PHILIP APPLETON

Christmas Tree

2011-12-19T13:58:00.000-08:00

Here is a Christmas Tree I made out of wire. Yea.

East London Design Show

2011-12-15T10:37:00.000-08:00

It is Christmas. It is time to go shopping. It is what theretail sector depends on to keep afloat. Ho ho-hum. The retailers are introuble. They rely on footfall and so far it seems the British public have beenreluctant to build credit card debit this Christmas; you selfish lot. Householdsare cutting on their Christmas expense in part because they did it last year. Thehigh street dresses up in the same guise every year. Christmas becomes evermore artificial, corporate and vulgar.

Before sounding anymore like the Dickensian character yourimagining, earlier this month I completed all of my Christmas shopping and gotright in the spirit of things at the Shoreditch Town Hall which opened itsdoors to the East London Design Show. Hosting over 100 pop up stalls, a cafe, abar and a play area for children, the show provides a chance to buy itemsdirect from up and coming designers. A perfect place to treat your loved ones(including yourself). There is a vast variety of items on offer; something foreveryone. I think it a great deal more personal and caring to get a gift forsomeone by the designer or maker (or both) than an item which was made half wayacross the world and embellished with brand identity.

Lollipop

James Brown

Here is a guided tour; exhibitors included James Brown aLondon based illustrator who was selling limited edition screen prints. Jameshas had two baby books published this year. They are brilliant. Know someonewho is expecting? They'd love it. Ok so no baby, how about a pet? Dog you say,well then Cosima Pole has a selection of handmade accessories for dogs. Handmade in Britain to a high standard.

If you're astationary freak (who isn't) then check out Lollipop, environmentallyfriendly products made by hand in the UK.Want some unique homeware head towardSnowden Flood. Splashing out on a new item of furniture then see Claire Darwent& Phil Lardner. A piece of Jewellery, well there is plenty to choose from.Then you'll need a few cards and some gift wrap. There done. Wasn't so hard wasit? And I bet you spent less than you expected to. Christmas is about givingnot consuming.

Snowden Flood

Creature Clothes

Congratulations toEmily Bucknell for winning 'best in show'.Her screen printed cushions, lampshades, screen prints, lavender bags and giftcards are to be admired. Made by hand with goodwill and vigilance.

Emily Bucknell

Merry Christmas

The show was open from 2nd - 4th December. Be sure not tomiss it next year. Visit http://www.eastlondondesignshow.co.uk/ to view more

Hidden Heroes & The Power Of Making

2011-11-29T13:50:00.001-08:00

A lot of design blogs showcase a load of nonsense. Nooffence to anyone in particular, but a lot of it is nonsense. Last week I saw aproposal for The Isle of Man to be turned into the world's largest golf course.The 18 holes were to be scattered around the island, some in unsuspectingresident's gardens. Part of the fun was not telling any golfers where the holeswere to be located. Supposedly an incredible way of generating tourism; golferstire themselves out searching for the holes, subsequently requiring tea andcake.

Ok so there was no such entry; don't worry, The Isle of Manremains a tax haven. But you get my point. A lot of blogs and magazines filltheir pages with images designed for the sake of design. So it is nice to seethe Science Museum and the V&A exhibiting work that isn't normally in thespotlight. Not due of a lack of importance, more gimmick.

The Science Museum

The Science Museum is currently exhibiting 'Hidden Heroes' in association withVitra. I don't necessarily recommend going out of your way to view theexhibition given that it is about everyday items that you presumably use everyday. The online catalogue however is full of interest. For instance, John B.Timberlake in 1904 obtained the patent for one of his employees inventions.Albert J. Parkhouse used some spare wire in Timberlake's factory to hang up hiscoat whilst clocking-in on a cold winter morning. The factory soon started toproduce clothes hangers. Parkhouse continued to work at the factory making hisvery own invention. There are 44 heroes; the rubber band, the match,reflectors, the light bulb, the zipper and the pencil to name a few.

David Mach's Gorilla

The Post-it was created through one of those satisfyingserendipity moments. 3M were trying to invent a super-strong adhesive butinstead created a glue which stuck things together, whilst also allowing themto detach easily. In 1974 Arthur Fry found a use for the glue and Post-it wasborn.

The 'Power of Making'at the V&A is rather eclectic. There are 100 different objects, from a crochet bear, some rather fetching chairs,the alphabet crafted through the tips of pencils, a fence decorated with laceand of course a giant gorilla made from Parkhouse's creation. It is random andthat is the point.

