TOP SHOP: Present & Correct
SURELY WE CAN’T be the only ones obsessed with retro stationery, desk tidies and midcentury graphic children’s books. Which is why we are frequently found window shopping at our current favourite original stationery and graphic goods’ shop Present & Correct.
In a bid to find out more and fuel the stationery obsession fire, we spoke to owner Neal Whittington, 29, (pictured above), a designer and illustrator, who is also a fan of “a good rummage, fun knitted jumpers, making cakes and cutting up paper” about this love of all things papery.
LittleBig: Did you just get bored one day and decide to open a shop?
P&C: Since I left college I made things and sold them in other people’s shops, but in the back of my mind I guess I was working towards having one - in some shape or form - of my own. A real life bricks and mortar store would be a dream come true, something I have always wanted to do and one day hope to have. The online store was the next best thing, and to be honest it reaches a far wider audience than a London based shop would, and of course the overheads are a lot smaller!
LB: Why are there so many (retro) stationery (and the like) obsessives out there?
P&C: It’s amazing isn’t it! I think one of the big reasons is that it is reminiscent of school and college (not always a good thing!), but also because on the high street, in the UK especially, it is quite hard to find cool, original stationery and so people put more effort into seeking out the old and unwanted. The design and feel of the older things is so nice, and hard to emulate. I think most designers love stationery of all shapes and sizes - we were the ones at school with the pristine exercise books and a different pencil case for every term and season. Stationery, to me, makes me think of birthday gift vouchers from WHSmiths - this was a time when a £5 voucher would go a long way. You could get some nice rubbers in cases, a notebook or two, some stickers AND have enough for a copy of Smash Hits! Read the rest of this article
Posted 14 July 2009 in Shop Watch
TOP SHOP: Mini Moderns Shoppe
THE BOYS AT MINI MODERNS - they of the Modernist-influenced wallpapers, dinnerware and soft furnishings for kids - have finally opened their own online shop - in recognition that their customers around the world were keen to get their hands directly on the boys’ goods. The Shoppe - contains Keith Stephenson and Mark Hampshire’s best-selling wallpapers, £38 a 10 metre roll, including the newest number and our current favourite, the ‘Sitting Comfortably?’ print - featuring images of modern chair classics - in a warm buttercup yellow, as well as their brand new shopper, £20, available in ‘Are You Sitting Comfortably?’ in black 
(see right), ‘Do You Live In A Town?’ in milk chocolate and ‘Six of One’ in pear green, (LittleBig’s Ed has been using her black bag for the last few months). Plus look out for four new wallpaper designs later this year (they’re currently being printed), and a range of stationery is in the offing too… Mini Moderns’ desire to manufacture and print all their products ethically within the UK (using water based inks and sustainable papers) means a relatively slow new-launch process - but this just adds to their appeal.
*And don’t forget to see some of their prints transformed into DIY sewing kits for Clothkits
Posted 7 May 2009 in Shop Watch
TOP SHOP: Tas-ka
WARNING. YOU MAY FIND it hard to resist Tas-ka’s textile toys and soft furnishings. Certainly, co-directors Jantien Baas and Hester Worst of the textile house based in The Hague, the Netherlands, have their own designs at home: Hester the hand-made white ‘birdlight’ (pictured bottom in the gallery) made of clusters of handmade paper cranes, and Jantien their charismatic fabric monster on her couch. And she doesn’t even have kids.
All that is to come. For now, the duo who formed Tas-ka whilst at design college at the Royal College of Art in the Hague and morphed the project into a proper business post their studies - becoming full-time in October of last year - have a growing line of textile products on their minds. Read the rest of this article
Posted 31 January 2009 in Shop Watch
TOP SHOP: kids love design
WHILST THE FRENCH have come to contemporary design later than their Italian cousins, they have fully embraced the world of contemporary design for kids in an incredibly short time. First Milk magazine, then Little Fashion Gallery, and now ‘kids love design‘ - currently the ultimate design e-boutique for kids.
Begun by Séverine Herbeth Limon - French but now based in Switzerland, and mother to Mathis 4, and Amelie, 1 - who began researching the idea of modern children’s design whilst resident in Luxembourg, London and Brussels, the store was a culmination of realising, “all these cities have great modern furniture shops, but after the birth of my children I became so frustrated that the only room in the house I wasn’t happy with was also perhaps the most important for a new parent - the baby’s room. So I decided to do something about it.”
She has spent the last three years scouring Europe for “fresh, modern, inspiring, environmentally-friendly” design for little people that surpasses the obvious brands. In their stead are niche European names from 12 countries - names like Domestic, Ineke Hans and Fellin who promote true innovations for children and babies, and create designs that would not only look precisely at ease in the most modern of homes, but are probably a great deal more cutting edge than much of your own furniture. Read the rest of this article
Posted 10 December 2008 in Shop Watch
TOP SHOP: Museum of Childhood online store
NOT ONLY IS THE V&A’s Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green one of London’s best-kept secret kid-friendly venues - it’s also free! - but its online shop (launched last year in addition to the museum’s ‘real-life’ shop) is full of inspirational goodies for children aged 10 and under. Oh, and nostalgic adults too.
There are exclusive designs by the likes of design hero Clifford Richards (see our profile of Clifford here) including his lion and robot print drinking cups with in-built curly-wurly straws, and his cardboard fairy wings (the museum has taken his illustrations on as their own graphic identity, and frequent commissions will follow); and all-time-classic toys including tiddly-wink sets and modelling balloons; plus techno-freak kits such as rubber band powered planes for older kids. All of it is affordable and stuff you would actually want to buy. 80% of the shop’s sales come from purchases under £10 - intended as pocket money purchases.
Posted 20 July 2008 in Shop Watch
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