Carol Mather pictured walking into her studio makes this stunning silverwork. I want one of those little dog necklaces.

Bedroom secrets

Ian Spencer, a Kennington born furniture designer makes these beautiful cabinets and tables with hidden compartments. Bedroom secrets was an idea Petra has been working around already... more about that soon - it's still a secret for now!

Another furniture designer in the yard is Cairn Young, here are a few pictures taken in his studio, including one of the storage unit designed for Sawaya Moroni where each unit glides open in a different directions - very cool, but really must be seen in action to enjoy the surprise effect.

Pullens Yards, South London craft community

Last weekend i discovered a well kept treasure in my own back yard. It wasn't literally my back yard, but the Pullens yards across the road i lived on when i first moved down to London, Penton Place SE11 (behind the urban grot of Elephant and Castle and the Woolworth Road). And having never moved very far I couldn't believe that in all this time I hadn't come across the art and craft studios of the beautiful Pullens buildings. Built in 1870 the Yards were purpose built with craftspeople and small traders in mind and represent an original Victorian example of live/work space as, orginally, each ground or first-floor workshop opened into one of the 2 flats situated behind it. So very homework in spirit.

The yards today include a couple of small publishers, including Can of Worms press who published the Borough Market Cookbook and Made in Southwark by photographer George Nicholson, who also has studios in the yard.

Miranda

Giles Miller, MA Product Design: "Miranda is a surface tile whose ‘hairs’ can be manipulated to create different shades in its surface. These shades can be used as a medium for illustration, communication or simply intriguing visual effect. Miranda is an adaptable wall mural measuring 3 square metres and composing of silicone wall base tiles with over 65,000 injection moulded polypropylene 'hairs' sitting in tiny ball and socket joints in the surface of the wall. These hairs can then be brushed in different directions rather like grass on a football pitch to create shades and patterns or images on the wall."

BMW Pixie- the depth of surface

Magdalena Schmid, MA Vehicle Design: "It is no longer about designing the surface of a car, but the values it represents as an object, not only for the users but also for the sociocultural infrastructure- a car for ‘cultural movement'.
My PIXIE concept aims to turn this condition of complexity into a positive mobility experience, moving you not only from A-B, but also in a theoretical way- changing your position within an ethical dimension towards recovering values that have become virtual in the last 10 years, like relationships, responsibility and active participation in society. I am approaching my design by translating the virtual back into an object/car whose main feature will be a different way of surfacing: by using porous structures to build the surface, I will achieve a bigger internal surface than on the outside, which will be used for functions like an evaporative cooling system. The architecture of the car will be updateable like software: the electric drive train is most likely to be out of date in a few years and therefore has to be easy to upgrade, by not integrating the battery in the hardware of the architecture. Fueling will no longer be just a matter of spending energy but creating an energy cycle, which keeps unused power available by using the existing infrastructure of streetlamps, creating an energy feedback."

RCA, IDE

These are just two of the many brilliant final projects presented by the Industrial Design Engineering students at the RCA show.
Chiyu Chen: "Hybrid2 is a proposal of a public bike hire scheme highly integrating the whole public transport system to generate energy and reduce the consumption of energy by applying the energy users generate from pedaling public bikes to feed Hybrid Buses (reducing the use of petrol engines which power electric motors), and by encouraging
people to cycle more through blurring the boundary between the unit of energy and the unit of money. The more energy you generate, the more credit, which can be used for other public transport means, you gain back as the offset. Thus, the value of Hybrid2 is actually the sum of the energy generated and the energy reduced."


Chris Holden: "Cool India is a night time cooling system which mixes high tech materials with traditional skills and techniques to create low power, low cost cooling solution. It has been devised for the Indian market and has the additional benefit of providing protection from mosquitoes in the same way as a traditional mosquito net. As an enterprise proposition a “kit of parts” has been designed to enable effective and high quality production of the system at a local level. Community groups manufacture the textile element of the net giving women the opportunity to work from home.

More RCA

Heather Orr, MA Textile Design: "I am fascinated by texture. By imitating various surfaces through the process of knit, combining contrasting textures and distorting scale and volume, I am able to create new surfaces which transform the simple silhouettes of my garments. This collection takes inspiration from animal skins, feathers and furs to create a flamboyant collection of one-off knitted garments with a sense of humour and a naive charm."

Ella Robinson, MA Mix Media Textiles Design: "My final collection utilises the texture and character of driftwood, contrasting its weathered, uneven and dull surface against the feminine softness and sheen of thread. Inspired by the British coast, with colour palettes coming from the urban environment of street art and graffiti, these interior and exterior pieces exploit my love of vibrant colour and pattern."

Chau Har Lee, MA Footwear Design

Volkswagen Conerto Concept Car

This is one of the projects, I saw at the RCA 2009 graduate show, that captivated me the most. I find the simplicity, the humor, the playfulness and the overall "clean goodness" of the design immensely inspiring.

Hong Yeo, MA Vehicle design: "We’ve stretched the limits of traditional manufacturing and traditional materials to the point where it is becoming repetitive and predictable. Cars designed today are beautiful in their own right; however, a lot of the excitement and passion is lost.

