Outline Editions pop-up shop at Designjunction

Maybe you remember that, for last year's London Design Festival, the innovative illustrator collective, Outline Editions, hosted a one-man interactive art show called Cut it Out, by the graphic artist, Noma Bar, where visitors could create their own designs with him, using a giant, clunking contraption.

This year, they have some more unusual events in store, and are also showcasing Noma's work, alongside woodblock typographic posters by Anthony Burrill and bright, bold collages by the Scandinavian designer, Petra Borner, beautifully simple 60s-tinged prints by the French illustrator, Malika Favre, as well as map prints by the Icelandic artist, Kristjana S Williams (whose beautiful Victorian botanical 'mash-ups' I featured last week). Many of the prints are eminently affordable – they start at £40, going up to £530 if you're getting serious – but also highly collectible (Outline know their onions). Everything is also available to buy online.

Anthony Burrell, 'What Does it Mean?', £40 (76cm x 51cm). Open edition, signed.

Malika Favre, 'Egyptian', £130 (50cm x 70cm). Limited edition, signed and numbered.

Noma Bar, 'Birdland', £350 (50cm x 70cm). Signed limited edition.

Noma Bar, 'Ouch'. Pricing and size etc. as above.

Noma Bar, 'Therein Lies the Tail', price and size details as above.

Petra Borner, Play 01, £170 (84.1cm x 59.4cm). Signed, limited edition.



Designjunction takes place in a crazy (in a good way) venue in central London – a three-storey old postal sorting office.

Details Outline Editions pop-up shop at Designjunction runs from 19-23 September at The Sorting Office, 21-23 New Oxford Street, London WC1A 1AP. It opens at 10am every day - closing at 7pm tonight and tomorrow, then 6pm, then 5pm. Entry is free.

Bitossi re-editions at the SCP Design Department Store

SCP, the beautiful east London and online homewares shop, threw a little do last night to celebrate the opening of their Design Department Store – where you can get a first look at some brand new designs from some of their favourite creative associates and brands. 

The shop-within-the-shop is also there to celebrate the opening of the London Design Festival 2012, which officially kicks off at the end of this week.

SCP doesn't, exactly, fall under the 'affordable' tag of this blog, but it nevertheless makes for an inspiring visit – and you can always stick to the excellent Kiosk range, particularly good for gifts. And you can get in on the action from Saturday, when there will also be free crepes for all visitors who print out this voucher on the SCP blog. If the fantastic snacks going on last night are anything to go by, get in quick...

But I digress from what was meant to be the point of this post: Bitossi. I love the long-running Italian ceramics company, which has been going since the 1900s and is still run by the same family. Their 1950s-1970s designs include some of my particular favourites – which was good last night, as part of the SCP goings-on this month includes  showing and selling a selection of reissued vases, above, from this very era, originally created under the art direction of former Bitossi art director, Aldo Londi.

Bitossi horse riders, 36.30; SCP's Bitossi animals range starts at £24.80

I have a Bitossi sausage dog, below, part of the Rimini Blu range, above, from the 1950s. Mine actually came from another lovely store, the Lollipop Shoppe, for about £30. You could also try Pip's Trip for originals.

And here are gratuitous close-ups of some of those re-issued Bitossi classics for sale at SCP. Be warned, though, unlike the Rimini Blu animals above, these babies start at £250 and rise sharply. Nice to look at though...

As for the other lovely things in the Design Department Store at SCP, you can have a browse here. I'll try to post up a few other products and designers that caught my eye last night shortly. But in the meantime, look out for Mark McGinnis' thought-provoking and colourfully graphic take on religious icons and cultural stereotypes, Fort Standard's lovely wooden knobs, Kay and Stemmer's stunningly simple wooden furniture.

Tent London 2012 preview

The design world is already gearing itself up for the London Design Festival 2012. One of the best elements of the event, I think, is Tent – where emerging and less mainstream designers air their wares in the Truman Brewery, in east London's Brick Lane.

Tent runs 20-23 September, so ages to yet. But I've already had a nose around who and what will be there. Here are a couple of very early picks...

Global Color Research™, a colour trend forecasting agency, which predicts fashionable shades for the likes of interior designers, retail marketeers and design students, has decreed that green – from 'zesty' to 'greyed off' to 'aquatic' – is the hue of 2014. Find out how they come to such decisions (and look at lots of nice green things) by following their Trend Trail at this year's event. Green is a big theme in my house as I find it such a calming colour – I love it when I become fashionable inadvertently...

Alex Garnett, whose ghoulish porcelain skull lamps I love (above, priced £150). 

British textile designer, Claire-Anne O'Brien, who specialises in knitted furniture inspired by the shape of the stitches involved, which she enlarges for her pieces, such as these beautiful stools.

Barnby Designs, which produces wonderful wooden pieces, including these very sweet children's ash stools and table sets; the stools are inset with colourful felt which is a tactile shift from the formica you might take it for at first glance, from those 1950s lines. These are currently on sale on the Barnby Designs website, £60 for the stools, £128 for the table, which could also be used as a grown-up sized coffee table.

And Deborah Bowness, she of the now-quite-famous bookcase wallpaper shows off some of other other  visually confounding trompe l'oeil designs.