embrace jigs...again!

Now things are getting serious. I've been working through the night to put this beast together. Now that embrace has been developed and I know the dimensions are right, I've gone for it and made a solid Jig. After hours and hours of hammering late night in the residency I'm about to press the first embrace today..on a bank holiday monday, cheers!

PANTONE wallstore's

Yesterday I bent up all the wallstores by hand and dropped them off at the powder coaters in preparation for 100%. I'm going to upload a video of that homemade jig in action soon/when i have the time. You will be amazed!.

snowhome is eight

Snowhome is 8 years old next month and to celebrate there is going to be a party. And guess what's going to be there?!............yep, embrace has it's first outlet. For the very first time embrace is going to be available to buy as snowhome is previewing Embrace one week before it's official launch at 100% design. So if you can't get your self to London here is your chance to come and see the real thing. (long live the prototypes - more to come on the journey of prototype to batch production very soon).

And that's not all "snowhome is eight" will also see the launch of some new products, exclusive to snowhome, designed in collaboration with my good self.

So make sure you get yourself down to the birthday party for drinks, birthday cakes and some exciting new designs!

Place: Snowhome, York (in store)
Date: Saturday 12th September 2009
Time: 10 - 5.30

Flyer pictured above: Designed by John Green, Printed 100% recycled Kraft Board. Nice!

bags for life have arrived

The snowhome bags for life arrived today. The bags have been neatly hand screen printed for us by alison hardcastle. Now we have small little competition to see which design sells best. My design is the "proper bag" and the one with a load of design silhouette's scattered about. Each bag has been printed as a limited edition of 25.
To get your limited edition John Green bag, go to: www.snow-home.co.uk

A few pieces of metal attatched to the inside of a mates jumper. I don't really get it, but thought it was cool enough to blog!

newquay = done

I'm back........feeling a little burnt but it's been a great week, recharging the batteries and hitting the surf everyday. Now there is only six long weeks to crack on for 100%, I can just tell there is going to be some sleepless nights!

100% design 24 - 27 September 2009 **REGISTER NOW**

100% design registration is now open to the public www.100percentdesign.co.uk. This means the show is fast approaching, and instead of stressing I'm about to dig out the longboard, and take a nice week out in the surf, I'm going to let my brain breath and plan out the next month and a half. It's going to be busy! The to-do list is already looking big.

I will be showing at 100% design, on stand J96 in the futures section, where I will launch my first range of products, titled 'experiments in ply'. The show will feature a few products from my university portfolio that I have spent months working on, just trying to make them viable and affordable whilst maintaining quality. There will also be some new products designed earlier this year and a 100% new product designed in collaboration with independent design retailer snowhome.

facsimile

who knew fax machines were also bin bag dispensers? ha, I've just spent 1 and a half hours rolling that bin bag in, and the worst thing is, i don't even know why it's there, what it's for or if I was even supposed to wind it back in.

i'll never say a bad word about emails again

bag head

I was set the brief to design an exclusive snowhome bag for life. My design will only be printed once in an exclusive hand screen printed run. The bags will soon be available to purchase from snowhome for somewhere under £5. So get yourself down there to bag your self a John Green exclusive.

Cheers Grabham for being a true baghead and modelling it so well!

Design for Dwell 09

eroz 09 was shortlisted in the design for dwell competition. But for me to win it, you guys need to vote!

Whether you hate dwell or not follow the link:

http://dwell.co.uk/designfordwell.php?design=25

and vote 5 stars.

Cheers

A night at the farm

Hand printing snowhome bags for life with Angus (the screen print guru) at a very nice farm based studio.

Thank you Alison for letting us borrow your great facilities.

Cast Pebble

The result of the Platten and Green collaboration.

WALNUT embrace in your face!

The penultimate prototype made in the residency workshops! this time doing the lay-up the proper way!

Proper Picture

I know its the 3rd post on this design, but I am enjoying it right now. And just so you know PANTONE Inc. trademarks and copyrights are the property of Pantone, Inc.

busting some angles

Pantone Wallstore

The new wallstore, designed to be used as a magnetic notice board and a storage space for magazines, post, keep sakes etc...

The pantone wallstore will be available in a variety of pantone referenced colours.

The idea goes out to W2 this week so lets see what they say!

DesignWorks Exhibition 2009 - getting ready

It's been a late few nights this week preparing the DesignWorks stand for this years Graduate Show, here's a sneak preview of how the stand is coming on. Only a
full day at snowhome, an embrace box to screen print, 45 spacers to cut and polish a rockingstool to sand down and a batch of hangers to cut.

Here's the result for day one at the beach, a pewter coster, just a quick mess around, and the first real experiment with the material. The coaster was supposed to look like a nice industrial object that when turned over revealed an imprint of the beach. But, I didn't get the look I was hoping for so stand by for the results of a new product from day 4 at the beach. (don't worry I have the results already, but I'm just too busy at the moment to upload them)

Top 2 images show the coaster freshly cast at the beach, the last image shows it after I had a play withit on the lathe.

