Hasta La Ideas

Stockholm 2012: London designer Samuel Wilkinson presents a table with legs that are sharpened like pencils at the Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair, which opens today.

Created for Danish brand &tradition, the Hoof range is named after the way horses hoofs are trimmed before they are shod.

Each table is painted before the ends of the legs are trimmed, in contrast to the normal practice of masking the area to be left bare and then painting over the top.

Samuel Wilkinson is part of the design team behind the Plumen 001 designer light bulb, which won last year’s Design of the Year prize at London’s Design Museum. Watch our interview with the designers here.

Stockholm Design Week continues until 12 February and Dezeen are reporting from the event – see our coverage here.

Here are some more details from Samuel Wilkinson:

The main inspiration for the HOOF tables starts from the foot detail.

I have always loved painted wooden chairs that have the end of the legs left as natural wood so that the paint doesn’t chip off from being either kicked or knocked when cleaning. The leg ends of the table are sharpened at the foot – like a horse’s hoof is trimmed before it is shod. This detail is emerged fromcontinuous explorationand development of production techniques.

The fine edge is created from the soft chamfer on the top and bottom. This gives the tables a tactile feel and clearly shows the solid wood construction. The foot detail is created by reversing the usual production process; most furniture details, which have a painted section and a natural part, are assembled, masked off, and then painted. Hoof will be painted first, then cut back. This detail also reminiscent of a knife trimmed pencil.

The new table is presented in five colours: grey, black, natural, white-pigmented oil and light blue.

Hoof is produced in solid oak with a deep brushed surface. It comes in a natural as well as painted issue and in two different sizes: 500x500mm/900x400mm

Vidal Erkohen finds inspiration in Ottoman tile patterns in his newest limited edition eyewear collection

For Turkish companies RVS and the Iznik Foundation, heritage is everything. Vidal Erkohen of RVS eyewear made his name by collecting vintage glasses, starting with his father’s. “I remember one trip that [my father] came back from Italy wearing a folding pair of Persols, and I fell in love with the character the frames gave him,” Erkohen told us in a video we made with him earlier this year. Inspired by the quality he found in the vintage frames he began collecting and selling, Vidal decided to launch his own line of acetate glasses, which are hand-made in Istanbul.

Now he’s teamed up with an unlikely but brilliant bedfellow, the Iznik Foundation, which is dedicated to reviving Ottoman quartz tile-making, a millennia-old artform that was lost for hundreds of years.

Erkohen’s handmade glasses are known for their vivid colors and signature styling; the Iznik Collection brings a taste of Islamic tile to the world of couture accessories. With each item hand-inspected by Erkohen himself—the collaboration is limited to only 20 pieces of each of the seven sun and optical styles.

The frames are available for $599 at RVS by V stockists worldwide.

Woodblock printing, skate decks and cult horror come together in a new show at the Mark Moore Gallery

We’ve been following Kenichi Yokono for a while, and we’re continually impressed by the ingenuity the Tokyo-based artist brings to the table. Working in the tradition of Japanese woodblock printing, Yokono weaves anime and horror film influences into the classic form. His stark red and white woodcuts are immediately distinguishable, both for their boldness, and their unflinching depiction of death, sexuality and the paranormal—not to mention some are made from skateboard decks, a nod to his love for American skate culture. In part an expression of rage against the concept of kawaii (cuteness) in mainstream Japanese culture, Yokono’s raw figures devour the Hello Kitty stigma.

Yokono returns to the Mark Moore Gallery after his 2009 showing, with a new, partially-autobiographical exhibition, “Rise of the Underground,” alongside San Francisco artist Jeremy Fish, who has produced his own set of woodcuts. Fish’s work is vibrant and playful, using animal figures to communicate tales from popular folklore and myth. The highly-stylized wood paintings show influences from pop art and skate culture, pairing well with Yokono’s focus on contemporary life.

Yokono’s new work shows a lot of range, moving from the conventional to the cutting edge. “Falling Flower” is a traditional circular landscape, modernized with the presence of a highway. An intriguing set of woodblocks looks at scantily-dressed women in a dilapidated backyard, evoking feelings of confusion, lethargy and dislocation. Whatever the subject, Yokono is uncompromising in his attention to detail and dedication to the emotional integrity of the piece. “Rise of the Underground” will be at the Mark Moore Gallery in Los Angeles from 29 October-17 December 2011.

Stunning simplicity in a container highlighting the beauty of vertically-cut wood

Deceptively simple looking, a single Karmi tea canister can take artisans over a year to complete. Manufacturer Syosen, based in Yamanaka (a region known as much for its traditional lacquerware, as for its natural thermal baths), crafts their products following a half-century-old lathing technique. Carving a perfectly-rounded cup or bowl involves precisely thinning the wood, followed by several rounds of lacquering (clear in this case) and extended drying times to ensure a bone-dry core. The technique leaves the natural beauty of the vertically-cut wood grain exposed, creating a muddled elongated effect.

The extensive Yamanaka process came to rise during the Edo period along with the art of the tea ceremony thanks to the area’s bohemian inhabitants (including the father of haiku Basho Matsuo), drawn there by the hot springs. The Syosen canister even takes its name from the Basho principle of haiku that mandates “only local.”

All this heritage makes for an heirloom-quality vessel representing some of the best principles of Japanese product design. Carved with perfectly-spaced, finely-engraved rings, the thermos-like container will stand up to everyday use while preserving the contents within. The result of the intensive processes and highly-engineered lid, interior air quality keeps loose tea and spices (or anything needing a fresh and dry space) at the ready.

The full range of Karmi tea canisters shown above can be seen at the Syosen website. Family-run “eco boutique” Beklina sells the light wood edition for $220.

The rounded wooden legs and tops of these stools by Norm Architects of Denmark are joined by brass or steel tubes.

Called Raft, the collection for design brand &tradition comprises stools in sand-blasted oak or stained ash, plus a table with the same material combinations.

More furniture on Dezeen »

The information below is from the designers:

The Raft Table and Raft stools blend the roughness of natural materials, aging with beauty, with the industrial efficiency of metal structures.

With a contemporary Scandinavian approach to the drift wood inspiration, the table and stools are unique pieces of furniture that combine simplistic purity and a discreetly sensuous look.

The sandblasted surface of the table top adds a patinated feel, while the triple legs of round wood has the playful appearance of a living creature in motion.

And the rounded edges beneath the tabletop or seat makes for a soft and pleasant feel when the hand touches the table.

Materials:

Lacquered steel or brass with legs of sandblasted solid oak or black stained ash. Top in sandblasted solid oak, white laminate or black ash laminate.

See also:

.

Series One by Another Country	Chair by Glass Hill	Stools by Superfolk