The London Design Festival‘s newest show, designjunction, can be overwhelming – it’s spread across four vast floors of The Old Sorting Office on London’s New Oxford Street and features everything from independent designer makers to the big brands. This year, armed with a strategy to see it all, I absolutely loved it – without doubt my favourite show at LDF14. Above is HAM – with a new collection of mugs featuring founder Jo Ham’s trademark bunnies engaging in yet more uniquely human activities, including wine-tasting, window-cleaning and wall-decorating.
Fashion design brand David David launched new wallpaper featuring the same pattern as their site-specific installation in collaboration with Johnson Tiles at the V&A.
Zoe Tynan-Campbell of Stumped Studio was taking part in her first London Design Festival with her gorgeous “Hasbeens” made from wooden off-cuts and discarded furniture.
The lovely Kangan Arora was back with more Indian-inspired colours and patterns that remind her of home and bring a little subcontinental sunshine to London.
Richard Brendon‘s new collection Speck is a really interesting response to tiny ‘specks’ found in any bone china products due to the metal content of the clay – he has covered each one with a little copper dot, celebrating the imperfections of the handmade.
Ola London‘s stationery products are made in the UK using traditional craft techniques and each feature an original print designed by founder Katy Goutefangea.
German designer and illustrator, Natascha Maksimovic has taken sections of her film-inspired illustrations and applied them to homeware products like fabrics, wallpaper and accessories, creating her first collection and a new brand to watch: Nat Maks.
I have loved Lindsay Lang‘s work since she launched at Pulse London a few years ago and it’s been really interesting to watch the brand evolve. She is now very much focusing on tiles and her new collection is beautiful. She told me she has five really exciting things happening soon, but she couldn’t tell me any more than that, so watch this space!
As of designjunction, Lovely Pigeon has become Tom Pigeon to reflect the joining of founder Kirsty Thomas’ husband, also a designer. His input can be seen in their new collection, which is Lovely Pigeon, but somehow tighter, more restrained, perhaps slightly more masculine. I’m a big fan of Kirsty’s work, so I was anxiously awaiting this collection, but it’s a triumph.
I have already written about new Indian brand Tiipoi because they were also exhibiting at Home London, but I couldn’t do a round-up of my favourite finds at designjunction without including them – they are a really exciting new brand working with cutting-edge Indian manufacturing to produce utilitarian homewares out of luxury materials.
And finally, designjunction worked with 19 leading designers, asking them to customise Ercol chairs and Anglepoise lamps, which are being auctioned online to raise money for Teddy’s Wish, a charity which funds research into the causes of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).You have until 28 September 2014 to get your bid in. A beautiful installation for a worthy cause and it’s nice to see designjunction continuing to work with charities in this way.
Further reading for the especially geeky:
- out and about :: 100{ff546b69e23b1524d799f96c6ba7a638e1f677053b0a2a1568b05315fd5f8fc7} norway, LDF14
- out and about :: home london, LDF14
- out and about :: tent london, LDF14
- out and about :: guide to the london design festival 2014
