Pathway, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Leeds

Even the most mundane everyday things can be made a bit more interesting through design.....

Barbie exhibit Prague

This exhibition really is amazing for anybody who does or ever has liked Barbie dolls. It takes up a whole floor of Prague’s Toy Museum and showed not only the changing fashion of Barbie’s costumes over the years, but also less common ones that had been designed by famous names in the industry. I love the amount of detail and care that has gone into making these costumes. You can really see someone like Kyle wearing these in a show, they are the ultimate in showgirl glamour.





While I was looking for these photos, I also noticed following one which I took in Capri, (Italy) last year. I liked the way that the dolls had been used to show the creative glamour that the shop's clothes displayed.

Shop Window Displays

Shop window design is something that if you do it right can be talked of for years, for example most people will remember of the following design by Thomas Heatherwick Studios, even though it was done years ago.


Although not quite on the same scale, I came across these photos that I took of window displays in Paris years ago.





















I think this is a really interesting area of design as people can do anything from the predictable to the outrageous, and in many ways they can be as creative as they like. The photo below is from the Londonist’s review of the 2005 Selfridges Christmas display.


One thing that I can’t help but notice is that both the Prada photo (which was taken 7 years ago) and the more recent Selfridges display would both look striking if seen today, it just shows how good design will always look just that.

Mr Kipling

I came across this roundabout a few days ago when I was driving into Rugby. You see a lot of signs such as Welcome to .... or the odd sculpture occasionally, but for some reason this just made me smile.

I like the fact that it is a sculpture made of shrubs not simply plants arranged in a pattern. Its such a simple form of brand awareness but given the fact that it is on one of the main commuter routes in the area, I imagine it would be successful. It made me wonder how many other companies could do something like this. Martin highlighted in his blog that there is so much "dead space" surrounding us and this in my opinion is one area that could be used effectively.

Alnwick Castle Gardens

I visited these while on holiday recently, we weren't expecting all that much and one of the only reasons that we went was as I had heard it was an impressive castle.









I was actually really taken with the whole grounds. In a similar way to the architecture of Frank Ghery , every aspect had been thought through and designed, from the fountains that the kids could play in to this rock that I came across which had been engraved with the quote by Malcolm Muggeridge.


Another thing that struck me was that Water is often a very overlooked medium in design. We normally would consider using any number of digital shapes or light sculptures when trying to be innovative, but I think with regards to event or exhibition design water sculptures still have a large amount of potential.

The final part of the grounds that I was really impressed with is the Tree house there that has been designed by Napper Architects and constructed between 2004-2005. This really was amazing to see, its the kind of structure that you can't really appreciate from photos alone. It was a tree house containing at least one cafe, several shops and areas for people to explore themselves. Its the kind of thing that makes you think that you are a child again as the scale of it is so impressive. I would like to explore this type of architecture in future.