Thank you to all who came yesterday to our opening in Barcelona!
Thank you (also) to Lars and Jordi who did an amazing job with the space

You can check more of their fantastic work here:
http://www.jordicanudas.com
http://larsfrideen.com/

Our new book is available form today at Otracosas Gallery. It looks back at the past years of the DesignMarketo projects, how the initial idea evolved and morphed from its first insemination to our present days. Text by Brit Leisler, DesignMarketo. Pictures by Amandine Alessandra. Designed and printed by DesignMarketo in East London. Soon available online.

A little while ago, Loris&Livia sent us some nice pictures taken during the production of their Lemon Toys.
Following our brief about “Lemonade for All“, Loris&Livia decide to rethink the traditional wooden lemon reamer. They teamed up with skilled wood carvers and turned vintage and new stair balusters into a series of kingsize sculpted juicers. Those gigantic lemon squeezers will help you prepare deliciously fantastic lemonades—the extra length adds to your natural force to get the juice out.

This is a first edition of twenty pieces, made in beech, ramin, mahogany, ash or english oak.
Each piece is unique and hand carved.

A few pictures by Maria Jeglinska during the production of her Tie Jug at Glass solutions
The Tie Jug is the second cable-tight inspired object in the work Maria has developped for DesignMarketo.
The Tie Jug was initially presented at our “Lemonade For All” series of commissions presented during Sofia Design Week 2011.

Sometimes we receive very nice emails—this one is one of them. It perfectly illustrates what we believe is beautiful around what DesignMarketo is doing…

Lisa, in Chicago, bought the Stihl Life Plate Olivier designed and made, in Paris-France, for our Dinner with DesignMarketo at Barbican, in London.
And she wrote back to Olivier, sending him pictures of the arrival—and Olivier forwarded us her email. Chouette!

Thank you Lisa, thank you Olivier!

* Lisa Smith is a designer, educator, and writer based in Chicago and is part of the Object Design League, an organisation that promote experimental design in the Chicago IL area; Olivier Lellouche is a designer based in Paris, he started up his own design studio with a clear motto: ‘fun, machines & nature’.

** have you seen Amandine’s pictures of Seeds, Sprouts, Shoots and Leaves yet?

All Cats Are Grey has been hard at work printing Akinori OIshi poster; it should be very soon available at the Barbican Art Center Gallery Shop and online on DesignMarketo.

** UPDATE **

LOVE for Japan is a poster designed by Akinori Oishi and printed by All Cats Are Grey to help support temporary housing for the earthquake+tsunami hit japanese refugees.

This is another update (see earlier) on our work for our first retail space, hosted by the Barbican in their gallery shop – the opening of this new collaboration will coincide with their new show: Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970s

The shop is currently featuring a selection of products commissioned for our past events Tea Tasting (Future Beauty: 30 years of Japanese Fashion) at Barbican and the FoodMarketo events (in collaboration with Apartamento magazine: Fruits&Vegetables at Milan Salone del Mobile 2010 and Coffee&Friends at London Design Festival 2010) as well as some objects showcased on the website… Slowly the selection will grow with the new collection assembled for the collaboration with the Barbican Art Gallery.

We are all very excited by the feedbacks, the drawings and pictures of the projects we are receiving from the design team. The products will be exclusively presented in avant-premiere on the night of the 31st of March during the dinner we organise in the gallery. There are a few seats left, so if you haven’t booked yet, you should…
Reading the emails from Maud—with who we are planning/designing the menu—is simply mouth-watering. For those of you who attended our Coffe&Friends event last september, she was the one in charge of the kitchen and prepared the amazing nibbles and finger food of our party. For those who missed it, head over the booking page at Barbican—you don’t really want to miss this!

* If you are abroad, please stay re-assured as the website will receive an update on both it content and its design in the coming weeks and most of the products available in our first retail shop, will also be available online.

** As usual: how could I recommend you more to stay up-to-date with our activities on Facebook, Twitter or via the Mailinglist—you would be sad to miss anything!

Does the design of a cup influence the taste of the tea?

After serving Coffee during the London Design Week last september we thought it would be good to make it even for the tea lovers. Barbican proposed us the fabulous environment of their gallery, right inside the Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion exhibition.

For this event we commissioned 5 designers to design and produce a limited edition of 5 tasting devices, to be sold on the night. We teamed up with Teasmith to bring you a special tea

Please join us for an evening of tasteful discovery
“Tradition and Innovation”
on Thursday the 25th of November
from 6.30pm to 10.00.pm
* as the event is art of the late night, the access is not free: £8 online/£10 on the door – the ticket gives access to the exhibition.
More info

The 100 chairs books which has been out of stock for a few months now, just got reprinted; this second edition comes in smaller size and is as wonderful as the earlier.
I managed to have a sneak preview just before lunch at åbäke, the volume was not yet bound but looked already really beautiful, similar but different from the first edition.
Very Nice!

Martino Gamper creates his new chairs from elements of existing ones. By deconstructing the chair he gains a new insight into its construction and use of materials which informs the creation of the new design.

* the new edition should be available on DesignMarketo very shortly, probably before the end of the week.

FOUNT is available for pre-order; it will be on sale at St Bride Library tonight; right after Phil Baines’ conference on Puffin Books. Rather than a perfect book, FOUNT should be considered as a series of suggestions, an incomplete guide to designing and making a book. Its content has been directly sourced from St Bride’s bookshelves (which house some amazing and rare volumes) and we have also added a couple of extra annotation and instructions of our own.

This volume was created and compiled by Adam Chelstov, Jackson Lam, Patrick Lacey (åbäke) and Jérôme Rigaud (electronest) at the occasion of the Ninth Friends of St Bride Conference.

* You can come down to the talk and see the thing for real – or alternativelly you can pre-order it from DesignMarketo directly: http://designmarketo.com/fount/

FoodMarketo – Online shop now open! Allowing you go back to Milan in a click – or in case you missed our popup shop there with Apartamento Magazine.

It gives you a chance to see the amazing objects we received from All Cats Are Grey, Amandine Alessandra, Andrew Haythornthwaite and Shaiesta Akram, Arabeschi Di Latte, At Work, Bannocks & Hill, Bertjan Pot, Officeabc and Laura couto-rosado, Charlotte Coulais, David Weatherhead, Do You Read Me, Realmade, Ferran Lajara, Frank Bruggeman, Harry Thaler, Jackson Lam, Ken Kirton, Lars Friedeen, Loris & Livia, Marco Dessi, Markus & Karin & Kari, Mischer Traxler, Nelly Ben Hayoun, Nicola Enrico Stäubli, OK-RM, Olivia Decaris, Oscar Diaz, Oscar Narud, Peter Marigold, Study O Portable, Tomas Alonso and Sara Ivanyi.

* all pictures have been taken by the good people of Interior-Photography; they came down to Milan with us, they set up the photographic studio and art directed the photoshoot for the online shop.