Kartell's Bourgie Lamp Reimagined by 14 Designers for the 10th Anniversary.

It's been ten years since Kartell introduced Ferruccio Laviani's Bourgie lamp to their collection. To celebrate the tenth anniversary, Kartell dreamt up a unique initiative for the January edition of Maison&Objet in Paris to celebrate the special occasion and invited 14 designers to re-imagine the now classic table lamp.



The Bourgie Lamp, in its first classic clear iteration of transparent polycarbonate, designed by Ferruccio Laviani in 2004:

and the available colored, gold, silver and black versions from Kartell:


Wallpaper magazine reports that "The Milan-based designer, who has been working as Kartell's in-house art director for over 20 years, designed the light in 2004 responding to the brief of creating 'an important lamp'. Inspiration came from an old fixture sitting on his desk and a 1970s disco song by Ashford & Simpson repeating 'Everybody wants to be bourgie bourgie' in reference to the wannabe bourgeoisie. The result features the silhouette of a classic table lamp, rendered in what the Italian company does best: plastic. Transparent and tongue-in-cheek, the Bourgie represents an important time in the company's history of experimentation with the material."

The 14 unique pieces shown below will be part of a traveling exhibition all over the world with events taking place over the course of the year 2014. Next steps will be Milan, in April, on the occasion of Salone del Mobile and New York in May during ICFF. At the end of 2014 Kartell will organize an online auction for the sale of the unique pieces, of which the proceeds will go to charity.

Alberto Meda:


Ludovica + Robert Palumbo (wrought iron):


Christophe Pillet (matte black felt):


Front:


Patrick Jouin:


Rodolfo Dordoni:


Patricia Urquiola:


Eugeni Quitllet (made to emulate a birthday cake):



Philippe Starck (with Lenny Kravitz):


Mario Bellini:



Piero Lissoni (rice paper):


Tokujiin Yoshioka:


And lastly, Nendo (turned the negative space into a lamp):


Images of the display Paris:



The 14 one-off designs are currently on display at Kartell's Paris flagship store on Boulevard Saint-Germain, after which they will turn into a traveling exhibition for the rest of the year before being auctioned online.

all images and information courtesy of Kartell (their site, their facebook page and pinterest page)

Kartell Bourgie 10th Anniversary site

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Arek art lamps, design, home decor, italian design, lighting, modern lamps, patricia urquiola, philippe starck, table lamps

A Simple Add-On Helps Turn Any Flat Surface Into A Table: The Floyd Leg.

UPDATE: Congratulations to Kyle and Alex, the Floyd Leg has been fully funded via Kickstarter as of about 16 hours ago!



So, what is it?

It's so simple, it's a wonder no one has created this before now. The Floyd Leg is like a C-clamp with a long, tapered, powder-coated steel attached leg. A tool that gives you the framework to take be the creator of your own furniture by utilizing wood slabs, signs, old doors, art, reclaimed materials or found objects (basically anything flat) that can serve as a surface.






The easy-to-attach legs emerged from a personal need combined with curiosity. Living a rather nomadic lifestyle with work and school took designer Kyle Hoff to several different cities in which he found himself buying (and ultimately) discarding furniture repeatedly. He then decided that he'd like a work desk which was was easy to pack up and move around, without sacrificing aesthetic appeal or requiring any building expertise.




Kyle met future partner Alex O'Dell while designing and building out a workspace in the North Corktown neighborhood of Detroit. The building itself was formerly an auto garage.



With this history in mind, their philosophy was a minimal use of materials in order to contrast the new with the old.

above: Kyle Hoff and Alex O'Dell

After completion of the space, the Floyd Legs became their next project with these same values in mind: simple, useful, adaptive. They see the legs as a tool for people to be inventive with their furniture and reflective of their lives —without needing the skills and expertise to build from scratch.



The name Floyd harkens back to the name of Hoff's father, grandfather, and great grandfather, all steel mill workers. In the same spirit of local manufacturing, he and partner Alex O'Dell have established partnerships with local machine shops to produce the legs.

Specifications
The Floyd Leg is available in two different lengths and two different colors. Black or white powder-coated in 29” table height and a 16” coffee table height. They are produced in Detroit and made with American steel.

The legs are best suited to medium and light uses (the suggested weight to support is 75 lbs or less). However, the weight is less important as the size of the material you use. For these reasons they recommend uses such as desks, coffee tables, foyer tables, planting tables, etc. But they wouldn't recommend things that require larger surfaces and heavy interaction such as dining/dinner tables since there is no cross bracing.

The Floyd Leg has raised well over their initial goal of $18,000 on Kickstarter (as of February 4th they'd raised $214,871) and they intend to modify the prototype model with a larger clamping area on the fastener, ultimately making the leg stronger and easier to use. Rather than the small foot that is currently on the end of the fastener, the new model will have a 1.5" diameter foot for a better connection.



Kyle and Alex are both University of Michigan grads and designers based out of Detroit. They met while building out a workspace in a former auto-garage in the North Corktown neighborhood of Detroit. The approach utilized a minimal set of materials in order to contrast the old with the new. After the completion of the workspace, Alex joined Kyle in the launching of Floyd. Much like the reuse of the auto garage — Floyd is a framework for the re-imagining of existing resources.

•The Floyd Leg website
•The Floyd Leg on Kickstarter

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Arek building materials, coffee tables, designer tools, DIY, furniture, home decor, industrial design, interior decor, steel and wood furniture, table, tables

Little Flags Of Awesome - Designers Go Retro for The People's Pennant.

Elevating the classic pennant from sports memorabilia to a celebration of the everyday - that's the concept behind The People's Pennant.



Launched in March of 2012, the Pennant People (Jessica, Tim and Eric of Greenpoint, Brookyln) enlist various graphic designers, typographers and illustrators to create a different wool felt blend pennant that is then sewn and printed by hand. Made in a limited quantity of 250 each, the pennants measure 12" x 30".  And at only $25 a piece, they are fun decor for everything from dorm rooms to offices.






As of now, they have 8 beautiful pennants available for purchase, all shown below.

Coffee Break! by Ken Barber, type director at House Industries.:


Happy Hour by Nathan Strandberg and Katie Kirk of Eight Hour Day:


Blast Off! by Invisible Creature:


Look Closer by Tyler and Elsa Lang of Always With Honor:


Read Much by Heads of State:


Rise & Shine by Richard Perez:


Pizza Time by Mikey Burton:


and their newest, Ride by Brent Couchman:






Here's a video that gives you a short tour of how the pennants are made:


Sewn and printed by hand, the 70/30 wool felt blend pennants cost $25 each
Shop for them here

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Arek gifts for artists, graphic design, home decor, illustration, sports, typography, wool felt products