dutch design week 2011

Last weekend my eldest son (13) and I went to the annual Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven. We took it easy, stayed in a hotel, got up early in order not to miss anything. We could have stayed for a week: we only saw half or even less of this lovely big event, I guess.

Most of the times I was so absorbed by what I saw, that I forgot to take photo's. And seeing the photo's I did take, it looks like I only saw lampshades!

Tallow candles by my friends from Ontwerpduo, who have this wonderful feeling for colours.

Rick Tegelaar's chicken wire and paper maché lamp shades. 

Beautiful blues and greens at Piet Hein Eek

Butterfly Lamps, the latest work by Paula Arntzen, one of my favorite (paper) designers.

Some nice neon paper lamp shades designed by Buro JET

 

pinned

I was warned by Monique from Vlinspiratie: "Jurianne, if you ever start working with Pinterest, watch out: it is highly addictive!"
Well, I did a very cautious step some time ago, (got myself an account basically) but last night I took a deeper dive in this digital image paradise. And I have to say - after one night - that I am 'hooked', or actually 'pinned'. What a great medium!

I don't understand all the ins-outs-do's-don'ts yet, but I got the message: It is about SHARING and about beauty, forms, ideas, materials, art, design, crafts...so it actually is about everything that I love!
Here's My Pinterest, hope to meet you there to share! The four lovely photo's above are my very first 'repins'.

the making of Pilloon

I actually felt rather flattered when Art School illustration student Nina van de Vondervoort contacted me. She was looking for an 'external internship'. She wanted to use her talent and skills in a new way, and she needed guidance through the route of product design. It was a path of 8 weeks and every week Nina sent me her work via e-mail and one day later we sat on the phone for an hour. I commented, guided, asked, shared and gave her instructions for the next step to take.

Nina prooved to be a remarkable student! Not only she had a huge production, she also switched from one step (fase) to the other in a very flexible way and...she really understood the steps to be taken to get the best artistic and commercial result. And - very important - she stayed true to herself!

First of all I told her that my intention was for her to end up with a REAL product, not only a prototype. We chose for a cushion cover.

To 'capture and frame' her own style and handwriting for this product she had to start with a Nina-moodboard, a personal style-source to accompagny her alongside the route. A hell of a job,  you have to get rid of all the images that are not relevant, then again: less is more!

When her moodboard was ready Nina sketched for weeks, mostly without colour, just as many 'scribbles' as possible. In this fase she saw that the sketches of the balloons were worth a next step. So she took a plonge into the balloons, decided the colours for the final pallette and designed both front and back of three cushion covers.

Then the series needed a name and needed to be produced. 

Within a few weeks Nina got her 'Pilloons' live at home, ready to be photographed... 

And now the wonderful and allways surprising online store Envelop is selling Pilloon! Envelop makes lovely artist's designs into high quality cushion covers (got a few myself). Thank you Serge from Envelop for giving talented Nina this opportunity! 

And please readers: do blog, publish and tweet about Nina, she's worth it!

is there life after the blue box...

Dear readers! It took me a while...no post last week because I was in the hospital, emergency surgery, got my appendix out! I am recovering. Not easy for me: piles of work, millions of plans and ideas, and even more promisses and deadlines....

 
Some of you might know that I worked as a stylist for IKEA Amsterdam years ago. A strange world, creative in a certain way, with the loveliest co-workers you could wish for, but locked up in a large blue box every single day.
And there I met Ellen, she actually was my 'boss', and we became friends. We kind of didn't fit into the IKEA mold and we felt extremely unhappy in our XXXL unisex stylingteam IKEA uniforms, on a daily basis children used to point us out: 'Mummy look, there goes Bob the Builder!'
You can imagine Ellen and I asked ourselves: is there life after the blue box?

Well, there is! She came a long way: but here is Ellen van der Wiel!

She has built up a beautiful little company in felted home accessories, which she all designs and makes herself, partly by hand, partly with her huge new felting machine.

The icing on the cake for her: her plaids and cushion covers where used in the huge VT-Wonen-magazine stand on the Dutch Interior Fair called Woonbeurs (see photo's above), that was held last week. And her work is on the cover of this months issue of VT-Wonen.

Ellen, I am so happy for you, you go girl!

cottage town

These cute little plant-cottages called Cottage Town are the latest product from Ontwerpduo. They play with your sense of 'large' and 'small' and they invite you to enter a fab fairy miniature world, where ordinairy houseplants suddenly turn into huge seqoia's....

I am big fan of Ontwerpduo and this new paper product is special to me: my own printers Luc and Bram from Drukkerij Drukkracht have taken care of the printwork and my die-cut-company did the complicated cutting. So actually I feel rather proud...

The cottages are made of 'waterproof paper', so they can resist rain from a watering can. The cottages are pre-fab (pre-folded and cut), you'll have to do a little constructing yourself. My cup of tea!

Tineke and Nathan from Ontwerpduo will present their cottage town on the Elle Inside Design show that will be held in Amsterdam (IJburg) next week. In the Annie Boshof number 3.
From of that moment it will be available online as well at: BijzonderMOOI* .

If you ever dreamed of buying your own house constructed by the famous Ontwerpduo architects - for less than 10 euro's!!! - this is your chance, go get one (or the whole town of course...)!

happy hands

Last year I developed a deep desire to work with 'real' materials. As you may know: I design, work with paper and I do business. My work though is mostly digital.

Yay, I am going to get my hands dirty next week on my first ceramics course in Amsterdam! I am going to mold, touch, fire and glaze. I allways thought I didn't have time to follow any courses but I need to give myself a present after three years of enthusiast hard labour and I need this inspiration to keep on doing what I do. Just found some inspiring ceramics on Etsy. I can't wait!

Would love to learn to work with melted glass, like I found on Prince Design UK
 

Maybe I should start making small tiles, these little handmade triangles would make a beautiful wall in the kitchen...
Seen at Mosaic Monkey

Yes, I know this jar is Ceramics.3, but it would be a nice dream...Isheely

This simple bowl, with a Japanese feel I found on: Glazed Over

good vibes, good sales

My very first trade show ever was so much fun! I loved finally meeting my retailers - who helped me build up my business in the past few years - and I loved meeting my collegues and other business friends. I wrote a lot of orders, welcomed dozens of new stockists... Overall: a great trade show! Here you see the stand I shared with Uitgeverij Snor (Moustache Publishers). Claudette and Annemarieke (see photo) are the best 'room mates' you can think of. Professional, fun, sweet and they love having good wine and good food on the stand. Our products are a lovely match and we share a lot of customers. Thanks ladies, for 3 lovely days!