BLANC Rocked The House!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you Seattle for making the BLANC pop up a success!

We had a great time this week and were so inspired by people's enthusiasm about design! With this and the OBJECT opening a week earlier, we're feeling some serious momentum for Design in the Northwest. FINALLY!

Here's a little summary of the weekend:

It all started Friday with a preview party at Sole Repair...

...A perfect evening of TOTAL wintery white festivities filled with inspiring work from 30+ designers from Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, New York and Vancouver.

Everything looked pefectly BLANC.....Wintery white but warm and cozy all at the same time. There was special BLANC themed cocktails and snacks and lots of people dressed for the theme.  It was exactly how I enviosned...perfectly BLANC! I couldn't have asked for more!

 

(photos above by Eric Becker)

On Saturday, we braved the wintery elements opening the big garage door at Caffe Vita's Bean Room for the BLANC pop up. Using bags of coffee beans, discarded pallets and crates Jean led the crew of willing volunteers in merchandising a beautiful display of BLANC and non-BLANC design items. 

The crowd was consistent and diverse from JOIN followers to coffee-sipping walk-ins. By the successful end of the first day, we knew there was no other option than to extend the hours three more hours on Saturday and open up again on Sunday!

And of course we had to treat ourselves to some hot coco with homemade marshmallows that totally hit the spot!

All and all,  it was just so great to so many people who came to support and celebrate design! It's resounding clear that Seattle is ready to embrace design more than ever! We say this is the turning point!! and that deserves a group hugs & high-fives all around!

Phew! I'm totally exhausted and need to go hibernate for the next 6 months now!!

See the rest of the event HERE!

BLANC success!

More details on the BLANC sale later but let's say it's been so encouraging to see Seattle get excited about design!

The past two days have been so inspiring that we decided to open the shop again today (Sunday) from 11-5! at Caffe Vita's bean room at 1005 e pike , Seattle.

Come visit us!

BLANC: a Winter JOIN Design Popup!! NOV 18-19

I'm SUPER excited for this design Pop-Up shop that JOIN and Brite Collective are organizing, which will be happening next week! eek!! 

Its been awhile since we've done an event for both JOIN & Brite in Seattle, and figured this is the perfect time to gather everyone and jumpstart the shopping season with lots of awesome work from independent designers!

We gathered 30+ designers and artists to do a special curated works under the theme BLANC.

Full details below!

JOIN Design Seattle and Brite Collective presents:  

BLANC-A Winter White Design Pop-up Shop

We're ready to ring in the winter holiday season with a one-of-a-kind market of great design. In celebration of winter, BLANC will feature a curated selection of limited edition objects that are white, blank, or otherwise achromous in color or spirit. Additionally, the pop-up shop will offer a cornucopia of other well-made goods from 30+ talented emerging designers from the West to the East.

DAY 1 / NOV. 18th / BLANC PREVIEW PARTY 8pm-12am 
Celebrate independent design. Special preview of "BLANC" curated items, BLANC cocktail menu, live music, and more. Wear something white! 

Time: 8:00pm - 9:30pm BLANC preview shopping event. 9:00pm - 12:00am DJ & special guest performance by NODDY. 

Location: Sole Repair Shop 1001 East Pike Street Seattle, WA.
Suggested Donation: $5.00

DAY 2 / Nov 19th / Design BLANC Pop-Up Shop 11am-5pm 
Support independent design by checking off your gift list early with items from the BLANC curated collection as well as other original design goods ranging from furniture, art, housewares, jewelry, accessories, ornaments, and more. Also enjoy special activities by Brite Collective holiday, hot beverages from Caffe Vita, pizza by Big Mario's, and more. 

Time: 11:00am - 5:00pm
Location: Cafe Vita Bean Room 1005 East Pike Street Seattle, WA.

Get a sneak preview here!

