Designer | Ingrid Anderson

Oh I love these oversized graphics and shapes of these bags from Ingrid Anderson. Lots of great patterns to choose from. If you look closely at these images you will remember what summer feels like . . . . .

Designer | Erica Munro

Clever use of discarded coffee bean sacks - lamps and cushions from Erica Munro

Aldo Londi Ceramics

My parents are moving so we were having fun going through their things over the holidays. Most of our old family posessions are either Indian or Scottish but my dad(who is really my step dad, his name is Gilbert) spent many years in Italy when he was in his 20s. He has very good taste and some of his Italian momentos are quite fabulous including this amazing lamp designed and produced by Aldo Londi for Bitossi in Milan. Gilbert says he bought it in 1963 in Milan at La Rinascente department store for about $20.These pieces are very valuable in todays market and what's even funnier is Anthropologie is selling reproductions - who knew?

This lamp is very big and heavy and absolutely covered from top to bottom in the stamped markings that are typical of Aldo Londis work. Part of the collection was a set of animals that are very close in design to Jonathon Adler's animals. Thought you might find this interesting  :-)

These are not my images, they are from here - I forgot to take photos of Gilbert's lamp!

Storage Solutions

We have a lot of stuff - do you? I don't mind having a lot of stuff as long as it's all got somewhere to go. I am a big fan of vintage cupboards. I fill them with a lot of our paper stuff. I love seeing other creative solutions especially when the storage becomes part of the display . . . . 

All images from Country Living, Living etc and Domino.

Design |  Stephen Falcke

I think they're baskets. Image from here via here.

Window Shopping | Knack

I like these. From the clever people at Knack

Illustration Update

Remember I showed you this drawing that Doug was working on in August? I really loved it - it is part of a publication that he was working on throughout the summer. Well - he is very excited today because this illustration plus the cover illustration are winners in this year's Society of Iillustrators of Los Angeles juried competition and show. I am very proud of him!

The competition is always very stiff in the illustration world but I just knew there was something special about this series of illustrations that he was working on. The juried show will be at the Gallery Nucleus in LA starting March - maybe we'll go - how fun!

New online retailer | Roddy and Ginger

Saw these pretty things on Bloesem the other day and wanted to share them with you - we're all about textile prints today!

Studios | Galbraith and Paul

I was excited to see these images of the Galbraith and Paul Studios on their site. For anyone who is interested in textile design and block printing it's a great resource. Very generous of them to share their work space and process with us all.

You can see the rest of their collection and lots more great images at their site right here.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Just a short post today - I'll be back in full form on Monday next week! 

I spent some time with family over the last week and I was talking to my dad about design. My dad has a background in publishing,among other things, and we got talking about when he went to Scandinavia in the early 70's to meet with textile producers in preparation for redesigning the publishing facilllities at Collins, the publishers(now Harper Collins), in Glasgow. The reason we were talking about this is because my mum had recently found a bunch of samples of Marimekko fabric that he had brought home with him from their design house in Helsinki - and I was interested to see how similar the Marimekko designs from 1975 are to their current collections. Here's what I found on line:

It has taken me a long time to come to terms with design from the 1970's. I'd like to talk some more about this in the near future(maybe we could have design therapy for any of us who were teenagers of the 70's) - I'm sure I'm not the only one who has a love hate relationship with anything orange and brown(mosty hate!) Marimekko makes it seem so much more sophisticated than I remember - how about you?