Alphabet by Dalton Ghetti

I'm not comfortable with the word 'craft', it seems to beassociated with amateurism and Linda Barker (sorry Linda). It's better to viewthese objects as artefacts of their craft rather than art (with regard to theexhibit). They explore how materials can be used in imaginative and remarkableways. Though not to everyone's taste (I certainly have never desired a cakethat resembles a baby) but the expertise of their creation is admirable. How satisfyingto see tangible proof of the wealth of highly skilled creative crafts keepingafloat in the UK.

These two exhibits are relevant to modern design; utilitarianobjects with a touch of the personal.

Pencil production at Faber-Castell - perhaps viewed best with the sound off

Sea Chair Project

2011-11-14T10:44:00.001-08:00

10% of all marine pollution are plastics. Much of which are'nurdles'; 2mm in diameter virgin plastic materials used for injection moulding.They are spilt into the water system through bad storage practices. A likely 250quadrillion nurdles will be made this year. They act as a sponge, soaking upchemical pollutants. Small fish swallow nurdles expecting them to be fish eggs,consequently further along the food chain fish can become too toxic for humanconsumption.

The UN estimates 13,000 nurdles floating in every squaremile of the ocean, though the concentration varies according to tides. These'Plastic Soups' are scattered across the ocean; one of which is twice as largeas the United States stretching from the coast of California to the shores ofJapan. Five more have recently been discovered, all of which are in constantgrowth.

Simultaneously the British fishing industry is in crisis.Increased competition, EU quotas and depleting fish stocks have seen manyfishermen forced into retirement and seaside towns perish as a direct result. Consequentlybuoy manufactures lose out on trade. Graduates from the RCA Design Products MAprogramme Alexander Groves, Kieran Jones and Azusa Murakami aim to help clearup our seas and support Britain's fishing industry and Buoy manufacturers withtheir 'Sea Chair Project'. The aim is to modify a disused fishing ship into aplastic chair factory, fishing plastic from polluted waters to recycle them aschairs.

On a visit to Pothtowan beach, Cornwall the team discoveredto their horror the reality of the situation that we face. The west coast ofBritain is particularly affected by washed up debris due to its topography. Manyacross the coast of Britain volunteer to help clear up the beaches. However, topick up nurdles is a slow painful task. The designers have created an earlyworking prototype to speed up this process using parts bought on e-bay. The'Nurdler' separates nurdles from sand through simple flotation technology. Theyaim to raise awareness of the issue by exhibiting a plastic chair at MilanFurniture Chair 2012 and I'm pleased to inform you that they are on target.

The project is currently exhibiting at Dublin ScienceGallery's 'Future of Water' show whilst the designers are working on a rotationmoulding and collection device for the fishing trawler which they hope to havefinished by February 2012.

Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990 at the V&A

2011-11-08T06:19:00.000-08:00

The V&A is holding an exhibition on the leastdefinable ‘ism’; postmodernism. This is a courageous subject to exhibit and onewhich bares resonance to today in the context of a collapsed economy and thedebate about social progression.

We begin with the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe,the modernist flats in St Louis, Missouri designed by Minoru Yamasaki. Thisproject notably held design prizes for its utopian vision. But this was avision that turned into a dystopian reality and was destroyed just 16 yearslater. The legacy of modernism seemed dysfunctional, dogmatic and domineeringto the early 1970′s avant-garde.

In 1972 Architects Robert Venturi and DeniseScott-Brown claimed their trip through America, particularly Las Vegas, gavethem a new aesthetic. Buildings, to them, were to be decorated to reflect theirusers and to encourage interaction. The opening text of the exhibitiondescribes postmodernism as a “broken mirror, a reflective surface of manyfragments”, a reaction against the purist principles of modernism.Postmodernism is historicism and bricolage (cultural fragments assembled in anad-hoc manner). It can have wit, symbolism, decoration; just so long as it isconfrontational toward the orthodoxies of modernism.

The exhibition displays an impressive 250 items.With designs from the likes of Vivienne Westwood, Ron Arad, Michael Gravesthere is a lot to take in. With such an excessive subject, the exhibition issuitably gaudy. There is of course a room full of Memphis and Studio Alchimia.Looking at these pieces is akin to the feeling I get when I eat too muchchocolate. I know I have enjoyed myself but I regret having done it.

