PRODUCT

2 weeks ago I was invited by York St Johns University to help out with curating their very own Pop-Up Design Shop(PRODUCT) hosted by Bar Lane Studio's in York. The project is running up until September 2012 and I have been tasked with getting in local and national designers to spotlight. (get in touch if your interested).
We thought it would be great to get the shop open for Christmas, so I quickly asked around a few freinds and local designers in York to test how the shop would run over the period, see some images below:

if you look close enough you may see a sneak peak of a couple of new John Green products.

THE STUDIO

So, i've been quite on here for a while I know. Things have been extrememly busy and i have been working on lots of new things. But amongst all of this I have finally moved out of the tiny temporary studio Angus had kindly made for me in snowhome, to share a nice big (COLD) building with 3 other York based designers:

Phil Procter (www.philprocter.com)
Will Vincent (www.mrwillvincent.co.uk)
Turner & Harper (www.turnerhaprer.com)

Over the past year, the above guys have already been using half of this building as their studio, while the other half was used a Tennis shop, but this month the whole building has become vacant as Tennis man has left. The space at snowhome was great for me and I will still use it from time to time, but it does not lend to storing stock and prototyping ideas, so when this whole building became vacant I couldn;t really say no. We are calling the place, 'the studio' and in the New Year, I'll be trying my best to spruce it up a bit, as you can see from the images it needs a bit of it, I might even take down the tennis sign from outside.....but for now it's just a nice big space to get creative in, with some safe storage for all those embrace tables.

Although I have moved out of my snowhome based studio, I will still be working with Angus at snowhome on new products, and even more so now that I have a nice big studio space that I can stretch my legs out in....I even took the fixie for a ride around some embrace stock the other day. Have a look at some pics (the only things I can find on my computer at the moment, I'll try to create a virtual tour when I get time).

BUSY BUSY

I just wanted to put a quick post out to say that I have been busy...lately i've been working on loads of new stuff that (frustratingly) I can't say too much about, simply because nothing I've worked on lately has been for my own brand. Above is a sneak peak of a brand new light shade :) I'm sure in the next few months I will be posting some detailed post about new products.

DAVID MELLOR DESIGNS

Since the opening of my exhibition in Barnsley earlier this year when I met Corin Mellor I have been meaning to visit the David Mellor factory. In NYC when I agreed to help breakdown their stand I spent a good half hour in amazement as I flicked through the David Mellor portfolio and learnt more about what he had designed. Being a bit naive I only knew of his cutlery. And to think i never knew who designed the Traffic Light makes me feel a bit of a clown shoe. So as I broke down the David Mellor stand in NYC I stuffed a few of my products into their pallets knowing it would get me down to their factory to collect them.

Last week I finally got the chance to get myself out to the peak district for a visit and wasn't let down! That place is just amazing and whether you are a designer or not I recommend it. It was the CLEANEST factory floor I had ever seen, you seriously could eat your dinner from it. Visiting has made me realise that this is exactly what I want for my brand. Maybe in a few years time though ;).

Thanks James for the coffee, the factory tour and most importantly bringing home the things from New York. Cheers

MOLESKINE - ICFF

For every trade show/exhibition I do I have a fresh Moleskine. This is used to keep business cards and write down notes from orders and contacts etc... There's always the odd inspired sketch in there too. When arriving in New York there was no need for my own Moleskine as greeting me on my stand was brand new ICFF limited edition notebook...well worthy of blogging. Even if it is a few months late. Check out the debossed ICFF logo, wrap and the note inside.

NEW DESIGNERS 2011

I've just returned from a week in London for the New Designers. This year I was helping out York St John University, working with them on the stand design and build. It was a big stand to build in a day but we managed it...just.

There are some promising graduates this year. I particularly enjoy the concrete stool 'dainty' and jigamals.

EMBRACE OWNERS CLUB

A nice email from another happy customer. Thanks Adam for taking the time to take the picture and send it in. Looks great below your limited edition cl O ck.

TV

I forgot about this. Over a year ago now I was down at the habitat HQ being filmed for an episode of Britains Next Big Thing. It was aired on BBC 2 last month and with everything being so hectic with exhibitions I never had the chance to watch it properly. I did however see episode 3 right before I headed off for Grand Designs to see that after a whole day of filming I starred on it for about 2.5 seconds...ha..what you see in the screen grab above is about all you can see. Me walking through the habitat carpark with my mate si and a couple of embraces.

LAST MINUTE PREPERATIONS

Thanks to BA throwing my case around a little bit more than I expected, I'm having to do a last minute spray touch up in the hotel room. Thanks to jessy for setting up the spray booth.

