South Bank Centre commission

We were delighted to be commissioned by the Southbank Centre shop to create two bespoke bookends to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain.

We created a silhouette of the Royal Festival Hall for one design, and took the iconic Abram Games emblem for the Festival for the second one. These bookends are available exclusively from the Southbank Centre Shop. If you can, pop in to their newly extended and truly brilliant shop on the south bank in London, or you can also buy online - https://shop.southbankcentre.co.uk/

Top: Abram Games Festival of Britian emblem Bookend Bottom: Royal Festival Hall Bookend

Many thanks to the Southbank Centre shop, a really great commission.
You can also buy some of our other London Landmark and British Icons bookends are the shop too!

Design Mart at The Baltic

We were delighted to take part in the Design Mart event at the Baltic in Gatehead last month. There were lots of great design pieces to see and buy from some great Northern designers, and the exhibition “Cut It Out” by Noma Bar with his fab dog shaped art making machine! (that was also at the London Design Festival in September).

Here are some pics:

1.My Shelf Life shelves and British Icons bookends, 2. Noma Bars work, 3. David Irwins Miners Lights (my fave design at the show), 4. the presentations.

There a link to the Guardian website:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/house-and-homes-blog/2011/oct/14/design-event-festival-newcastle-gateshead

One Day Designers Sale - LDF

As part of the London Design Festival this year we took part in the One Day Designers Sale in Clerkenwell. It was a great event with loads of fab designers of contemporary home wares together in the buildings at Craft Central (opposite the Zetter Hotel). Other designer included Michelle Mason, Charlene Mullen, Snowden Flood and Tracey Bush.

http://craftcentral.org.uk/september-sale

Vitra Christmas Market - raising money for Shelter

We were deligted to be asked to take part in the Vitra Christmas market in December. The stunning Vitra showroom on Clerkenwell Road in London was transformed with a contemporary take on the traditional German Christmas market (Vitra is a Swiss-German company) with lots of beautiful gifts from UK designers including Charlene Mullen, Simon Patterson, W2 Products and Shan Valla as well as Vitra products too.

We were also raising money for Shelter the homeless and housing charity, a very worthwhile cause especially at Christmas. In total £1673 was raised for Shelter, so a big thank you to everyone who came along and supported this event and also got some great Christmas gifts!

Talk at Design Event, Newcastle

We were delighted to travel up to the wonderful city of Newcastle to take part in a talk 'The Business of Design' on 18th November organised by the lovely people at Design Event . Susan was one of three companies invited to talk about inspirations and developing a design business (the others being Giles Millerand Deadgood Ltd).

We also got to visit the Baltic gallery and see the Millenium Bridge something we've wanted to do for ages.

Thanks to everyone we met in Newcastle for making us feel so welcome.

Twist - a contemporary Summerhouse at Alford Manor House

Some more stunning images taken by Museumakers photographer Matthew Andrews of Twist at Alford Manor House. The way the light catch the stainless steel braid is particularly fab.

All images copyright Matthew Andrews 2010.

Twist opened by Sir Andrew Motion

Twist at Alford Manor House was formally opened on 22nd September by Sir Andrew Motion, former poet laureate and current chair of the MLA.

It was a glorious English sunny day with afternoon tea on the lawn, live music and corn dolly making under a tree! Sir Andrew read a wonderful and perfectly appropriate poem by Seamus Heaney - The Harvest Bow.

Visit this unique contemporary Summerhouse inspired by the museums collection of local rural artifacts, in particular the corn dollies, at Alford Manor House, Alford, Lincolnshire, LN13 9HT.

Twist is part of the national Museumaker project, connecting museums and their collections with artists, designers and craftspeople. Find out more at http://www.museumaker.com/

Alford Manor House - contempoary heritage souvenirs

Alford Wallpaper brooch (above)
Alford Landmark Bookends (above)

We have designed and produced some new contemporary souvenirs for the heritage sector for Alford Manor House in Lincolnshire, who we have also been working with on Twist a large outdoor commission through the Museumaker scheme. See the blog post on Twist, a contemporary summerhouse opened by Sir Andrew Motion in September 2010.

The Alford Landmark Bookends take the towns most celebrated buildings (the Manor House and 5-sailed windmill) and translate them into functional bookends.

The Wallpaper brooch translates a small motif from the restored bedroom wallpaper into a contemporary brooch design.

