Dear Editor, I’m writing a rapping shout-out to you
For issues “one”, “four”, ”three”, and especially “two”.

We love the writing that spills from your collective mind,
You’re like a fountain of voices all hyped up on design.

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Pop Solid presented their ‘Recession design’ project this week at their studio near Garibaldi. Dubious name – interesting stuff. Whether or not the title seems a little bit on the literal side is debatable but until we arrive at the show it seems almost too muddy. A big statement, for what I feel didn’t deal with recession, as such, but simply applied the concerning theme of our current economic climate, to design. Their attempt at portraying, what is essentially a wholesome process towards design-objects seems somewhat over shadowed by this dark cloud. Confined by its theme.
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You’d have to be crazy to try ham and pineapple ice cream, and even crazier to make it. Well, we found someone just crazy enough to do it and do it well, and that’s Crazy Ice. Their ice cream is produced using the finest ingredients obsessively researched and sourced from specific parts of Italy, and in the case of ham and pineapple, pre-cooked to get the flavour from the meat. It tasted exactly like the pizza topping, even the texture remained, resulting in confusion as to what that stringy thing was you had stuck in your teeth. Wow.
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Zona Tortona saturated my mind with design, unfortunately of the prosaic and uninspiring variety. Given that design and innovation has changed, shaped and improved the world for billions of people, why do our current generation of designers feel the need to design for consumption rather than for change and progression?

Seeing table after table followed by chair after chair I do, at times, end up questioning the validity of the  designer in modern society.
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If I held a tea party it wouldn’t be just any old affair.

Vintage tea sets would spill out over delicate lace tablecloths with silver sugar tongs and gold teaspoons catching the chandelier’s twinkling light. And the sugar bowls. Oh the sugar bowls. They’d have dainty snug fitting lids that chimed if you closed them too hastily. Petit four and crustless smoked salmon sandwiches piled high on cake stands with care and attention.

Then you would see it.

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If beauty, as they say, lies in the eye of the beholder then taste finds its origins in the tongue of the creator, whether Michelin star chef or local chip shop fryer.  It is much the same when concerning aesthetic preference in design – each style is produced by blending a unique combination of visual spices with the fundamental elements to result in a particular flavour or tone – and, like renowned restaurants, tastes become quickly established and reputations are consequently built.  Traditionally, the Swiss prefer one dominant, sharp flavour with very little seasoning or variation – a dash of upper-case here and a sprinkling of right alignment there – whereas the Dadaists enjoy invoking a cacophony of previously experienced aromas.  Regardless of the style of optical cuisine, the industry tends to rely on a similar methodology:  Eat here once and, if you enjoy it, please come again.
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Elaborate spectacle and a sense of dramatics is always a consideration in design, especially at prestigious gatherings such as the Salone Internazionale del Mobile. This year, many design houses are going to further lengths to inject an encapsulating character into their spaces and the use of materials and production methods result in visuals that cater for a broad design palette. These spaces come into their own when housing the parties that pepper the week’s relentless schedule and the Established & Sons midweek event was one billed as not to be missed.

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Working title has made the shock discovery that there are designers working collectively within the Designersblock show based in Thaon de Revel. Even more shockingly there are are at least 3 ‘collectives’ within the exhibition. The New Oxford school dictionary describes a collective as ‘adjective of a group taken as a whole, our collective opinion. Not a great definition, but it is after all it is a kids dictionary and was never intended or designed to be used at an event with the gravitas of the Salone Internazionale del mobile, but it will have to suffice.

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