Highlights from Clerkenwell Design Week

So, every year the local and international design community descends upon Clerkenwell in London for a 3 day showroom, exhibitions and party extravaganza. The design festival, now in it's fifth year, is a hotspot of creativity, connecting itself to over 60 showrooms in the area to promote the latest products in design. Clerkenwell, since the industrial ages has always been an area associated with traditional crafts from printers to jewelers to clockmakers, staged in unique warehouses and factories. These have since been transformed into creative studio spaces, attracting many architects (more per square mile here than anywhere else) and designers from across the world.

My experience of this years Design Week was unfortunately limited but yet eventful (the pains of working 9 -6!).  It involved a quick dash around the Design Factory situated in the wonderful Grade II listed Farmilioe building, which acted as the central hub for the festival. All the floors were filled with various designers revealing their latest projects, many using this festival as a way of launching their newest products. We spent just under an hour zooming through, where I found myself taking pictures of mostly lights and lightbulbs, clearly attracted to to the shiniest products in the room! For the past few weeks I have also noticed my new fascination for the colour yellow; perhaps at the turn of the seasons, in the midst of this occasional rain,  it is reminding me that summer is fast approaching.

There was also a visit to the Haworth Showroom for a talk titled ' Work, Interrupted' (more on this later), after work drinks at the Bolon showroom where they served Oysters, Smoked Salmon and Proseco (a lovely combination!) followed by after parties at Kusch & Co and Humanscale.