Binic by Ionna Vautrin for Foscarini - photo: ionnavautrin.com

The most awesome thing happened today. I reached into my filing cabinet and stumbled upon a small, single, delicious truffle in a ziplock bag leftover from my Christmas treat stash. How this little wonder escaped my awareness for nearly three weeks, I have no idea – but am I ever glad that it did! Also great today, is my discovery of Ionna Vautrin’s website. She is the young up and coming designer behind Binic: a brand new sweet and petite lamp for Foscarini that truly makes you go Awww.

photo: ionnavautrin.com

Binic would make a great light for a hall table, bookshelf, nightstand, or anywhere you could use a little pocket of cuteness. Metropolis magazine noted the lamp’s likeness with Kenny from South Park (which made me laugh out loud), but for me … it’s also akin with the disproportionate headed robot, Marvin, from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I just want to give them both warm, encouraging hugs. Vautrin’s actual inspiration came from the wind socks and lighthouses of North Eastern France.

Kenny from South Park

Marvin from Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Binic by Ionna Vautrin for Foscarini - photo: ionnavautrin.com

I love Binic. He has loads of personality, comes in lots of great colours, and is really reasonably priced at only $262.00! Purchase it on our website, here.

Binic by Ionna Vautrin for Foscarini - photo: ionnavautrin.com

Binic by Ionna Vautrin for Foscarini

photo: ionnavautrin.com

Ionna Vautrin’s website offers many other successful and interesting product designs. Check it out, here.
Visit Binic at gabrielross.com, here.

Tab Table Lamp, Edward Barber & Jay Osgerby 2007, for Flos

Tab, by Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby for Flos is an elegant, modern, minimal design in both table and floor lamp versions.

Available in black, white and blue , this light boasts big visual value for a small footprint. It’s rotating head swings horizontally, making it a great task light on top of being beautiful to look at.

Great for small spaces, the table lamp only measures approx. 13″, and the floor lamp 44″ high. I love the understated, quiet nature of this design and think it would make a brilliant bedside lamp, hallway table light, or living room accent light.

Luckily for us, the price point for this little gem is congruent with it’s minimal design at only $295 for the table lamp and $395 for the floor lamp, available here at gabrielross.com.

For one more week, you can still save on select Artemide lighting including iconic designs such as the Tolomeo and Tizio collections.

Tizio collection by Richard Sapper, 1972

Tolomeo Micro collection by Michele de Lucchi & Giancarlo Fassina

Tolomeo Mega by Michele de Lucchi & Giancarlo Fassina

Tolomeo family by Michele de Lucchi & Giancarlo Fassina

Also included in the sale is the Castore family and the elegant Logico series.

Castore suspension series by Michele de Lucchi & Huub Ubbens

Castore table series by Michele de Lucchi & Huub Ubbens

Logico suspension lamp by Michele de Lucchi & Gerhard Reichert

Logico table series by Michele de Lucchi & Gerhard Reichert

Don’t delay… This sale only lasts until November 30th!

See these and other Artemide products on our website here.

Karim Rashid

“The Cult of Karim Rashid” is a major feature in this month’s issue of BC Home Magazine, and along with it, some of Gabriel Ross’ favorite products by this prolific designer. The magazine illustrates a retrospective of Rashid’s work including the “Blob” light for Foscarini, “Kaj” watch for Alessi, and the “Cadmo” floor lamp for Artemide (which, I might add, happens to be on sale right now).

 

Blob Floor Lamp

Blob Wall Lamp

Kaj watch

Cadmo Floor Lamp

Banal objects need life, they need presence – but they also need to make awful tasks more pleasant.
Karim Rashid

See these and other products designed by Karim Rashid on our website here.
Visit Karim Rashid’s website here.

My most favorite shoe (in my personal collection) is a strikingly gorgeous and unique leather/suede lace up high top by Diesel – think ballerina meets Rocky over London fogs in the spring.  Absolutely perfect in every way, this shoe is loved equally as a design object as it is footwear.  Diesel has recently engaged in a design collaboration with Foscarini and Moroso to produce a home collection, “Successful Living” or Diesel Lighting – an ultra cool fusion of fashion and function.  Sporting names like “Rock”, “Cage”, “Graf”, and “Tri-p”, the lighting collection references a culture of warehouse rock shows, industrial raw and vintage aesthetic with an elegance and luxury that only these two design houses could front.

Fork floor lamp

Fork floor lamp with table lamp

Cage suspension light

Cage lights, Mic and suspension

Moroso studded mirror with Cage Mic

Rock suspension light

Rock suspension light

“In 1951 Isamu Noguchi visited the Japanese town of Gifu, known for its manufacture of lanterns and umbrellas from the mulberry bark paper and bamboo. Inspired by the lanterns illuminating night fishing on the Nagara River, Noguchi designed the first of his lamps that would be produced by the traditional Gifu methods of construction. He called these works Akari, a term meaning light as illumination, but also implying the idea of weightlessness. Extending the concept of illuminated sculpture that he developed during the 1940s in New York, Noguchi employed abstract shapes to unite the simplicity of Japanese aesthetics with the principles of contemporary art and design. More that home furnishing, Akari are light sculptures.

“With the warm glow of light cast through hand-made paper on a bamboo frame, Isamu Noguchi utilized traditional Japanese materials to bring modern design to the home. Like the beauty of falling leaves and the cherry blossom, Noguchi wrote, Akari are ‘poetic, ephemeral, and tentative.’ And he was fond of saying, ‘All that you require to start a home are a room, a tatami, and Akari.’ ”

View all Noguchi Lamps

 

Marcel Wanders, born in the Netherlands, has become famous for his fabulous creations in design.  One of my favourite pieces is the Skygarden Suspension Lamp.  It looks like a boring, plain, semi-spherical lamp from a distance, but if you have a chance – look up inside!

Inspired by an antique plaster ceiling in a former home, Wanders captured the essence of classical plaster design inside a modern, sleek exterior.

The Skygarden comes in two sizes; the S1 (w60cm  x h30cm), or the S2 (w90cm  x h45cm).  It is also available in 4 colours: Rust, Gold, White and Black.

Marcel designed the lamp for Flos, who still carries the lamp today.

Tizio LED

The Tizio lamp was originally designed in 1972.  Now redesigned in 2009 by Richard Sapper as a LED Tizio Version.  5 led bulbs using only 8 watts of power.  Equivalent to 55 watt halogen bulb.

Like Marcel Duchamp, the Castiglioni brothers used ready-made objects to create whimsical, strange and beautiful objects.  Luminator by Flos,  is magnificent.

Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni 1954

  It is industrial and sparse,  delicate and insect like (praying mantas).  Like sculpture, it provoke a response from the viewer.  It refuses to  sit quietly.  Italian mid-century design  seems to have a passion, or an enthusiasm, that life, and design, is best lived LARGE, and with a sense of humour.  NO HOLDS BARRED.