Hasta La Ideas

Guest post from the Liz Kinnmark and Kegan Fisher of Design Glut.

A special sort of bonding happens between Gift Fair exhibitors. People come together when they undergo extreme circumstances such as natural disasters and trade shows. Before dismantling our booth on Thursday, we were unexpectedly sad. We were going to the miss hanging out in the booth we’d built and chatting with all our newly-made friends.

Luckily one of those new friends, Karl Zahn, came by with the mallet from his Simple Series and helped us start breaking down our booth before we could get too mushy and nostalgic about it.

The New York International Gift Fair, or NYIGF, happens twice a year at the Javitz Center on 34th and 11th. The Javitz is a huge beast of a building which poses the question, “How could they make an entire building out of glass and have no windows?” From the inside there is no way to gauge the passage of time. The awful lighting flickers above you. You give the same spiel about your products over and over and over again. You drink too much coffee. You start to go a little nuts.

So how do you survive the Gift Fair?

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(Photos: Phyllis Ross)

Watch out if, like us, you’ve been known to scour 1stdibs for biomorphic coffee tables, chunky nightstands, and swooping art deco lamps by Gilbert Rohde. The influential yet not terribly well-known designer gets his close-up this spring in Gilbert Rohde: Modern Design for Modern Living (Yale University Press), a monograph by Phyllis Ross that traces Rohde’s career at Herman Miller in the 1930s and 1940s, his bold experiments with materials such as Plexiglas, and his innovative merchandising schemes. The book, which judging by the cover (pictured above, at right) would look dynamite on any coffee table, isn’t due out until April, but New Yorkers can get a sneak preview on February 10. That evening, Ross will lecture at the Museum of the City of New York, where a couple of Rohde’s designs (including the table pictured above) are on view in the “Paris/New York: Design Fashion Culture 1925-1940” exhibition. We hear that the exhibition will be open especially for program attendees before the discussion, so reserve your tickets now and get there early.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media

Check out Core77’s event coverage of Cologne Design Festival in one easy-to-browse place:

» Cologne Design Festival 2009: IMM: d3 Design Talents

» Cologne Design Festival 2009: More Design from the Rhine

» Cologne Design Festival 2009: IMM: Atelier van Lieshout

» Cologne Design Festival 2009: Passagen: Global Street Food

» Cologne Design Festival 2009: IMM & Passagen

VIDEOS:

» Cologne Design Festival 2009: Peter Freund: Nightwriter

» Cologne Design Festival 2009: Nils Wodzak: Mirror Iron Board Closet

» Cologne Design Festival 2009: Jennifer Heier: Relegs Chair

» Cologne Design Festival 2009: Stephan Landschuetz: Sporthocker

» Cologne Design Festival 2009: Mirror in Mirror & Bendy Coat Stand

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The interior innovation award cologne, which is a regular feature at IMM Cologne, honours the most outstanding innovations. The partner and organiser of this competition is the Rat fuer Formgebung (German Design Council), the German competence centre for design, which confers such prizes as the German Design Award. This year, about 250 companies submitted their innovations to compete for the interior innovation award. Arik Levy won the “best of the best system” category for his ARIE shelf system produced by E15. Also shown above are Reinhard Dienes Diaz foldable stool series JUAN, PEDRO AND PABLO (made from pliable plastic (PP)) and Els Woldheks BASTARD chair, created with the leftover trash leather from the factory – both participants in the d3 contest.

For the fourth time creative newcomers presented their ideas and concepts as part of the d3 design talents at the IMM Cologne. This newcomers forum is made up of the three events d3 contest, d3 professionals and d3 schools and culminates in the d3 contest. Shown above are the three winners of the “Inspired by Cologne” prize: A thirsty Pepe Heykoop who won the first prize for his RESTLESS CHAIRACTER (a chair with flexible rubber joints to increase its comfort and playfulness), Philippe Malouin who came second with his inflatable GRACE table and Jacob Brink who got the third prize for his CLARK desk (which only gets its full formal identity and functionality by the items stored on it).

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We’re inquisitive: learning from other artists, illustrators, designers, photographers, filmmakers and musicians, whether they’re upstarts or icons, famous or shy, verbal or visual.

We’re inspired: enchanted by great ideas and strange inventions; by colour and pattern; things fancy and frugal; the charm of vintage in a modern life; the ridiculous and the sublime.

We’re adventurous: traveling to destinations both real and imagined, peeking into creative spaces and discovering magnificent people and memorable places.

We’re eclectic: curating souvenirs, collecting treasures and celebrating the extraordinary in the everyday.

We’re playful: delighting in visual amusements, intelligent distraction, entertaining wordplay and sweet indulgences.

We’re UPPERCASE: a magazine for the creative and curious!

This quarterly magazine is 68 pages of glorious print on paper, 8.75″ x 11″ perfectbound. The Spring issue will be released in early April followed by Summer (July 2009), Fall (October 2009) and Winter (January 2010).

Read all about the project and how you can subscribe, participate and advertise on the Magazine sidebar at right.

Cover illustration courtesy Blanca Gómez, Madrid.
Thank you so much, Blanca!