Featuring Works from:
&c. Jewelry / Aleksandra Pollner / Alisha Louise / Ashley Helvey / Blk Pine Workshop / Brandon Perhacs / Cairo / Chadhaus / COATT / Elizabeth Patterson / Erich Ginder / Fleet Objects / Fort Standard / Free Time Industries / Fruitsuper / Grain / Herman Yu / Iacoli & McAllister / Jessaline Beutler / Kiel Mead / Ladies & Gentlemen Studio / Meet Me Here / Piano Nobile / plainMADE / R&L Goods / Studio Gorm / Thomas Im /  Zanna Printed Textiles / Handpicked items from OBJECT and more...



OBJECT Opening 11.11.11

This is a super exciting news for Seattle.

Charlie Schuck, the mastermind behind OBJECT, which first started off more as  concept popup shops is now becoming a real brick and mortar store in Charlies' new studio in Belletown neighborhood (next to Suyama!)

The opening is today, Novemeber, 11, 2011. Starting at 630pm. L&G will have some selective items in there as well!

..and here's the first OBJECT newsletter!

 Check out full event details HERE!

Piggy Mention on Mmminal Blog

Recently came across this awesome blog called Mmminal, and then end up seeing our Chalk Piggy mentioned on there!

It's always so exciting to find a blog we like and realize there's a mutual admiration of each others work!

Another reason why the inter-connected-web is so awesome...

Home Sweet Homestead

Instroducing a new L&G item...Homestead Candlesticks!

We've heard that there's no place like home and got to thinking...does that apply to candles as well as people? Assuming this it does, we've created these sweet wood house-shaped candlesticks out of solid Hemlock and Copper tubing.

This is a combination of our love for wooden blocks, iconic houses, and copper!!

These Homstead candlesticks stems from some of the elements & pallet we're using for our kitchen re-design project (see below post). Even the shape of the candlessticks partially reflects the silhouette of our duplex as well!

 Presented as a set of two, these Homestead Candlesticks add the right mix of homey charm and modern simplicity. Available  HERE!

New L&G Item: Rise Over Run Stool

Our newest item, Rise Over Run hanging step stool we recently debut at the IDSwest show in Vancouver!

The idea to make this item came from the need that I (Jean) couldn't reach all the high and tall places...especially in our new kitchen with a floor-to-ceiling-pantry unit!...ooh la la! SO much storage!

And me being a storage maniac that I am, trying to reach to all the empty places to store things made me feel like a crazy 5 year old doing some risky business just to get to a cookie jar...and we all know how that usually ends...broken cookie jars, broken bones...or worst..a broken heart...

So to prevent me from pulling off some silly stunts just to reach the places I need, we came up with Rise Over Run!

This was inspired by the basic construction and elements of stairs in a home. We broke it down and turned it into a mini 3-step folding stool to then be transformed from the functional piece into an elemental abstract shape which can be displayed on the wall.

So the story ends with Jean being able to reach all the high places she needs to, no breaking anything, and a piece that we can appreciate on our wall.  Hurray!

And check THIS quick fun thing I did... BOOM. gif power!

My very first attempt at making a gif animation... oh boy! This is totally SO mundane that it's making some sort of ironic statement?

NO? not convinced?....ok. yeah, me neither...

Just wanted an excuse to make a quick amateur gif clip!

In any case, Rise Over Run will be available online soon! We promise!

All set up at IDSwest

Calling all Vancouverites! L&G is spending the weekend posted up at the IDS West show at the Vancouver Convention Centre through Sunday. We'll be accompanied by Iacoli & Mcallister, Grain, and Urbancase to represent Join Design Seattle at the show.

Along with our normal cast of characters (our piggies, servers, salt & pepper pawz, and megadoily rug), we're also unveiling a super fresh, top secret prototype of Rise Over Run our new collapsable wall-hung step-stairs. More on that soon but if you're in Vancouver come visit and take an exclusive first peak.

Aug 2011 NYIGF Wrap up!

Here's a recap of the JOIN at the NYIGF for the 3rd time!

This time with us being in the lobby outside of the Accent on Design area turned out to be a MUCH more pleasant of a space to be in...especially when the sun is out! Just look at how everything shines on the table!

Above: New server colors and cake servers from L&G, and colorful big Silicone ring by fruitsuper....and NO they're NOT eraser rings!

Here we got Chelsea H. from plainMADE getting a little sun tanning sesh at the Javits....

