TEN QUESTIONS, TEN ANSWERS: Absolute Zero Degrees on Mini Moderns
Together Mark Hampshire and Keith Stephenson of Absolute Zero Degrees, a graphic design outfit based in south London, produce Mini Moderns, a homesware label for kids with more than a little adult appeal too.
They have ridden the wave of the new market in children’s interior design, and have become, within 4 years of their launch, one of the world’s most inspiring design companies for children.
Mark, 41, (shown right in the picture on the left) from West Yorkshire, holds a degree in English literature and loves New York, Negronis and Radiohead. He dislikes red sports cars. Keith, 42, from North Yorkshire, has a degree in graphics, used to work with Wayne and Geraldine Hemingway at Red or Dead, and loves Autumn, gigs, The Festival of Britain, and the Amalfi Coast (ED: but then who doesn’t?). He hates prejudice, heights and laziness. Here they talk design, eco issues, and being online uncles to their growing legion of fans….
LittleBig: Most people turn to design for children when they have kids themselves, and become frustrated or disappointed at what is on the market. You don’t have that justification so what’s your reasoning for Mini Moderns?
Posted 25 October 2008 in Decor, Designer Profiles
KIDS’ ROOMS: How Eco Can You Go?
JILL MACNAIR DELVES INTO THE NOT-SO-CLEAR WORLD OF ECO DECORATION.
IN A WORLD where we worry enough during pregnancy to cut out certain (sometimes delicious) foods from our diets to improve our babies’ chances of a healthy start; where we try to stick to an all-organic diet - pregnant or not; and where we have a healthy paranoia about global warming, decorating our childrens’ bedrooms in an eco-friendly way is just another way to clean up our acts. But just how far can you go now?
There are various good choices you can make, but also some limits to be aware of. Take wallpaper. According to Olli & Lime director Karen Ronneback, “our wallpapers are printed on paper from certified sustainable forests and at the moment, that’s the greenest paper you can use - you can’t print onto recycled paper yet.” All of the designs, including the super-cute Carrie, are screen-printed using water-based inks. Minimoderns too uses this combination of FSC certified paper and chemical-free inks, as does Graham & Brown for its Eco-wallpapers collection, which are also packaged in a compostable corn material. Amelie Labarthe’s Eco Highway design is our favourite for children. Read the rest of this article
Posted 17 September 2008 in Decor, Design + Decoration
Wallpaper For Kids That’s Not Exactly Just For Kids
STEFAN BOUBLIL, co-director of The Apartment, the New York interior / graphic design company, doesn’t believe in saccharine, non-challenging visual habitats for children. Take his usage of Timorous Beasties’ Euro Damask paper on the walls of his five-year-old son Zoel’s New York City loft bedroom.
It couldn’t get any more challenging and adult than the edgy Scottish design duo who mix natural and Gothic influences to produce end results like Devil Damask - a traditional lace with a Devil’s face hidden in the weave - or the infamous Glasgow Toile - a print that resembles historic French toile, but hides low-life city scenes instead. And yet, explains Boublil, “In a society in which more and more is done to ‘protect’ children to a fault, they are growing up unable to view the so-called dirty side of life.”
His solution? “I thought that Rorschach [the ink blot guy] had a great way of getting around the would-be thought dictators of our time: the power of imagination. What better gift to give a child than the ability for him or her to fire off a million different thoughts every morning and night, be they scary, soothing or, why not, erotic in nature. The idea of independence can be nurtured from birth and it made all the sense in the world to start with a non-verbal method to communicate it.”
Anyway, word is his son likes it too.
* Timorous Beasties Euro Damask wallpaper, £75 a roll www.timorousbeasties.com; The Apartment, www.theapt.com
Posted 2 September 2008 in Decor, Design + Decoration
WONDER WALLS: Animal Menagerie
NAME: Inke Heiland
LIVES: Leiden, the Netherlands
INSPIRATIONS: Designers Hella Jongerius and Richard Hutton. Her kids Rune and Rifka, and “places and situations that aren’t perfect, are fragile or in a half-built state. Perfect harmony bores me.”
DUTCH DESIGNER Inke Heiland’s cut out wallpaper animals are so simple, they’re genius. Her silhouettes of lions, giraffes, elephants and monkeys (about £45 each) are slickly hand-cut from crazy limited edition vintage 60s and 70s papers, and mailed around the world in poster tubes accompanied by a DIY glueing kit and instructions. Read the rest of this article
Posted 1 September 2008 in Decor, Design + Decoration
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