London Design Festival is an annual event that promotes and celebrates creativity in the UK’s capital. Last week the Trend Bible team attended various trade shows and events, picking up on emerging trends across furniture, lighting and innovative design. Here we share our highlights from the top shows of the week: Tent, Design Junction and 100% Design.
Slender Lines
From left to right; Evan James Design, Tom Raffield, M Dex Design, Stefan Diez
Curved wood was an element that spanned across handcrafted furniture and decorative accessories. Tom Raffield showcased steam-bent wooden furniture and lighting at 100% Design and M Dex Design displayed organically shaped teardrop mirrors at Tent.
Also seen at Tent, Evan James Designs exhibited Coalesce, an intricate wall of handcrafted perspex. The wall covering was designed to highlight the brand’s ethos of interactive design for a circular economy. Their products demonstrate the limitless possibilities of colour, pattern and materials. The Rope Trick by Stefan Diez spotted at Design Junction, freezes the curved qualities of rope into an elegant and simplistic head lamp.
Woven Surfaces
From left to right; Ellinor Ericsson, Mathers & Hirst, Rug Designer, Gemla
A new approach to traditional weaving was evident within product design, with items incorporating a range of unexpected materials. Mathers & Hirst stripped oak down to its thinnest form in order to create an intricately woven sideboard panel. The lounger seat by Ellinor Ericsson represented tactility in an ever growing digital world and was strong and sturdy with perfect woolen squares. At Design Junction, Gemla presented this technique in leather, one of many brands incorporating this material into furniture design. Textile design took inspiration from this style, embodying the same characteristics with overlapping lines.
Innovative Materials
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From left to right; Isabel Farchy, Smile Plastics, Olivia Aspinall, Smile Plastics
As luxury stones such as marble become more desirable within the home, designers offer alternative interpretations through experimental techniques and synthetic materials. Tabletops, tiling and even furniture design incorporated melted down plastics. The result was a range of products that not only have unique surface patterns, but are also environmentally friendly. Seen at Tent, Smile Plastics specialise in melting down wasted plastics into wall panels, with each one being different from the last. Isabel Farchy’s coffee tables resemble the look of natural materials with swirling formations. By setting liquid clay into a mould , turning on a wheel and then glazing, each table is a naturalistic design.
For more coverage from London Design Festival 2015, keep track of our social channels; Pinterest, Twitter & Instagram.
We will be publishing part 2 of our London Design Festival report later this week, with our highlights of the top fringe events.
