Displaying posts from November, 2008

Pierre Yovanovitch, a Parisian, started off as a clothing designer and switched to interior architecture and design only a few years ago. “He sees his work as a search for an intuitively felt balance between necessities that are frequently contradictory: luxury and simplicity; audacity and discretion; impertinence and wisdom.” Each of his spaces is even more intriguing than the last.

Jannicke Kråkvik and Alessandro D´Orazio share a passion and that passion is their work. They are hunters and gatherers, stylists and designers. As Kråkvik & D´Orazio this Norwegian duo work for Elle Interiør Norway as well as a kaleidoscope of clients. It’s all about fun and finding the right location or found object. Fabulous!

We were asked in a comment last week about why we emphasise the photographer when it’s the stylist or the designer or the architect or the great home or the stylish owner that is the main contributor to the beautiful rooms we feature. We feature the photographers for a number of reasons – a) it’s their website from which we are taking the pictures (obvious reason for praising their work) and b) it’s an incredible talent, the ability to take gorgeous photos that make you covet a product or dream of owning a room you have never seen with your own eyes. Photographers make a picture on a page reach out and tug at your heart strings. Yes the room is beautiful, the owners have great taste, the designer/architect is a genius and the stylist makes it just perfect but if I took the photo you would never know how fabulous it really was. I’m a shocking photographer. The talented professionals we feature bring these spaces to life. Their tools are their camera, the light, their appreciation of angles, colour, composition and every other contributing factor but it’s their eye, their super talent that brings it all to life. Simon Bevan is one such photographer. Enjoy!

I had a really busy day yesterday trying to finish up the painting in my kitchen, and the electrician was over for a few hours trying to finish up with the lighting and outlets. My contractor claims he’ll finish things up Monday, and I’m ecstatic to finally get this reno finished. Then I went to the Friends of Abandoned Pets charity dinner and auction, where I volunteered to be the photographer. It was alot of fun and they raised a decent amount of money. SO, all that being said, I didn’t have much time to get a post ready for today, as I’ve got an entire house to essentially hose down of drywall dust and get the kitchen and the rest of the house organized. A Flickr contact of mine, linsmika, has such a cool, creative and eclectic home that I thought I’d share some of her photos today instead of scouring Flickr for one of my usual themed posts.

Not only does she have a cool home, but so do her friends!

WINKS – weekend links. Here we list what has come in during the week, things we’ve found and things we think you’ll want to see. If you’d like to see your blog or website featured email us and if we think it fits with our readers we’ll link you. So what’s in this week?

• • Bondville – cool products & design from Australia and elsewhere to keep you in the know. Steph has a great eye for Aussie finds and even better she’s from Brisbane too! I’m blown away by the blogging talent coming out of my home town Briz-Vegas!

• • Susie Q from eye spy sent me a link to the work of Alvin Lustig. If you don’t know his work you’re in for a treat!

• • Love metremade. Love. Liz Roger and Tess McCabe are the creative Aussie duo behind these fab pattern designs. (I used their Take the Tube fabric in green on a lampshade.) These ladies are SO talented. Fabric, desktop wallpapers (download here) and now the most exciting news of all – they have designed patterns for Grippiks, decorative pattern “accents” for IKEA furniture. The pattern pieces are pre-cut to size for popular IKEA furniture items, and you simply peel and stick for a fast and fabulous furniture makeover! Girls, girls, girls I take my hat off to you!

• • Email in from Jamie Ward Furniture. Jamie wrote, “I am interested in producing eco-friendly pieces which fit into a contemporary home as attractive hand made furniture. I take a playful, inventive approach to designing and manufacturing work which is all made from second hand furniture which has been found discarded around Manchester. The lack of value these pieces have in a modern wasteful society I find surprising, the value for me has always been the individuality and character each piece of metal and wood has due to the weathering which rusts, warps and discolours the materials.” Clever, inspired, eco-chic and at times hauntingly beautiful (and at others in your face). Great stuff!

• • Tracy Porter is a design whirlwind. On-line store with gorgeous apparel and homewares and now a blog. Is it a marketing event, is it a woman bent on succeeding in business, is it a lifestyle, is it living with style? It’s Tracy Porter.

• • Been to Chic Tip yet? It’s a daily design blog dedicated to the art of interior design. They feature stores, products, artists, reviews, sales, contests announcements, trends-in-the-make and more. But it’s more than just a blog, it’s a community – for designers seeking inspiration, and for amateur design enthusiasts.

• • Alexis the web editor at marthastewart.com emailed to let us know that Martha’s radio channel (Sirius 112 and XM 157) is running a Thanksgiving hotline November 24-26. “We have peeps like Martha (of course), Emeril, Isaac Mizrahi, Johnny Iuzzini and Mario Batali answering your Thanksgiving questions!” Details here. We don’t do Thanksgiving in Australia but I sure love turkey! Oh and pie, lots of pie!

• Lastly I’m sure you have all seen the first in a series of video collaborations between Grace at design*sponge and the New York Public Library. They’re following 5 artists (Julia Rothman, John Pomp, Mike Perry, Moontree Press and Lorena Barrezueta) as they create collections inspired by the library’s collections. It’s an amazing idea and I can’t wait to go on the journey with them. Get yourself started on this creative trip yourself if you haven’t already. All you need to know is here.