Photos above by Grain

New frame light colors from Iacoli & McAllister.

Also this time being next to AmDC made it 100 times more fun, too!

photo by Steph Mantis

Here are some highlights from AmDC's booth:

Bracelets made with mix marble cuts celebrating the colors & patterns of the various types of stone. By Chen Chen & Kai Tsien Williams.

Chika & I got to trade with Patrick Kim for one of his clever wooden tons and these lovely cutting boards with a simple rubber band at the end to keep it from slipping around.  Clever AND thoughtful...

Beautiful & sleek glass vessels from Felicia Ferrone based out of Chicago. 

Playful two-headed animal necklaces in various metals by Steph Mantis! (and yes... exclamation mark is required when referring to Steph!)

 ...and of course, we wouldn't feel complete at the NYIGF until we have some sort of birthday celebration! and this year is no exception...

Here's Chika with her doughnut birthday cake composed by me and Christa (of blkPINE bags). This is second time celebrating Chika's bday at the Javits and we went all out and made a doughnut tower with yummy doughnuts from Doughnut Plant....surrounded with coconut macaroons, strawberry Pocky sticks, and flower pom pom with napkins provided by the Javits.

Yes...I know...only a master mind & a true artist can create such master piece such as this. Christa and I took MAD pride in carefully piling the doughnuts up and sprucing it all up...and all the  grease spots on the box only shows how much thought went into this...

AmDC Pops up in SF

Wish we're in SF for this!  Kiel from American Design Club is working with  Rand + Statler in curating a pop up shop this coming Saturday, August 27th with bunch of designers we adore.

List of designers includes:

Kiel Mead, Silva/Bradshaw, Emily Rothschild, Fort Standard, Kai Williams + Chen Chen, Annie Lenon + Valerie Gnaedig, Lara Knutson, Jill Peterson, Studioooij, Iacoli & Mcallister, Steph Mantis, Pat Kim, Alexandra Snook, Chuck Routhier, Andie Olive, Mark McGinnis, Grain, R&L Goods, Ladies & Gentlemen Studio, Michael Cummings, Thomas Im, Marianne van Ooij, Evan Clabots, Seldon Yuan and Annika Jermyn.

If you're in the SF area, go check it out!

Woonwinkel Swoon

We're excited when we first read about this new shop in Portland called Woonwinkel (means Home Shop in Dutch) that opened in June.

What's even more exciting is that our Chalk Piggies, Gem Necklaces, Superior Servers, and Mega-Doily rugs of various size are at the store!

It's a beautifully curated shop with things I've only seen from the far and magical place of the Netherlands combined with some great designers we totally love such as, Studio Gorm, Iacoli & McAllister, Von Tundra, and Chen Chen.

....pretty much a dream store. Perhaps if I make myself look small enough I can be a squatter and live in that shop....

L&G and JOIN friends at NYIGF Aug13-Aug18

We can't believe it's already been a WHOLE year since we debut our work at the NYIGF last year...the year went by super fast and we don't really remember what really happened...but all I can say is that this whole experience of having our own studio so far has been more than amazing, and it's been reassuring for us that we can actually make it work!  

...and in finding the need to give ourselves a little pat on our backs, we decided to celebrate a little by getting a cake!

Man...how I love that I can write off things like this as an business expense!

We even used the cake to shoot along with our new items that we'll be bring to the NYIGF this August: New pastel Superior server colors, Vintage Superior cake servers, ceramic Salt & Pepper Pawz, and Terracotta Piggy banks!

So yeah...It's been a crazy year where it felt like so much has happened yet I can barely remember it all.  Does that make sense?....and is that normal?

I think perhaps it's the fact that we're still learning the art of juggling everything and learning how to be our own bosses...and do everything else...to be a designer, product developer, maker, project manager, blogger, photographer, sales rep,  accountant, PR, creative director, packer, shipper, and the person to wash dishes, etc.

Less assure you that i'm NOT trying to brag....seriously...

Nonetheless, we're still totally psyched for this August NYIGF where 8 of us design studios under JOIN will  be next to other talented peeps from American Design Club and “A+: The Young Designers’ Platform.” We'll all going to join forces and showcase our work outside the entrance to Accent on Design in the lobby area. 

