furniture

Top 5: Australia’s love affair with Nordic design

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By Penny Craswell

In 1981, a radical new design collective Memphis, headed by Italian designer Ettore Sottsass, released its first collection in the “new international style”. Since then, globalisation of brands and products has led to a consistent aesthetic across national boundaries in contemporary design, to the extent that discussion of national design styles has become increasingly irrelevant.

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On the other hand, it is hard to argue with the fact that some countries do design really well (Denmark, Japan, Italy to name just a few) and some not so well (overbearing dark wood furniture and kitchens in some parts of the US or over-the-top glitz in Russia or China, for example). Read more →

Reproduction, Replica or Rip Off? Launch sparks furniture debate

Reproduction, Replica or Rip Off? Launch sparks furniture debate

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“Replica, reproduction or rip off? It’s likely what you call a fake piece of designer furniture depends on if you would have one in your house or not. Over the last few years designer fakes have been seen as big issue in the Australian interior design industry. For example Authentic Design Alli ance was set up a couple of years ago to petition government for change and educate both the design industry and consumers.

“The topic of fakes or copies came up last week I attended the launch of Penny Craswell’s The Design Writer blog at Stylecraft. The panel consisted of 3 Australian furniture designers – Keith Melbourne, Helen Kontouris and Greg Natale. The issue of copying was raised by Penny as part of the panel discussion and certainly dominated the audience comments at the end of the night. Whilst none of the designers present had yet had the (dubious) honour of having their pieces copied, all are aware of how prevalent cheap (and even not so cheap) reproductions are – and that they seem to be are comprising a growing segment of the furniture market in Australia.”

Interior designer and blogger Ceilidh Higgins has published a fantastic article sparked by the debate on replicas at the launch of this blog last week.

Thank you Ceilidh for the thought-provoking article from an interior designer’s perspective.

Read more here.

Melbourne designer Nick Rennie talks Ligne Roset

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By Penny Craswell

Ligne Roset is one of those furniture brands in Europe with a long history, with roots in 1860s France, where the company was founded selling walking sticks and sunshades. Skip forward to the present day and the 5th generation Roset family are running the company, including Michel Roset who first looked at Melbourne designer Nick Rennie’s profile in 2011.

image44986.tifRoset liked what he saw, in particular the Saldo table, a geometric design in 8mm thick ‘crystal’glass that comes with self adhesive sliders. Within twelve months, the product was launched. Read more →

Object Future exhibition shows fresh face of design

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By Penny Craswell

Design exhibitions have always played second fiddle to art exhibitions. Perhaps this is because, in order to sell their work, the artist must exhibit it, whereas the designer can sell it via a manufacturer who makes and sells it for them.

Jonathan Ben-Tovim's Up-Down Light
Jonathan Ben-Tovim’s Up-Down Light

However, the benefits of design exhibitions cannot be underestimated. Apart from online, an emerging designer may have no other way to show their work when first starting out.

For the second year in a row, Object Future gives emerging designers the opportunity to exhibit, this year at Allpress Studio in Melbourne. The co-curators of the show, emerging curator Suzannah Henty and emerging designer Dale Hardiman, have sought out some exceptional design from some great fresh talent this year. Read more →