Pewter

in true max lamb style, me and designer/friend Jason hit the beach for day 1 of our pewter designing for the V&A design comp.

As we were just testing the whole process today, come back soon for day 2.

Designing with waste

Designing with waste product no_2. Here's another product that comes from those wasteful center's of the rockingstool. I absolutely LOVE this, it makes me smile everytime, but it seems to have an impact like marmite, some people really don't like this, but others LOVE it.

The letters are CNC cut from 18mm birch faced ply and the clock is made up of 2 sheets of 18mm ply with an acrylic centre. The hands are birch veneer. There are a few these knocking around in the studio, so if you want your very own limited edition you know who to call. This clock looks great even without the letters, minimal.

SURPRISE!

A very nice surprise from Dad last night. No need to be cutting wood in half now or driving with the boot open.....or even nagging friends for a lift to the timber yard. The johngreendesigns mobile is on the road, be wary!

Thanks for all your good support Dad....it means a lot.

Right........back to the 24 hr designing!

The Clock is Ticking

Ready............Go.

just about ready to undertake a 24 hour design challenge, in collaboration with fellow design resident Simon Gornall.

Its gonna be a L-------O---------N-------G day.

Start: 11am - 25/03/09
Finish: 11am - 26/03/09

Brief: Design something good.

The results of the 24 hour collaboration will be sent off to the Design for DWELL competition.

Come back in 24 hours to see the results.

Spin me baby

Built to last

A yorkshire friend raps about crude design and manufacture..............built to last, exactly! 

Teacake do johngreen

The brilliant guys over at teacake are now underway, developing me a new typographic identity, some nice stationary and some promotional material. Its great to have them on board, check out their work at http://www.teacakedesign.com/ I'll be replacing the above image with some of the stuff I get through, but for the mean time, enjoy what sold them to me!

embrace

the range

New photoshoot underway!.......including a brand new product................"can you guess what it is yet?" (Rolf Harris - 1992) oh and missing a few products, lense wasn't wide enough.

rockingstool developed

Its been a mad 24 hours, sanding....sealing....sanding............sealing....waxing on..........waxing offf. A sneak preview of the new rockingstool, now you've just got to wait for me to learn how to use my new SLR.............................new pics coming very soon.

The Butterfly Stool

Sori Yanagi's amazing Butterfly Stool designed in 1954, followed by the Capeli Stool, designed by Carol Catalano in 1994, followed by my interpretation, embrace2 - 2008. My version is just a bit of mess about, taking the iconic form of the butterfly stool and adding the simple cross halving feature of embrace.

Just a mess about, but as it will be so easy to make, keep yourself posted for the results of a prototype..................which will probably snap!

Toast

A sample of the cut sheet for the new rockingstool prototype. Stronger and more robust is the plan, although I think its beginning to look a little bit like a few pieces of toast.......anyway..........keep posted for more development of the rockingstool over the next few weeks.

Back to Work - YSJU Originate Residency

My first day in my 12 month residency program at YSJU. I'm very pleased to have been selected for the residency (although I am the guinea pig). My plans are to spend some time refining and developing some of the more popular (award winning) university products that I designed, so that they are ready for the shops. This means that all of you that have been nagging to own your embrace, your dream will shortly be within your reach :).

In the new year I will then be taking advantage of everything that has been given to me and I will be getting stuck in and developing some new products as well as working on various collaborations, one of which is currently underway with snowhome and I'm very excited about.

Snowhome collaboration

This week I began working on a collaboration with Angus of Snowhome, things are at an early stage at the moment but I will be sure to keep you posted!

watch this space.

YSJSU Best In Show 2008 - £1000

I think Best in Show kind of explains its self really. The cheque came through this morning for the £1000 start4art award. This money will all be going towards developing the rockingstool so that it is ready for sale, I will be running some official safety tests, and refining the manufacturing process. More information will follow as soon as development gets underway. Stay tuned guys.

New Designers 2008 - Part 2

I was selected by uni to show at this years New Designers in London. An eventful week in the big smoke living off tuna and pasta, yet again!

New Designers really did open my eyes in terms of how many people were actually interested in my works. The above image shows the 3 pieces that I got to show. The exhibition went really well, and it was great to see people’s reactions to my products and receive so much positive interest.

Thanks Guys!

The Daily Telegraph - Designers to look out for.

After an unexpected phone call with David from the daily telegraph, it was great to see the final print. Being selected by David as one of the designers that stood out from the 4000+ other exhibitors due to exhibit at New Designers, helped gain great publicity for me at the event. With many visitors coming to view my exhibition due to seeing and reading about it in the saturdays telegraph.

I would like to thank David for the feature

The article reads:

Northern Design Competition 2008

I know, I know, sack the photographer. Cheers for this Rich. Embrace was shortlisted for the Northern Design Competition 2008. It was a great show and a good day.

Embrace in Corian

Due to the current state of the CSD winning plywood embrace, I had a busy week between the workshops and exhibiting at the YSJU Art & Design Show. Anyway here's the result a nice DuPont Corian version of embrace fresh and ready to exhibit at the Northern Design Competition next week.