Saint-Etienne.

After 24-hours of building models, students from all six schools presented and were then mixed and matched based on their individual ideas. The next phase of the project: overcoming language barriers to build a final lighting concept incorporating the ideas from the full project team. Read our exclusive interview with Student Design Challenge instigator, Fran çois Brument.

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We’re pleased to present an abridged version of “20 Years of Kikkerland,” a print piece commemorating their ‘Vicennial’ anniversary on the occasion of the ICFF, courtesy of our friends at the Dutch-via-NYC design company. Founder Jan van der Lande was happy to indulge us with the inside scoop on particularly memorable moments of the past two decades, adding a few anecdotes to the comprehensive chronology.

A houseboat on the Hudson river on the Upper West Side of Manhattan was the home of Jan van der Lande and Kazumi Hayama and it became the (home) office for Kikkerland when Jan incorporated the business in 1992.

As the name implies (Kikkerland is a nickname for the Netherlands, and literally means frogland), the original focus of the company was to import and distribute Dutch Design. Being that there are a lot of houseboats and water in Holland, the boat was the perfect starting place for Kikkerland.

A basement on the Upper West Side served as a storage and shipping facility, and many of the clients were in New York City, so in the early days, Jan delivered most orders personally, by bike. This was the base of operations for Kikkerland from 1992 until 1995.

Bottle opener (1994) designed by Gert Jan Vogel

After studying agriculture and environmental studies, Jan changed course completely and started working at the design store Gallery 91 in Soho (1989–1991). He learned a lot about the design business there and met a number of designers.

Jan also had friends from Holland who were active in the design world. Dick Dankers and Cok de Rooy from the Frozen Fountain and Rob Dashorst from Daskas introduced him to many other designers and products from Holland. In fact, Jan has represented independent self-producing designers since 1987.

During his research and scouting trips to Holland, Jan met many designers who had recently finished art school, such as Hella Jongerius, Richard Hutten and others. It led Kikkerland to start importing their designs to the USA.

Jan helped produce the “Mouse Lamp,” designed by Martha Davis and Lisa Krohn, during his years at Gallery 91. These lamps turned out to be a precursor to Kikkerland: besides their design sensibility, these lamps foreshadowed things that define the company today: originality, humor, affordability, and environmental concern.

The “V Vase,” designed by Rob Dashorst, was one of the early successes for Kikkerland. Jan and Rob went to the same kindergarten in Holland, so they had known each other for a long time! Originally Rob wanted Kikkerland to produce these vases in the United States to save on shipping, but it turned out to be a bit more complicated than expected, so they ended up being imported from Holland.

Prior to this catalog (left)—printed in black & white except for the cover—the promotional material was photocopied, and handed out in combination with color photos. With the first color catalog in 1997 (right), Kikkerland was starting to become a real company! There would be one more Xeroxed catalog after this one, but from then on, the catalogs were printed in full color. Kikkerland relies on these semi-annual catalogs, as well as tradeshows, web sites, and packaging for promotion.

“Duck Mirror” by David Dear

In the late 1980’s and early 90’s, many designers produced and distributed their designs in small quantities for design stores and museum stores. One of those stores, Mxyplyzyk in the West Village of Manhattan, was a client of Kikkerland and became an important source of information. Owner Kevin Brynan introduced Jan to a number of the designers whose products he sold in his store. (Later on, he joined Jan on several scouting trips to Asia and even now reports trends from the retail perspective to Kikkerland.)

In 1996 he introduced Jan to Chico Bicalho, who, in turn, introduced him to former classmates at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) David Dear and Jozeph Forakis. These seemingly small events turned out to have a big influence on the direction and success of Kikkerland.

The “Flip Clock” by Michael Daniel, who was another connection made through Kevin from Mxyplyzyk. Michael used to produce these robot clocks by hand with existing flip clock mechanisms. The factory that made those mechanisms burned down in the 1970s and so they were no longer produced. The whole mechanism needed to be retooled for Kikkerland production.

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Furniture designer Tamara Petrovic is one half of 0 TO 1—a studio that she and architect Garner Oh founded in 2009—but she presides over their showing for NY Design Week at Con Artist NYC. Called Industrial + Industrial, the exhibition is the result of a project to create design objects from the remnants of industrial manufacturing.

Petrovic came up with many clever design solutions by making simple alterations to materials like felt, cork and cardboard. Fruit Play is a fruit plate made from a thick slab of cork with holes cut out in different sizes. Bright fruit not only looks great in contrast with the natural brown cork, but the softness of the material and the size of the holes ensure that the fruit makes minimal contact with the container, “extending fruit shelf life and staging each piece openly.”

Snowflakes is a series of trivets and coasters made by stringing felt balls together in a circle. Flowers also repurposes wool felt, this time into a set of hairpins, but the real standouts are Cylinder 14 and Cylinder 16, two chairs made from recycled cardboard cores that were once used as rolls to wrap fabric or packaging materials. The challenge here was to “reuse the material and reveal its intrinsic beauty.”

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