design shows

tent london was the best design show this year - something of everything, from second-hand modernist furniture to conceptual student projects, and all bases between. it took three hours to get round, and i still missed some. my photos here. designersblock was less good this year, but still had a few interesting things.

highlights of both shows [not just stuff i photographed] in no particular order:

andrew oliver's cut-up furniture - he hasn't got his website up yet, but one to watch

kithkin presented some slightly freaky student work - pay and display is a brilliant idea, newton's breakfast is entertaining, androgynous doll with its velcro genitalia is worrying and as for this...

the 'reveal' table by ku-designs is an instant classic - not bad for a first try

trekinetic's hi-tech wheelchairs make disability look cool

ernie bakker's spira coffee table gives spirographic form to your tablecloth doodles - and i like his other spirograph-derived products and the ker-plunk olive dispenser

lojo is another good emerging church seating solution

vaugh shannon have relatively mainstream but witty furniture - i especially like the cityscape table

mr jones watches are very witty [though you need good eyesight]. remember you will die...

my current smallritual.org menu colours are taken from a rug by susan absolon for kappa lambda rugs. unfortunately it isn't on their not-great website. me photographing the rug: "i need the colours for my website menus!" she looked nonplussed.

i looked nonplussed at the sublime magazine stand with a beach beat surfboard laid across two butts [photo here]. would you dare put one of those outside your house? and what's with a glossy lifestyle magazine about consuming less?