Wood Meets Plastic

I know that as someone who appreciates product design and supports hand made items and their makers I am probably supposed to consider IKEA the enemy but it is definitely a guilty pleasure for me. You have to admit that they do come out with some gems. I love this red plastic chair inspired by a familiar wooden chair design.

CORIUMI

The beautiful work space of makers Inga and Arvydas of Lithuanian Etsy store CORIUMI.

Internship

I've just started an internship at Makers & Brothers and I am completely in love with the loft office we work in. It's so bright and airy and those strawberries were so delicious.

Day Trip

A couple of weekends ago my boyfriend and I took a day trip to Blackrock because the Makers & Brothers duo, Jonathan and Mark Legge, were having an open house in their shop aka "the shed".

Next to the shed, James Carroll, one of the shop's makers, was doing a carving doing a carving demonstration. He was carving legs for his stools.

The inside of the shed had all of the beautiful objects for sale. I loved the brown paper and string hanging on dowels ready for gift wrapping. There was also delicious lemon cake and elder juice to snack on while admiring the items on the shelves.

My boyfriend took some time to say hello to the Legge family dog.

The swing by Toys Pure was hung up to be tried out. The shed is tucked in a shady corner of the Legge brothers' family property. I love the lights strung up between the trees and the old stone buildings. It feels like a secret garden.


I wasn't able to leave without buying something so I bought an enamel tumbler by Falcon Enamelware in the beige and grey combo. I think I'm going to plant a small succulent or cactus in it.

Geometric

Beautiful make-up bag from Munich based label Lara Kazis. Such an amazing shape and texture.

Details

Task Lamp by Owen Read(here), ceramic and cherry.

Waxed Canvas

Waxed canvas bags by HOI BO

Playing with Paper Folding

Page from a Book

Material Revolution Sustainable and Multi-Purpose Materials for Design and Architecture by Sascha Peters.

Memory hood, an abstraction of human emotion, designed 

by Max Schath. 

Pattern

Sven Markelius, Pythagoras textile produced by Ljungbergs Textilyck for Nordiska Kompaniet, 1952

Wiener Werkstatte fabric designs c.1910

Vanessa Bell, White printed on linen, Omega Workshops, 1913

Roger Fry, Amenophis printed on linen, Omega Workshops, 1913

Busy busy busy

It's coming up to the end of semester and I'm busy finishing all of my projects. I always have trouble committing to an idea so I always end up changing my project multiple times before the due date. As usual I've waited until it is nearly due to really commit to a concept and apply myself to putting it down on paper. Just like every semester I will do eighty percent of the work in the final two weeks. The rush at the deadline is all part of the fun of being a design student I suppose.


The photos are of my dining room table at the moment; covered in water colour paints and floor plans as I render my presentation drawings. There are also some beautiful white lilies that my boyfriend gave me for our anniversary on the table. They continue to look fresh into the wee hours of the morning when I am looking less than my best.

Some School Work

Hand painted graphic on wood veneer. 

 Corner binding with chicago screw

Material intentions 

Preliminary planning 

Site sketches

This is a research book that I did for my studio class. I'm designing a music venue with a restaurant and a small store. This booklet was just some of my first thoughts about site, programme, location, materials and branding. The book is 5"x7" so it's nice and small. I was really happy with how it turned out.

Doodles

I'm working on an assignment for school and these are some doodles I did trying to work out where I was going with the project.

The Tactility of Textiles

Lately I'm inspired by textile design. I love the colours, textures and warmth that are possible in textiles that are made by hand. These are a few stitch studies that I've re-posted from Karen Barbe's blog of her own textile designs and inspirations. Her blog is here if you would like to take a look.

The Smell of New Notebooks

This week was appropriately cool making it really feel like fall and it made me even more in the mood for back to school. I started a new semester this week and have three new exciting design projects on the go. Hope fully I'll have some sketches to post soon.


I'm excited to break into my new clean notebooks and sketchbooks with my new pack of pens and my nicely sharpened pencils. In a strange way fall is like a new beginning even though it's really the end of the summer.


I hope you all enjoy your weekends and the last few warm days before fall truly arrives.

Tactile Way Finding by Haptic Lab

Haptic Lab are a relatively new group started in part by architect Emily Fischer. The quilts are part of a project called Soft-Maps which was an academic experiment inspired by Emily's mother who started to lose her vision. The quilts were an experiment in tactile way finding, using the quilt as a tool for someone to orient themselves.


I love the meeting of the graphics of cartography with textile design. I find that maps bring with them memories of locations and that combined with the warmth of a quilt and the emotions that go with a quilt made by hand make this project such a beautiful combination of ideologies. 

A Late-Summer Morning

This morning I was having trouble getting out of bed to go to work. School is starting soon and there is an impending busy-ness that comes with that. Today I just wanted to hang out in my apartment and listen to music and read a book.


Two things managed to turn my mood around this morning. One was a delicious mini watermelon that was as tasty as it was colourful. The second was my new tote from Bookhou that I picked up this weekend from the store on Dundas West. While I was in the shop I got to meet Piper and Lliam who I see so often on the bookhou at home blog.


I'm looking forward to fall, the sweaters and scarfs and warm tea all make it my favourite season, but for the first time I can remember I'm also feeling a little bit of sadness at seeing what was a wonderful summer come to an end. I know there are still plenty of hot summer-y days ahead but the evenings have begun to cool off, a sure sign of fall on the way.