The Eames House

Case Study House No. 8 was designed and built by Charles and Ray Eames as part of the Case Study House Program in the 1940’s. The aim of these 36 Case Study prototype homes was to come up with plans for post-war homes that were easy and cheap to build. Located in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles, the Eames house is a simple structure using the limited materials available at the time. A home designed for work and family life; it has plenty of light, a modern feel, modular furnishings that can be moved around (even the plants are on a platform with wheels) so the whole room can be reconfigured at any time. Objects collected by the Eames over the years are displayed and incorporated throughout. Just below center in this photograph of the Eames living room is a pile of three pillows which inspired my #2293 floor pillows.

Charles and Ray Eames in their living room, as photographed by Julius Shulman in 1958. Photo: J. Paul Getty Trust.

47 textiles today

 

Photos from 47 textiles today.

One week left! It’s your very last chance to catch this exhibition at Hikarie in Shibuya. Presented by D&Department project, this exhibition showcases textiles from across 47 prefectures in Japan. Link represents the prefecture of Kanagawa, where Link furoshiki are hand-printed. What a great idea, and it is a great privilege to be included!

47 textiles today

Start : 21st, November 2013

Close : 2nd, February 2014
Opening time : 11:00〜20:00
Address : 8F 2-21-1 Shibuya Shibuyaku Tokyo 〒150-8510

Link – at the Centre Pompidou.

‘Objects’, ‘Folded Paper’ and ‘Dots’ Link furoshiki are now available at Centre Pompidou in Paris! http://www.centrepompidou.fr/

Quill

“#2 of our top ten treats for mums… A silk-cotton furoshiki cloth to wear as a scarf, tie into a spring-time bag (below) and plenty more ideas in store. Don’t forget – use code LOVE10 for a special 10% off until 8th March.”

http://www.quilllondon.com/home-office-desk-accessories/furoshiki.html

I used to be a design student.

I was very disappointed to have missed the launch party of the book ‘I used to be a design student’ held in London on Feb 18th. Sadly I am too far away and couldn’t just hop on a bus to Camberwell, like I used to for three years of my student life.

The authors of ‘I used to be a design student’ are two of my graphic design contemporaries, Frank Philippin and Billy Kiosoglou. I was invited to contribute to this study of 50 designers, comparing the life & work from their students days with their life & work of today. I have yet to see a copy first hand but with a selection of designers from Margaret Calvert and Ken Garland to Daniel Eatock and James Goggin, it has to be pretty fascinating reading!

‘I used to be a design student’ is published by Laurence King 2013.

On Design Week Feb 5th 2013.

Update … Link

 

It’s February 2013 already, and this blog has been so neglected!

There’s been a lot of activity amongst the Link collective since I last wrote. 2012 has been busy! We saw the introduction of Link’s popular leather carry strap (designed and handmade by director Kyoko), some beautiful work from a new collaborator in London, Hannah Waldron, who also presented with Kyoko at PechaKucha Night in Tokyo. A fresh collection of new furoshiki designs and colours, and some really great photos from photographer Martin Holtkamp.  An interview with Link’s printers was published online by spoon-tamago in July, giving a rare look behind the scenes. To end the year, Winter colours were released and Kyoko flew to New York where she ran a small Link furoshiki workshop.

2013 is already underway, keep your eye’s peeled for more …

How to build a city.

I love this work by at swim-two-birds. Collage made from paper trash, then embroidered. Beautiful.

Wrap yourselves up in love.

Link furoshiki are still for sale at Plastica, Etsy and Loopto.

Retna wall.

One of the things I kept from a magazine was this photo of a wall in a parking lot. I thought it was quite beautiful and found out more about it here. This work is by Retna as part of ‘Wallworks’ – a project inviting a select group of graffiti artists to create a series of murals in the parking lot of the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas in December 2010.

Little seeds.

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted something. I guess I’ve been pretty distracted by various other things – ongoing projects, clearing, reorganising, reviewing, school, impending arrival of a new baby and so on. Yesterday I was throwing out some old magazines and found a few things of interest which I cut out and stuck into my sketch book. Things that interest me but I can’t always pin-point why, so I stick them in my notebook for future reference. I realised how liberating it is having a ‘physical’ sketch book to make notes in, draw and stick things down. Unlike posting things on a blog, where the desire is to share and have a ‘conversation’ about something (with that underlying pressure of presenting things that you hope will also be of interest to other people), in my sketchbooks I have complete freedom, knowing that I will be the only one to look through them. Unfortunately I’m not as much of an avid sketchbooker as I used to be, in fact more often than not these days I almost entirely forget about them. But when I get the chance to look through and review my visual thought process – in between many pages that leave me wondering why – I can always find something to inspire me. Those little ideas, little experiments, little seeds of things to come.

Print Textile Festival of cocca 2010

Photos from www.cocca.ne.jp.

Recently I sent some work to Tokyo, to my favourite printed textile store, cocca. They were inviting work for a summer competition: ‘Print Textile Festival of cocca 2010’. I feel very excited and honoured to discover that I have been awarded two prizes for my work – a Jury Prize, selected by Eguti Hiroshi (representative of a bookshop UTRECHT in Nakameguro) and cocca Special Prize “seeing Japan from abroad”.

There will be an exhibition, from Tuesday 24 to Sunday 29 of August, displaying the prize winners works at their shop in Daikanyama. If you’re in Tokyo please check it out!

Special thanks to my friend Jun for helping me out with translating all correspondence. x

At last … LINK is officially announced!

After lots of work, we are very excited to officially announce the launch of our limited edition furoshiki!

Two original designs, hand-printed in Japan on 100% cotton. Please take a look at our site: http://thelinkcollective.com/.

Keitaro Sugihara

I just discovered some beautiful work by Keitaro Sugihara.

Coming soon …

Recently I’ve been very busy working on a new project that we’ve named ‘LINK’.

Established with a good friend in Tokyo, LINK is a collective that produces collaborative textiles and design from around the world. With so many things to prepare and consider, while juggling work and our busy lives as parents, it’s been a long time coming …

but finally, very soon, LINK’s first product will be available – our limited edition furoshiki (traditional Japanese wrapping cloth) in two designs – one design by Hennie Haworth (a British illustrator) and the other is by me!

We will soon announce the launch of our new website showing when and where you can find our furoshiki, in the meantime please join LINK on facebook for updates!

Drawings

Some drawings inspired by an exercise found in a Mind Workout book that I was browsing recently during Aya’s piano lesson.

Work in progress

We just received a photo from our printer in Tokyo showing our new project in progress … I’m very excited. I’ll announce more about it very soon!

Marimekko

What can I say … I’ve always loved Marimekko, but these things … well, they’re beautiful! Both porcelain plate and teapot are designed by Sami Ruotsalainen for the In Good Company collection.

Tokyo Project 08

Osborn Shoes

Osborn Shoes – designed in Brooklyn by Carla Venticinque-Osborn & Aaron Osborn, these very unique shoes are handcrafted by artisans in Guatemala City. The fun and beautiful fabrics range from hand blocked Kente cotton fabric, to thick woven cotton from India and almost certainly some Guatemalan fabrics in there too. Wow.

Aiko

I’m not a big fan of tie-dye, but I think this sweatshirt by Aiko is beautiful.