Looks like a million!

This year the swedish design group Front recieved the Torsten och Wanja Söderbergs prize of one million (!) swedish kronor for their konceptual and innovative design. I'm a long time fan of their work since I'm always intrigued by designers who work in the cross-field of art and design. Front are very cleverly intergrating stories into their objects and furniture and they still manage to keep the aesthetic prespective, which impresses me a lot! Well done Front! Below are some of my favourite projects, The Shade (objects and furniture with pencil shading), The bookshelf from their collection for Skitsch (with printed books on the doors) and the blow-away-vase for Moooi.

Front

Meals on (mismatching) wheels

from Established and Sons via Man make home

Cavalier King Charles Spaniel As Dachshund in Various Lace-Up Ankle Boots by Sam Schonzeit

I love the title of this work, but I love the artist's comment on the series of little Cavalier King Charles Spaniels even more:
“They’re pretending to be something else, and they’re sort of embarrassed that they’ve found themselves in this position. But that’s very human, which is why people like them — because everyone can relate to the feeling that you’re not where you’re supposed to be.”

via Sight Unseen where you can see more of Schonzeit's work

Faux food by David Sykes!

View more of his work here!

Via Automatism

Retro for real!

Modern, right? Amazingly these images are from the late 70's but to me they look like they have been cut out from just any cool interior magazine of today! The only thing that gives a hint about this (at least to me) is the TV set in the second picture and the slightly yellowish tone in the photographs. Makes me think about how what we think of as contemporary is always retro in one way or the other!

via Desire to Inspire

Danish pop & new wave punk

Great pops of colour in this danish home and my all time favourite danish band to start of the new week!

via From Scandinavia with love

Agnes queen of sorrow

What happens when Bonnie Prince Billy meets David Shrigely? One of the most beautiful music videos ever made. I can watch this a hundered million times and never grow tierd of it! A wonderful weekend to you all!

The poetry of a snack

Eating tree by Stephanie Marin/Smarin

You can never have too many E's

I collect the letter E. The collection is small and incomplete which is great, because what do you do with a complete collection? These letters are clothes brushes designed in the early 60's by austrian designer Carl Auböck (1900 - 1957), one of the pioneers of austrian modernism and one of Johannes Ittens students at the Bauhaus school.
What do you collect?

via Reference Library

Sarah Thorne

Nice packaging by British designer Sarah Thorne for Top Shop!

via It's nice that

Elvira Wersche

Impressive work in different coloured sand by German-Dutch artist Elvira Wersche.

via Madame Hervé

Good morning!

I'm off to Roskilde University where I'm going to attend a class in Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. It's going to be very interesting, especially for someone who is used to work with the creative stuff, but sometimes feels that she needs a little more of the business side of things. See you soon!

Nice bedding by Edholm & Ullenius for IKEA

Surrealistic bags

You would belive this is some kind of an art project, but it's not. These are trunks made to be used. For what? I have no idea.

Trunks from Williams British Handmade via Designers Block

The Ronneby spooky house

Remmember the abandoned house in Ronneby? Rebecca sent me these photos she snapped when we were there. Spooky and beautiful!

Photos by Rebecca Larsson

C'est la vie, oh la la

I studied French for seven years between the age of 14 and 20. As I recall it I was doing quite well actually. The first time I went abroad without my parents I was 15 and went to Paris with my french class and sweet, strict teacher Rosita. Paris was like magic to me then, and it still kind of is, when I think about it.
A couple of months ago I was out for a drink with a couple of danish friends and we met up with some other people, among them two french guys. They lived here in Copenhagen and spoke excellent danish and for some reason I do too when I speak to other forigners. For a long period I spoke Danish only to people from other countries than Denmark and as soon as I talked to a Dane I involuntary switched to swedish. Weird, I know, but I don't have a proper explanation to it. Anyways, one of the french guys started complimenting the scandinavians for having such a good pronunciation i french, saying that he could not tell the difference (yeah, right!) between a french person and a dane/swede speaking french. Well, of course I understood that he was exaggerating but I thought - what the hell, I'll give it a try - so I switched to French. He looked at me like I was a total nut and explained (in danish) that he couldn't understand a WORD of what I was saying. Rosita, I am terribly sorry, but seven years of reeling off french verbs obviously didn't do it for me. Thank you anyway for your patience and at least I understand ALL of the words in this song. If I lived in Paris it would be in a place like this one below. Oui, je veux bien!

via Automatism

The future...

Leah Dietrich was always told by her mother to write thank you notes. So she started doing that. On her blog thxthxthx she posts a new one everyday. A good exercise in appreciating life as it is.
Thank you Thursday for starting out in the worst possible way and having the good manners to change, with the help of a coffee and a good friend, into a very good day after all.

via A Cup of Joe

Dead star by Michel de Broin

Michel de Broin via Design Squish
(lot's of art posts recently, I know, but it occupies my mind alot at the moment)

Joshua Ben Longo

There is something very sad about these little creatures by designer and artist Joshua Ben Longo. Exploring the fine line between comfort and discomfort he draws inspiration from his obsession with monsters and comic book heroes. See more of his great work here! Or get your own monster here!

by Joshua Ben Longo.

Moon and Sun under tree

Remember that I wrote about wonderful Moon & Sun some time ago? Monica made this live recording of her song Ashes together with Kalle and Lars Ekman under a 800 year old tree on the island of Curaçao. Lucky me to have such talanted and sweet friends! She is the best!

Moon & Sun in Kapok tree from Moon & Sun on Vimeo.

listen to more songs here

Alex Kopps

Alex Kopps is a San Fransisco based artist who works with mixed media, painting and installation. Found his work via Mint and the gallery shot (middle pic) looks very interesting. They remind me of a trip to Cartagena in Spain many years ago where all I can remember is alot of halfway torn down houses where the interior walls were visible with all of their old tilings and wallpapers. I would love to see an exhibition with Kopps' 3D work, until then, I enjoy the work on his site.

Art by Alex Kopps