block

Neons in Print – Katowice Street Art Festival, Poland

Thomas — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 16:19:36 +0000

Six block shapes, six fluorescent colours and 62 versions of a promo poster for the Katowice Street Art Festival, Poland. Graphic designer Marta Gawin silkscreened these original prints, combining bright contrasting, complimenting and clashing colours for bold and visually stimulating results. Expect to see neons everywhere this summer, hopefully bringing a little optimism to our British weather. Plus, watch this space for our upcoming neon vase range.

images – Marta Gawin

Gary Hume at the Tate Britain

sarah — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 15:06:16 +0000

This month Tate Britain will play host to an exciting new exhibition from UK artist Gary Hume. The exhition has been cleverly curated as soon as the viewer enters through bright pink doors. The doors are a sign of things to come within the exhibition including bold paintings in a wealth of bright colours.

Clerkenwell Design Week

sarah — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:01:21 +0000

The design highlight of the year so far for us at Block, a fantastic trip to Clerkenwell Design Week. An amazing variety of exhibits and activities held over 3 days. Here are a few of our highlights including innovative lighting by David Trubridge

Pulse – Nordic Trend

sarah — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:54:35 +0000

This year at Pulse London, Earls Court, the Nordic trend was clear to see. From stylish textiles by Seven Gauge Studio to wallpaper and ceramic the nordic vibe was very popular. The distinctive tones were an inspiration for our new Desk Clock range and also feature in the Magazine Rack crisp whites.

Colour & Space from the Momentané exhibition

Thomas — Mon, 13 May 2013 11:56:20 +0000

Another Parisian exhibition here, showcasing 15 years of design by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec has opened at Les Arts Décoratifs museum. The exhibition consists of a number of beautiful and inspirational textile dividers. Making use of pattern, texture and bold colour themes.

images – Les Arts Décoratifs

When kinetic energy meets colour…

Thomas — Fri, 03 May 2013 15:09:40 +0000

Currently exhibiting at the Centre Pompidou until 20th May 2013 in Paris, is the confrontational work of Jesus-Rafael Soto (1923-2005). His work begins to explore art through participation rather than perception, using colour in a three-dimensional structure to create an ‘optical vibration’ with the use of colour.

We LOVE the way the colour is seen to jump out, or as Soto put it, into an ‘unpredictable dance of retractions or projections in the ‘Ambivalences:Senegales’ piece.’ The colour appears playful yet sensitive when the viewer is challenged to interact with colour.

His work is an ambience of colour and movement combined.

Considered Colours & Clever Stacking – Poke Stool

Thomas — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:34:05 +0000

The Poke Stool is the first furniture piece created by a typography designer, Kyuhyung Cho. Cho’s inspiration was to develop furniture for adults but keep a spirit of child like play in the form and function. This is evident in the playful, ‘building block’-esque colours in the set.

Not only is the stacking method clever and unique, it also creates interesting sculptural forms as additional stools are added. Cho describes it “as creating a rhythm as the stack grows higher. The addition of the fourth stool establishes a new layer with a different tempo. The composition of different colours and variations to the rhythm lead us create our own structure, like a geometric sculpture.”

The Stool is made from natural birch and oak and is finished with a hard wearing coloured lacquer to create a solid and smooth surface to make stacking and unstacking work effortlessly.

images & words – Kyuhyung Cho

The Medici chair wins ‘Design of the Year’ in the furniture category

Tara — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 09:07:26 +0000

Fresh from success in Milan the Medici chair, designed by Konstantin Grcic for Mattiazzi has just been announced as the winner of the furniture category in the ‘Design of the Year’ competition by The Design Museum London http://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/2013/designs-of-the-year-2013 We love the irregular angles and the geometrics of this chair, we also applaud its brave use of colour, this is definitely a design I would have expected to see in wood, … Read More →

Colour beacon for the South Bank – The Shed

Thomas — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 10:28:23 +0000

Infamous for its concrete supremacy and muted monotones, London based architectural studio Haworth Tompkins give the South Bank a much needed colour infusion with The Shed; a temporary auditorium for the National Theatre. The structure is covered by rough-sawn timber cladding painted in a striking and vivid red. In our mission statement; a Block product must be bold, brave, and a colour focus point. So if there was ever a Block building it would probably be something similar to this.

Tape Installations by Rebecca Ward

Tara — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 12:01:12 +0000

The tape installations by Rebecca Ward were a strong inspiration behind our wire products, in particular our wire fruit bowl. She has taken something as simple as a line and made it into an elegant, intricate three dimensional sculpture.

The works by the Texan born artist are beautifully elegant and have an intriguing use of colour, they are bold, sometimes brash and demand attention. They are carefully planned geometric installations which force people to reconsider the space they are in.

‘I think about space all the time,how people interact with their surroundings,how we create environments that suit us. Architecture would be meaningless without people’ Rebecca Ward