Nendo paired with the Czech glassmakers, Lasvit, to create a collection of hand-blown glass lighting and objects. This is Nendo’s first foray into the glass world and the pieces are quite beautiful. Each piece is unique with slight variations, as that’s the unpredictability of them being hand-blown. The forms are striking, yet elegant all while remaining simple in their overall shape.
Los Angeles-based earthnform designs a line of porcelain that is both sculptural and architectural. What’s unique about them is that they design the pieces from package material. If you think about how much plastic is produced and where it goes after you’ve opened whatever it is that you bought, it’s quite overwhelming. Well, earthnform wants to bring the issue to the surface while at the same time “producing functional pieces cast from found plastic.” By reusing the packaging material, they in turn, create art.
GDG Studios is the New Jersey-based design studio run by Joseph Gower who creates handmade porcelain objects with a contemporary twist. The Crochet and Styroware pieces are so unique and completely fun to stare at. I love the textures and shapes that he creates along with the added touches of gold or silver and even cotton.
London-based Minimalux has a collection of products made of copper, silver, brass, and glass. Designer Mark Holmes, who also co-founded Established & Sons, has an eye for creating beautifully shaped objects that also serve a purpose. The items are simple, yet they are offered in premium materials making each one a minimal and sleek work of art. We pretty much want everything.
Design Soil is a project from the product design department at Kobe Design University in Japan. The project is run by professors and students whose goal is to re-evaluate design practices and let the young designers create at their own pace, much like plants growing in soil. “epilogue – prologue” is their latest project of nine designs in which they not only think about the beginning of an idea (prologue) but they also consider the end product (epilogue).
Japanese designer Yukihiro Kaneuchi is back with a new edition of Sand based on the Bou-Taoshi game. The game begins with players making a heap of sand and placing a branch down the center. Each player then takes turns removing sand and whoever causes the branch to fall, loses.
From the Rotterdam duo Ward van Gemert and Adriaan van der Ploeg, better known as NIGHTSHOP, comes the P.O.V. vase. The P.O.V. vase (which stands for “point of view”) is made up of different plastics and is meant to be viewed from various angles. The colors of the vase change as you walk around it, making it somewhat “magical.”
Timothy John has just released his new Woven Collection. The initial designs in this series were launched in 2010, as part of an experiment in hand-weaving techniques. The collection has since grown to five limited edition pieces: a traditional vase, pendant lights, a table and a clock.
Spanish designer Jaime Hayon created these Showtime Vases for BD Barcelona Design back in 2006 and I still get happy every time I look at them. The entire Showtime collection (which features furniture as well) was inspired by old MGM musicals, therefore all of the pieces are both classical and playful. Each two-piece vase is made of enameled stoneware porcelain that comes in either all white or your choice color with a white interior. They look great with flowers or simply on their own but they are definitely eye-catching.
Swedish design studio Form Us With Love and Spanish stone company Cosentino Group collaborated on the Silestone Slab Vases that were presented at Stockholm Design Week’s Form Us With Friends exhibition. The purpose behind the collaboration was to break away from typical Silestone that comes in the form of a slab and instead look at the material in a whole new way.
 by Yukihiro Kaneuchi){kind=link}
