*notcot in design , 13:06

State of Design- 10.19.06

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Lucy Feagins, Melbourne contributor, sends us more design news from down under. State of Design is a new State-government funded design festival (yes, another one!) kind of trying to bill Melbourne as the ‘design’ capital (although everyone kind of knows that’s a title traditionally held by Sydney).

There was lots going on around town as part of the festival and unfortunately I didn’t get along to see a lot of it, but one exhibition I did see was ‘Freestyle – New Australian Design for Living’ at the Melbourne Museum. The exhibition was beautifully and thoughtfully laid out, though it seemed like more of a retrospective of established Aussie designers that a true collection of ‘new’ Australian design. Anyway, it was fantastic to be reminded of so many successful and inspiring Australian designers, and also to see such variety within the one show – from furniture to fashion to ceramics and jewellery. Among those designers featured were fashion designers Akira Isogawa and Easton Pearson, bag designer/manufacturer’s Crumpler Bag, Jewelery and homewares designers Dinosaur Designs and many others. See some of my top picks below…

A few stand-outs included:

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Dinosaur Designs
Melbourne based designers Dinosaur Designs are well known now in Australia for their beautiful jewel-like resin creations. The irregular shaped vases/bowls/bangles etc are kind of Flintstones-esque… chunky and kooky but stunning in their simplicity. Their use of colour is truly inspired, and each item is coloured individually with swirls of hand-mixed pigment, so no two pieces are quite the same.

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Ari Athans
Brisbane based Jeweler Ari Athans exhibited stunning simple silver jewelery inspired by her study of gemology. These earrings form part of her ‘Seven Crystal Systems’ collection.

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Cloth
Cloth is a small NSW-based textile design company. They screen-print irregular, over-sized playful designs in gorgeous bold colors onto rustic natural fabrics like jute, hemp and linen.

2 Notes

Oh, Thanks! Really interesting. Big ups!

----- JoshWink 13.08.08 09:32

I take offense:
“(although everyone kind of knows that’s a title traditionally held by Sydney)”

----- Rhett 19.10.06 23:30


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