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An Active Collaboration
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We’re proud to be helping out with iD/Branding for Feel Good Festival in Newquay on the 12 May. Organised by Nathalie Frankson and in association with SurfGirl Magazine.The festival of fitness and wellbeing will host a mix of local fitness instructors, personal trainers, therapists and businesses on the beach in Newquay. The Festival aims to promote health and wellbeing of local people by providing an opportunity to try out new activities and seek advice from resident experts. The festival will incorporate demonstrations from a variety of fitness class instructors and Personal Trainers including aerobics, Boxercise, Zumba, Supple Strength, martial arts, Newquay Beach Bootcamp and barefoot running.
Alongside these demonstrations, the festival will be show-casing talented local therapists in massage and sports therapy. With the addition of a surf clinic, board testing and pop up stands, the day promises to be an interactive celebration of fitness on the beach enabling local businesses to promote themselves and discover new opportunities.The Festival aims to promote health and fitness in Cornwall and the sessions throughout the day will encourage people to try out new activities, support their favourite instructors, with the novelty of taking part in the classes they love on the beach.— -
Dark Desires…
To celebrate St Pirans Day to ‘One & All’ we couldn’t resist putting together some of our favourite Black & Gold pairings.
—Beautifully grandiose black panelled walls partnered perfectly with gold and white details
Hasselblad, limited edition camera
Matt black wall panels sit comfortably with rustic wood furniture and mottled gold lamp
The American Radiator building, NYC
Sumptuous Black & Gold cupcakes.
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Are you sitting comfortably?
A recent project has involved breathing new life into a tired hotel bridal suite. The budget has been generous however as the suite is large we have had to be careful not to let costs escalate. A little bit of make do and mend maybe needed here. The majority of the furniture in the suite is made from dark wood and really rather lovely, most of it, however was dressed in or surrounded by mismatched upholstery and so the overall look was somewhat chaotic. A pair of grand chairs were begging to be given new life and so they were treated to a rub down as well as the stripping of the faded chintz seat covers.
As the layers were peeled away and the chairs were allowed to breathe I decided that a simple white wash should be applied to the wood work and then a final rub of some bronze cream, to help pick out the edges. Warwick’s Mystere velvet in taupe was chosen to recover the seat covers and some simple stud work too.
The chairs should last at least another 15 years before they need to be looked at again and so the cost of recovering them should serve our clients well. I think the chairs look rather pleased with themselves, as well they should, although I still think they looked scrumptious when they were in their state of undress at the upholsterers.
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Thanks to Pippa, Dennis and their team at Make Do & Mend x
—http://www.makedoandmendonline.co.uk/
http://www.warwick.co.uk/ -
Bright Lights : Big City?
So we’re working on a job for a client, the brief… Refresh Hotel Reception. Timescale, short. Budget, small! The location is a country hotel set in a small but rather beautiful city. The client has some considered and thoughtful brand values and we want these to be adhered to for this project. Lighting the reception area is critical, not only does the main light have to be practical, providing enough light for the reception team to do their work, it’s also one of the first areas to greet guests and so it needs to tell them immediately what the hotel is all about. It would be easy to miss this opportunity as lighting can often smash a budget, but here, in this instance it’s really important to get it right. We are 284 miles from London, 533 miles from Edinburgh, and 19,438 miles from New York but the client wants the hotel to have that ‘city feel’. Lighting choices cannot be mediocre, safe or within the budget, what message will that send out? This is a one off purchase and at best will not have to be re-visited for at least a decade or more, so let’s go for it. Here are three of the best, all designed on our fair isle, all beautiful, all original and all will make heads turn.—Now the only thing to do is convince the client…—Tom DixonEtch Web is a vast 65cm wide shade with an unusual open structure, designed to cast atmospheric angular shadows when lit. An irregular pentagon shape is repeated 60 times across the body to create a total sphere. Formed from copper anodised aluminium through a process of digital photo-acid etching, the bulb is suspended within the centre of Etch Web to make it the ultimate shadow play pendant.—Established & SonsCorona was conceived as a homage to the soon to be lost ‘crown’ silvered light bulb-designed to echo the bulb’s brilliant function, the scale has been increased to create and amplify playful spin offs from the mirroring. Corona is made from a glazed slip cast Earthenware ceramic with blown glass and a polished stainless steel reflector. It is not only a highly functional light source, designed to perform well at eye-level, as a task light, as well as at a higher position, it is also a piece one can admire when not performing its primary function of emanating light.—Lee BroomTaking inspiration from the delicate craftsmanship of crystal cutting, and following the hugely successful Decanterlight range, Crystal Bulb combines industrial influences with decorative qualities, transforming the everyday light bulb into an ornamental light fitting. Individually hand blown, each lead Crystal Bulb is then cut with a classic crystal pattern and etched with the Lee Broom logo. Broom has collaborated with experts at Cumbria Crystal, the sole remaining producer of handmade English full lead crystal in the UK. This keeps true to Lee Broom’s signature design ethos of working with British craftsmen. -
Sunday, Sunday : The House, The Garden, The Design.
Last Sunday Darren, Beau and I drove down to Trereife House near Penzance, the sun was out and we were waiting to be inspired.The Cornwall Design Fair had been taking place at Trereife for a few days 17-19 August, but we waited for all the rain and gales to pass and on Sunday, the final day, out came all the sunshine and gorgeousness of a perfect Cornish summer afternoon. Happy days…
Every year I see the Cornwall Design Fair advertised, and every year it seems to be pass me by, this year I was determined not to miss it and so we made plans and by lunchtime off we went to Penzance.
Trereife House is as good as it looks in all the pictures and film clips I have ever seen, a romantic and dreamy looking house set in the greenest and neatest of gardens. As we walked up the drive towards the house we were greeted with enticing foodie smells, the thump’di’dum’dum of a groovy little skiffle band and the inviting arrangement of mini marquees dotted about the garden. This all sounds very twee, but on this sunny Sunday, somehow it wasn’t?
Darren and I were taking it all in, I was feeling pretty smug with myself, thinking I’m so glad we made the drive down here today, but I had the usual nagging doubt that comes with attending events in Cornwall that advertise themselves with the word ‘Design’ in their title….is the design here going to live up to this wonderful setting, if we walk into one of those perfectly inviting marquees and see the usual suspects (you know what I mean) then this will be another day that we drive home scratching our heads.
I’m not going to ramble on now, all I’ll say is that, yes the design and design-makers at Trereife were definitely worth the drive down the A30 for and the six quid paid on the gate to get in. When Beau, our 7 week old baby, needed a feed mid afternoon and then a nappy change (we improvised with a spare stack of upside down tables behind one of the marquees, a hard surface to work on but the perfect height!) it was still absolutely worth it.
So much talent but my favourites of the day were; Brett Payne - Hot forged candlesticks, Natalie Bonney - Handthrown stoneware pottery, Emma McCullough, recent UCF graduate - Turned wooden furniture with flashes of acrylic, Green & Blue - Product design, Kitshattic - Bespoke nightshades.
http://www.brettpayne.com/
http://www.nataliebonney.com/
http://www.etsy.com/shop/nataliebonneyceramic
https://twitter.com/EmaMccullough
http://greenandblue.co.uk/
http://kitsch-attic.myshopify.com/
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