The biggest misconception about sustainable design today is that everyone is trying to cram in the latest and greatest technology and materials into an existing design. In reality, true sustainable design should start from the very beginning and carried until the end of its lifecycle. Materials should be easily dismantled and recycled by the user at the end of its lifecycle, which should lead to a much simpler, efficient way of manufacturing from the start.

The last bit of inspiration came from my love for Legos. Lego bricks are not made from the most sustainable material; however, you can buy a set of Legos from the 1960’s and it will fit perfectly onto a brand new one. In a way it is one of the most recycled products in the market today.

Sectioning the vehicle transformed the entire design. New innovations were made possible like the integrated suspension parts and customizable wheel configuration. What made it more interesting is that there was no paint involved. It was a solution in a very honest way, achieved by simplicity. The design could never be made possible by traditional methods, which allowed a new language to be born. Simplicity often leads to retro design, but because of the concept and philosophy behind it, it didn’t look retro at all.

A buyer can begin his life with a car as a short wheelbase two-seater, and it can be transformed into a new function by adding new sections or subtracting sections. At the end of the lifecycle it can be dismantled, sold, traded, or used as furniture. The sections can also be locally sourced as different regions have different sustainable materials and economy. Producing the car can be made by factories, which would have a reduced footprint, or at home. Building it yourself makes a connection to your car, rekindling that passion and love for cars.

In the end, a completely new type of vehicle was born. It was a big risk to do a project like this instead of a sleek sexy car, but it paid off. The responses have been nothing but positive from both non-car communities and car communities. It’s been honored by receiving the Pilkington Award for Best Design.

More than anything, what I am most proud of is the fact that it sends a positive message and re-energizes the joys of the car culture again. Measures of great automobile design are not seen through the bends of the sheetmetal, but from the thought and passion underneath it."

RCA, MA Textile Design

Wendy Marchbanks, MA Printed Textile Design: "A collection of interior pieces that have evolved from my reflection on childhood and a longing to nurture and cherish my childhood imagination."

Charlotte Linton, MA Printed Textile Design: "My collection is based around the wardrobe of a fictional character: a zoologist traveling around the world in the earlier part of the 20th century. The prints are eclectic and vibrant reflecting the pluralism of her life an travels."

Rebecca Lucraft, MA Mixed Media Textile Design:"My work is narrative, the tale of a journey yo a Bollywood film set. The characters and situations are ones encountered during the trip."

The Central Saint Martins MA Communication Design Exhibition

I popped along to the Central Saint Martins MA Communication Design Exhibition in support of my friend Rob Rae who lectures part of the course... and to see what these students were getting up to.

The subjects include Digital Media, Graphic Design, Photography and Illustration. The following are just a few of the illustrators whose work struck a chord with me.

Quentin Jones: "My work has centered around the question of what it means to be a female captured in image alone. Sometimes it is about human flesh, sometimes about masks and disguise, and sometimes about animal form. Collage and layering is key to my process and reflects my interest in the many facets that make up the characters in my work".



Dulun Zhang: "I’m interested in school bullying, the relationship between predator and pray, the contradiction between adult society and the fantasy world in adolescents’ minds. I used some of my digital characters as a start point for a series of drawings. I tend to use a figurative narrative to represent the relationships in bullying."

Loughborough University School of Art and Design

The last six posts were work selection from Loughborough University School of Art and Design. This was just a small selection to see more student work visit www.chameleon09.co.uk

Jenny Appleton, BA Printed Textiles: What does it mean to be British? The transition between antiquated traditionalism and developing, modern culture, focusing on the aesthetics of recognisable British Institutions.

Sarah Home, BA Multi-Media Textiles: Bordering on the bizarre, a fantastical exploration into the curious and mystical symbolism and behavior of the bird. A collection of intricately embroidered experimentations created through print, stitch and manipulation.

Lauren Barfoot, BA Printed Textiles: Paul Poiret was influenced by the Ballets Russes at the turn of the 20th century and his innovative east-meets-west style has captivated me. My concept focuses on the influential cultural events and the people that shaped fashion at this time. Constructing and engineering my prints ergonomically was a concept I developed when interning at McQueen and Zandra Rhodes.

Claire Smith, BA Printed Textile: Experimental printing, combining printing methods with hand painting techniques to create contemporary outcomes.

Danielle Saletes, BA Printed Textiles: mixing digital and hand-printed processes to create beautiful finished pieces which are all about colour and texture, a hand-drawn quality is also key to the look of my designs.

Sarah-Jayne Guest, BA Printed Textile: the collection combines a mass of eclectic imagery in explosive compositions to create excitingdesigns on both fabric and wood. The designs aim to provoke imaginative thought and memories within the viewer. The more you look the more you see.

Spotted on Bethnal Green road, these beautiful wheatpaste posters have some of the textures i've been thinking about for my textiles. I was back the next day on my way to the Loughborourgh Uni degree show (next posting) and the posters had already been taken down, I felt kinda smug they'd been caught just in time. There's plenty more great art where they came from at Subism.

Small interlude as we wait for a few more graduates to get back to us with pictures of their work. I took a look at what i'd been snapping these last few weeks and found these. We weren't allowed to take pictures at the Chelsea degree show, so i have a picture of a knitting machine. And some moss growing on a roof, reminiscent of the woolly designs hung indoors.