Cool Hunting
The Talent Zone at Tent during the London Design Festival was a rich source of creativity. After being wowed by Debbie Smyth's Pins and Thread installation, the nearby dramatically-titled Deadly Glasses caught our attention. The elaborate opulence of designer Kacper Hamilton's work directly contrasts the minimalism of Smyth's. His seven hand-blown red wine glasses were exhibited in and around a beautiful wooden box with a crushed velvet inlay.
Each glass has been designed to symbolize, in its expressive form and function, one of the seven deadly sins. Hamilton says "The '7 Deadly Glasses' are about celebrating passion and encouraging the user to be sinful in a theatrical fashion." Eye-catching, witty and seductively beautiful, these wine glasses cannot be said to be practical — in fact through indulgence they could be very dangerous. Drinking from them poses a considerable challenge and some rather careful thought.

The Wrath glass with its very sharp point, implies a bloody injury if used without due care. Greed, with its many tentacles, could make quite a mess and Sloth, by its very nature, requires someone else to do the pouring while you lie back and enjoy. The other glasses, Pride, Gluttony, Lust and Envy, all have enjoyably distinctive characters of their own as well. As part of a limited edition series made in England, surely these glasses are the ideal collectors items for the gracious hosts who want to keep their friends close but their enemies closer.
|
previous entry Veuve Clicquot |
next entry TVOTR Dear Science Poster Giveaway |
Applying traditional glass cutting techniques and gold labels to industrial bottles and jars for his recent project called "Upgrade," the young Slovakian designer Tomas Kral, a recent graduate from Ecal (Lausanne's University of Art and Design), is becoming a talent to be reckoned with. Similar to Tord Boontje's transGlass series for Artecnica — everyday wine and beer bottles given new life through cutting and etching...
Ango: Ebony Sky Angus Hutcheson's Bankok-based studio produces beautifully minimal lighting designs inspired by natural forms. (Pictured at right.) We loved this arching lamp which uses silk cocoons for the shade and stainless steel for the base structure. Anna McConnell: Non-Standard Lamp There was quite a bit of anthropomorphic design going on at the festival including these characterful articulated lamps that we adored by...
Comfort Station at London Fashion Week Outstanding talent Amy Anderson has created another gorgeous collection for her jewelry label Comfort Station. Anderson consistently creates beautiful jewelry that's full of character, intricate detailing, interesting materials and engaging imagery. This season we loved the abstract art deco ceramic pieces, especially the Grey Geo Necklace (pictured above right). Louise Hindsgavl at 100% design You had to be...
The techno-subversiveness of Troika's mobile phone-controlled Tool for Armchair Activists and SMS Guerilla Projector initially caught CH's attention a couple years back. Episode 56 of Cool Hunting Video visits the now three year-old, multi-disciplinary art and design studio in Brixton, London to meet the founding trio of international designers behind Troika, Eva Rucki, Sebastian Noel and Conny Freyer, and to see their conceptual work...
Having spent weeks talking to students and looking at the annual Royal College of Art degree show, Exhibit-K, a London-based art tour service, came up with five hot design picks exclusively for Cool Hunting. Doodle Dudes Andrew Haythornthwaite's Doodle Dudes gives the characters that children create in their drawings a 3-d life by using rapid prototyping to print their drawings in 3 dimensions. Children’s...
Although business documents are swiftly transitioning from paper to digital, there's still room for innovative briefcase design. Case in point, Alexandros Stasinopoulos's high-tech concept for BRΙΕFC(eramic)ACE. Though clumsily titled, the case is a sleek, hardshell container that makes extensive use of Zirconium Oxide, an extremely rigid though rarely utilized form of ceramic. The project looks to reconcile the primitive nature of ceramics (think traditional...

