Irish Design Haul

Well, this is a post that's almost one month too late. Sorry. Better late than never though, right?! At Christmas time I got some fab presents, and quite a few of them were great products by Irish designers. (Let it never be said that I am difficult to buy for.) Pictured above and listed below are the items in my excellent Christmas Irish design haul (clockwise from top left):

Back to School

Next week I start a masters (in Curating Design - hooray!) so this week I'm combining visiting London Design Festival with back to school shopping. Already I've managed to stock up on a few things so once I finally buy a school bag I'll have plenty to put in it :)

Present & Correct

Present & Correct is a stationery shop selling a range of great original designs, delicious items from around the world and vintage finds too. Two designers have turned their long-standing obsession with school and office supplies into a constantly evolving store, beginning online in 2008 and last week celebrating their first birthday in their real life premises on Arlington Way here in London. Their website and shop are both full of SUCH TASTY STUFF and I would like to own pretty much all of it. You can browse and buy online but if you're in the area, their physical shop is well worth a visit for a look at their stock in the flesh, a chat about stationery lust and a go of their stationery gumball machine (slot in some pound coins and get a surprise treat - in my case it was colourdy gum dots. WIN!).

Sealed with Irish Love Stationery

Sealed with Irish Love, launched last year by interior designer Máire McKeogh, produces a range of homewares and gifts employing patterns and imagery associated with Ireland. Máire was inspired to create the range when living in London, becoming all to aware of how much nostalgia she felt for her home in Ireland (I hear ya, Máire). Using a bright colour palette and a number of handmade illustrations, the products for sale over on Sealed with Irish Love are charming and - despite the subject matter - never over the top or twee. I'm a particular fan of the notebooks on offer, each employing a simple repeat pattern on the cover. Click through for tulips and bird feathers, and get shopping over on the website.

Deskstructure by Héctor Serrano

Italy's Seletti has long been producing ceramics with character, and one of its more recent ranges comes courtesy of Spanish-born London-based designer Héctor Serrano. Deskstructure is a set of ceramic containers for your pencils, pens, paperclips and all those other items that need storing and sorting on your desk. It comes in three varieties - a ship, a city and a warehouse - each glazed in white with a brightly coloured stripe around the bottom. The Deskstructure set can be configured in a number of different ways, giving you the chance to build your stationery city whichever way you want!

Old Book Hides

Old Book Hides is a stationery project that's recently kicked off in Dublin. Notebook enthusiast Elva Carri has decided to breathe new life into old books by repurposing their covers for a range of notebooks and sketchbooks. Seeing that something like this wasn't being done in Ireland, she went about creating notebooks from finds in charity shops, bargains at car boot sales and even gets offers of books from people clearing out their collections or doing some spring cleaning. Old Book Hides not only has readymade notebooks you can buy off the shelf but also offers a customisation service: pick your cover, your paper type, your binding preference and more for a super personalised notebook. There are some great covers to browse through on the website,and I look forward to seeing the collection grow and grow :)

Alljoy Design

Alljoy Design is a studio run by Chinese couple Ling and Jiawen Xu in Dublin, specialising in fantastic laser-cut creations. The first piece of theirs I came across was their intricate Dublin map (pictured at the bottom), a large laser cutting in coloured card of the city's iconic buildings and winding, meandering streets. Much of their work since then has been more crisp and pattern-based, with a range including tabletop objects, stationery and greeting cards. Perhaps my favourite of Alljoy's products are their felt placemats and coasters (which include some Christmassy ones I got my mum this year). The brightly coloured patterny goodness is not only attractive but functional too, as felt is highly heat-resistant making it the ideal material to use between your table and hot dishes and mugs. Sometimes grounded in geometry, sometimes inspired by botanic forms, the range is always bright and fun.

Fabrica Features Lisbon

On Sunday I popped into Fabrica Features, a design shop, lounge and exhibition space on the top floor of Bennetton's branch in Lisbon's Chiado neighbourhood. Selling work from Bennetton's design lab Fabrica as well as products, notebooks and artworks by Portuguese designers, Fabrica Features is a great spot for a leisurely browse. They stock notebooks from Serrote as well as Portuguese brand Wonder's Italic Notebook (pictured at the bottom, ideal for quotations and so forth). The shop also sells some nice products, a range of beautiful children's books from Planeta Tangerina and other cool stuff. There's space to lounge around in and a small exhibition area, currently displaying some of Bennetton's 'Colors' magazine's explorations of happiness. Certainly worth a visit if you find yourself in the area :)

Serrote

In a couple of different shops around Lisbon and Porto I've spotted various beautiful letterpress notebooks. Turns out they're by Lisbon-based designers Serrote, who began making limited edition notebooks back in 2005 with one of Lisbon's remaining printing houses still capable of letterpress printing. Serrote have produced a whole heap of small-run notebooks exploring different patterns and textures, such as Milimétrico above (with 1mm lines for those with tiny handwriting) and Bolacha below, based on biscuits. They've also produced some books, including a pixelated illustrated book entitled Minho and a set of 12 postcards should you ever need to send an sms (Serrote Message Service). I haven't bought a notebook yet, as I can't choose which one I want and can't justify buying a whole heap of them, considering I still have a stack of notebooks from Muji and Keep Sketch to get through... As I said above, they're stocked in quite a few places here in Portugal but never fear, Dublin readers: according to their website their work is also stocked in a shop in the Royal Hibernian Way - hooray!

Stationery

Some of the projects I've been working on for the last couple of months are about to come to a close, which means I'll be starting some new ones soon. I don't know what they are yet, but I'm sure they'll be awesome... And one thing I like to do to kickstart something new is to get new stationery! I think I use it as an excuse to buy new stuff, telling myself I couldn't possibly be inspired to do something new using the end of a notebook from the last project. It makes sense in my head....