OFF CUT'S

Check this out, some the lads were hacking up a pallet in the workshop to helping me out to build my case for New York. I picked up these little off cuts in the workshop. Great coasters......wonder if it's been done!

BATCH 02

Lots of packing and sending going on lately catching up on back orders as the first part of BATCH NO. 2 arrives in the studio. A quick snap of the B-E-A-UUUUUUUUUUTTTIIIFFFUUULL walnuts that have come with this batch, these are the best I've ever seen, i'd be proud to be the owner of one of these myself........one day......next to my walnut eames lounger and ottoman.

Also a quick snap of the results from the new debossing stamp on a birch embrace, (the old one was getting a bit worn).

ARRIVED

Arrived in Frankfurt today after a manic Week. The week began with me moving house (always easier said than done) and then I had to set up a solo exhibition at the Barnsley DMC in a new area called D:Space. This exhibition runs for 6 weeks and opened it's door on Wednesday 9th of Feb! (more info and pics to come on this very soon). And finally I got the plane this morning to Frankfurt to go and view the Ambiente Exhibition.

Image above of the FREE inflight refreshments, it's been a while since I havn't taken a budget airline so as you can imagine I'm excited about the FREE beer and salami sandwich.

Auf Wiedersehen.

- Posted from my iPhone

Location:Düsseldorfer Straße,Frankfurt,Germany

PRODUCT TESTING

I thought I'd test the strength of embrace with a spot of indo-boarding. Test successful! Don't worry embrace has had a much more thorough testing than this and I know it's absolutely solid, well it takes my 15 stone weight jumping up and down on it! And it's a brilliant sledge!
PLEASE NOTE: This was an extremely scratched embrace that the delivery driver dropped from his fork lift, do not try this at home! :)

W O O D S K I N S

Here's the WOOD SKIN a collaboration with an old uni friend Rich. Rich works in a huge graphic design studio and his studio has just had a full re-furb of new iMacs. Rich decided he wanted his mac to stand out at work and turned up one night with some wood effect vinyl he wanted cutting for his screen. To be honest i'm not much of a fan of this as I love the mac as it is, but anyway I gave him a hand with the technical side of things and couldn't bare to see him wasting the HUGE square in the middle of the screen. Here I go again designing with waste. So anyway, I quickly measured my iphone and cut 20 iphone skins from the centre screen, instantly applied it to my phone thought to myself this would sell!

As I always do when the light bulb pings I do a quick google, only to find there are loads and loads of these out there, all different brands all different qualities. But as seen as though we had got 20 from the screen centre and rich had bought all this vinyl we decided to cut the rest of them and focus on some nice packaging!

So the WOODSKIN is not essential and hardly protects your iPhone (it doesn't do a bad job of protecting the back of the iPhone 4), but it's easy to apply and it leaves no trace when removed. We trialed the woodskins in snowhome over xmas and they have been successful.

If i'm totally honest I'm not sure how much I like them, I have one on my phone, and it looks nice, but I occasionally take it off and remember how nice a design the iphone is without it. Finally, I'm not claiming to have been original with this product, and I won't be adding it to my portfolio, but the one thing I will take ownership of is the packaging design. 110gsm tracing paper envelopes, printed in the studio with a nice veneer swatch stuck to the front, utilised from the waste vinyl cut out for the centre button.

For more info or to buy visit: www.woodskins.co.uk

M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S

I'm home.........well i've been back for around a week now and it's been great to take the rest! I went home with the following xmas to-do list:

1. see family and friends = check

2. go sledging = check

3. get drunk and eat lots of home cooked food = check

4. go on some big dog walks = check

5. do some work (develop a few designs) = NOPE!

When I return to the studio I will probably feel bad about this, but for now it feels good and well deserved! I've spent the majority of the time at my mums new house, she has only been in 2 weeks and they have NO INTERNET, I can't remember the last time I was somewhere without internet, I must say i have enjoyed it, but it's good to be back online!

So as you can see my mum lives at the top of a huge hill, and for the first couple of days there was lots of snow, so I got some good sledging action in. But then the weather got warmer and all the snow went, so I set about steeling my younger brother and sisters christmas presents to make up for the lack of sledging and internet. Below is a quick stop frame of my favourite, the RipStik (www.ripstik.com). Hours of fun! And nicely photographed by my little bro. Cheers Dom.

So apologies for the delayed Christmas post, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everybody!

I'd also like to to take this opportunity to say thank you to everybody who has supported me and been involved with my designs through 2010. It means alot to me, and I couldn't do what I do without your support.

Again thanks, Merry Christmas and I'll see you in what I plan to be a very creative 2011.

WOODSKIN*

Another late night in the studio and a quick collaboration with designer/friend Rich Storey. A bigger blog post to come in the new year!