Alessandro Mendini argued “superficiality hasdepth”. His Proust chair is an example of postmodernist tack. Itrefers to the baroque, to pointillism. But Proustian moments, by definition,are not superficial. There is no depth in this piece, it is a gimmick and not aparticularly funny one. The chair sits looking garish, irreverent and arrogant.Perhaps it is staring accross the room to Wendy Maruyama’s Mickey- Macintoshchair. Perhaps they are having a tasteless stare off. The same can’t besaid of Ettore Sottsass. He was a romantic led on by his own inspiration. Heleft Memphis at its height; surprised by its success. He was a visionarywho many have failed to imitate.

Halfway through the exhibit we enter ‘the club’ inwhich 1980′s pop culture stares blankly onto an eerie dancefloor. By this point the visual indulgence of postmodernism had made me feeldrunk. I have never been exposed to so many contrasting patterns, forms andcolours. I don’t know how people coped. Add to that the horrible sound of KlausNomi on repeat. Above our heads is Grace Jones’s Maternity dress designed byJean-Paul Goode and Antoni Lopez; a reference to Picasso’s take on the BalletRusses. It is the defining image of postmodernism; ephemera.

Enter Thatcher’s Britain; economic deregulation,selfish enterprise culture and the denial of society. The prolific spread ofpostmodern aesthetic, spurred on by the inflated commodity market of the 1980′s was to be its downfall. “Money doesn’t mind if we say it’s evil, itgoes from strength to strength” the walls quote Martin Amis’ 1984 novel‘Money’. John Self, the main character, a nihilistic hedonist is the perfectexample of the postmodern condition. Designs became corporate, conservative andkitsch; epitomised by Michael Graves’s 1987 Swan Hotel.

The exhibition concludes that we are all postmodernnow. But perhaps we are post-postmodern. Postmodernism’s legacy has been as awakeup call to the modernist ideology. Today’s modernism is less strict, lessidealistic. Ephemera is out, longevity is in. Contemporary designs can bewitty, tell a metaphor, be playful and still remain modernist in principle.

The Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990exhibition is on between 24 September 2011–15 January 2012. More information onthe exhibition can be found here: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/postmodernism/

Shimmering Stars

2011-11-05T12:30:00.001-07:00

How I use Twitter

2011-11-02T10:25:00.000-07:00

To share information about design which I find interesting, to promote other peoples' work to my followers (ok and sometimes maybe mine) and to make you laugh

Follow @Philip_Appleton

"Man ought to be content, it is said; but with what?" - Voltaire

More Pistachio

2011-10-31T15:27:00.000-07:00

The Pistachio People

2011-10-30T16:31:00.001-07:00

100AND10%

2011-10-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

2011-10-27T10:08:00.000-07:00

Coconut Water

2011-10-27T10:06:00.001-07:00

Wine - concept for a bottle

2011-10-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

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2011-10-24T14:54:00.001-07:00

2011-10-24T14:53:00.001-07:00

2011-10-24T14:52:00.001-07:00

2011-10-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

2011-10-24T14:43:00.001-07:00

2011-10-24T12:29:00.001-07:00

crack

2009-12-06T12:45:00.000-08:00

Death of a light bulb

2009-11-23T06:48:00.000-08:00

Fruit bowl

2009-10-03T05:31:00.000-07:00

The ingredients;

Duct tape
Packaging bag

Don't tape the walls

2009-10-03T05:25:00.000-07:00

Clock

2009-09-30T08:34:00.000-07:00

One puff = 1 o'clock
Two puffs = 2 o'clock

etc

Textures

2009-09-23T05:38:00.000-07:00

Light it up

2009-09-22T09:14:00.001-07:00

Hello

This light is being made

from rubbish paper

Cushion light

2009-09-22T05:04:00.000-07:00

This light has been made from shredded cardboard which is used for cushioning in packaging. I bought something from Amazon. It wasn't a large object but it came in a large box with plenty of cardboard packaging. Enough to make a light.

Pottery

2009-09-17T09:03:00.001-07:00

Here are a few items of Pottery that I have created. Thats all.

Cushions

2009-09-17T05:29:00.000-07:00

There is a story behind the cushions. My 09' summer job was in a school clothes shop. One day the name tape machine denounced itself. It was posed in a deep spiritual conversation with itself. What the tapes mean, we will never know. But rather then waste the tapes I thought they would make an interesting pattern for some rather dull faux suede cushions. Behold;