My London Design Festival 2013

A year on and the London Design Festival came to my doorstep again. As this is a tradition now, I attended both '100% Design' and 'Tent'. I just must see what is happening in the world of design...

My personal favourite came in a form of a simple understanding of light, reflection and colour in Elizabeth Walker's eye-catching wall piece.

The combination of all three aspects topped up with hours of hard work, Elizabeth, a graduate from University of Buckinghamshire (I hope I am not mistaken by the name of the collage) specialising in surface design, was certainly at the right place at 100% Design.

Displaying only one panel (given by the limited space allowed to collages), Elizabeth reveals the entire piece by a photograph underneath. However this one piece was enough for me to stop and admire her work...

Diving closer for a photograph, it finally became clear to me how this is done.

The original structure has not higher/lower surface, it is all one level. By a clever placement of colour pieces into appropriate cells (or shall we call them pixels), an image is created.

A point to note, Elizabeth used only 6 colours, the primary ones. Also, what I really like here is how this piece ties scientific (the law of physics), digital (braking image into pixels) and craft (hand-made piece and skill) world into one.

I would say, this is another example of something becoming so effective through simplicity...

'Furniture Magpies' and their stand took me back few years, back to my study years when recycling was the thing...

When you step back, you suddenly begin to see where the original material came from. This all is expressed so well by the company belief: We don't believe in good furniture going to landfill when it can be redesigned into pieces that people can love all over again.

A top desk of a table becomes a rocking horse, wool is reused into a knitted/crocheted lampshades or table/chair legs become a table top...

By cutting alongside the length of various table/chair legs, an interesting texture is revealed, a 3D object is flattened and when reattached together makes a new object, a new piece of furniture.

It is also becoming a tradition that when at 'Tent' I find Lizzie Mary Cullen and her stand. Every time, I am looking forward to seeing and admiring her skill and even this year I was not disappointed...

I was rewarded with a wall of colourful chalk drawing and of course a charming personality that Lizzie has.



As always, there was much more to see and admire and as usual, I have selected only a snipped from the sheer volume of exhibitors and locations that make London Design Festival so special. Also, leaving the writing of this post few days after my visit, I become more selective. One thing I have to say is that LDF never disappoints. K-)