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.