Yes...nothing like partying in the lobby at the Javits Convention Center!! Woot woot!

Check out what everyone gots to bring!

New print from  R&L goods.

Hex Opener by Iacoli & McAllister 

 

Hung by Grain 

 

Canoe Canvas Pack by Blk Pine Workshop. 

  Bows Scarf by PlainMADE

2012 Naturalist Almanac by Free Time Industries 

SBiR Rings by friutsuper designSBiR Rings by friutsuper design

More info:

The New York International Gift Fair (www.nyigf.com) is located at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, 655 W 34th Street in New York, and will be open 9:00 am - 6:00 pm August 14 - August 17, 2011 and Noon - 6:00 pm August 18, 2011.

Fab-tastic

Happy Monday!

L&G's is so excited to be featured on fab.com today for an epic 3 day flash sale!

They're providing our products at ridiculously pleasant prices and also featuring some fab.com-only special products...

Like $65 (normally $95) for our "Daily Affirmation" mirrors. Each one is a unique vintage guilded mirror frame etched with a message of hope:

Or our special limited run of terracotta piggy banks for $55 ($85 retail):

Two Cane & Able Stools (the first two ever made!):

Or opt for discounted L&G classics: 30% off megadoiley, 40% off superior servers, 35% off alphabrass, 40% off gem necklaces:

  

  

The sale runs through Wednesday, so go to fab.com and get while the gettin's good!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Setting High Standards

I met these guys from Fort Standards for the first time at the Feburary NYIGF in the AmDC booth, and was totally psyched that I got to trade for one of their charming merit badge necklaces.

...and since then...only being about 5 months later, they've designed & launched a BUNCH of new amazing products at this year's ICFF.

I was totally psyched to see these AMAZING Elevate tables made with crazy marble tops & white oak!! Mostly love the detail of the center notch and the clean construction of the triangle legs.
and of course me being a total sucker for terrariums...I have to love this: Terra-terrarium stand...that spins!
These classy Foundation tables are made with teak & stacked marble at the base. Clean, simple and cleverly constructed as well.
MAD Aluminum stool....just handsome.
I'm just so amazed by the scope of their work...and admire their sense for great details & general sensibility.
....Way to raise the bar on that one...and make all of us look bad!


Object of Desire

I'm excited about Charlie Schuck's upcoming Object show happening on JUNE 17th!
It's a beautifully well-curated & carefully hand selected collection of objects showcased in his own studio. It's a mix of objects by local artists/designers such as Iacoli & McAllister, &c., Chadhaus, Emmet Smith, Free Time Industries, Far4, with unique one-of-a-kind vintage/antique found treasures....
pretty much everything I love and can't resist looking.....



Back to the Land Homes (part two)

The much anticipated part two of my Back to the Land House post! The hardest part is not including every image of every interior of the book, but these are my top picks. These and more on Flickr.

Imagine a studio like this!

Or one of the many glorious geodesics.

Some inspiration for our kitchen!

I love the Japanese feeling of this space combined with the massive string art (the text caption is from the book...the way the whole thing is written...not sure what they're talking about most of the time)

These have me dreaming of an Adobe shack...

Circular windows!

Sssss(Blended) Plates

I love these splendid pieces by Amsterdam-based artist, Maxime Ansiau, reinterpreting traditional plates by simply conjoining & repeating the artwork of the plates.

Could be an interesting experience to eat out of the 6 blended plates as a group!

All Tied Up

I still can't get over rope jewelry!
Check out these bold necklaces by Eleanor Bolton. These are a limited edition especially for Darkroom's Aztec Camera season.
Each are handmade & hand-dyed from 100% cotton rope .



Dark & Beautiful

I'm obsessed with everything at this London based shop, Darkroom!!
Everything is just insanely striking and beautiful....



Collected Magazine

This new online lifestyle magazine, Collected, launched this May founded by Krista Schrock and Jessica Comingore.

I love all their well-curated hand picked items. Pretty much.... I just want everything on these pages.