The bookends and the brooch are available directly from Alford Manor House, Alford, Lincolnshire. http://www.alfordmanorhouse.com/

Contempoary Souvenirs at The Geffrye Museum

Alford Landmark Bookends above

We are part of Museumaker’s Contemporary Souvenirs Showcase at the Geffrye Museum in London which displays a selection of the products that talented designers are developing with museums across the country. The goal is to create an alternative to the conventional souvenir. With products by myself and other designers such as Timorous Beasties and Rebecca Chitty, this is a fresh approach to shopping in museums.

The exhibition runs from 21 September to 21 November 2010. Geffrye Museum, 136 Kingsland Road,London E2 8EA.

Gift Of The Year awards

We are delighted to have been runner up ('highly commended') in the Gift Of The Year Awards 2010. Our London Landmark and London Transport Bookends were selected in the Home Accessories category.

Both designs are available in our online shop at http://www.susanbradley.co.uk/

Art In The Garden exhibition

We have some work again this year in the wonderful outdoor exhibition Art In The Garden at the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens in Southampton. A Dragonfly-Bamboo screen (top) sits very fittingly amidst some giant black bamboo in the water garden area, and some of our mirror polished Botanica pieces sit on some stunning giant oak blocks (bottom). Its a glorious setting to see over 100 works of outdoor art and sculpture (all of which are for sale) and the event runs from May until 31st October. Visit www3.hants.gov.uk/hilliergardens

As seen on TV!

I was very excited to appear on national television on Friday 12th February, on the daily ITV programme House Gift. The fab interior designer and presenter Danielle Proud (below centre) came and purchased some of my Outdoor Wallpaper for a local Oxfordshire couple for the show. The red Damask design looked stunning on their dining room wall as an interior decorative wall feature.

Its still on the itvplayer if you missed it here is the link - HouseGift on the itv player.

Thanks Danielle!

Award winning

I was delighted to be invited to the 6th Annual Hidden Art Awards on 4th February, and thrilled to win 2 awards!

I won Most Popular Product on the Hidden Art E-Shop, for my Battersea Power Station London Landmark Bookend. With Hidden Art describing them as "a truly unique British design and a must have item".

Above: With Amy and Chiara from Hidden Art

I also won Best Press Profile, and was delighted to receive my award from the lovely Barbara Chandler from the Evening Standard (see below). Many thanks to all the journalists and stylists who have covered my work in their publicatations, its very very much appreciated.

Above: With Barbara Chandler from The Evening Standard

Many thanks to Hidden Art for these fab awards, now adorning my mantlepiece.

Domus

We are delighted to have the London Landmark Bookends featured in the prestigous Italian architecture magazine Domus this month, in their Young Design Report.

London Landmark Bookends - the Christmas rush

We were delighted to find the London Landmark Bookends such a success in the run up to Christmas - it certainly kept us busy! Thanks also to Royal Mail for their hardwork getting hundreds of bookends out to everyone in time for Christmas.

Barbican Christmas Shop

We are delighted to have some of our designs selected to go in The Barbican pop up Christmas design shop - including the London Landmark Bookends and the Pigeon Clocks. The space looked really great - do pop along if you can.

Pop Up Shop

Ten talented designers decided to get together and create a Pop Up Shop at Craft Central EC1 - perfect for Christmas gift shopping. It was part of the larger Made In Clerkenwell event, and was a great success. We also created a window display based on the idea of an advent calender - with the very talented Ester Coombs working her doodling magic on the window.

The designers who took part ranged through interior products and accessories, lighting, jewellery, knitwear and ceramics - Catherine Hammerton, Selina Rose, Keep & Share, Product Of Your Environment, Ester Coombs, Francisca Prieto, The Automatic Crystal, Lua Lua, Christine Kaltoff and me!

Outdoor designs in Living etc

We have been featured twice in Livingetc this month, in their lovely 'Outdoor Rooms' feature. Both our Botanica Agapanthus and Oscar outdoor rugs got called up for the inspiring garden photoshoot as illustrated above - the magazine's out now.

Open studio and garden

We have just finished a 9 day (phew!) open studio and garden event. I showcased some new designs, which were really well received and will be fully launched later in the year. The layered sculptural screen above was a particular hit, a bit of an oriental feel with a dragonfly on one side and bamboo on the other. A perfect commission piece with other flora and fauna chosen by the client. Do contact me if you want any more info.

An obsession with boxes...

Talented designer Olivier Droillard of Olivier&Co has his first solo exhibition at Craft Central in Clerkenwell, London until 30th May. After being selected for an Arts Council funded 'Reflect Forward' award Olivier has developed his creative outlook on boxes by collaborating with a number of other designers. I was delighted to be one of them. See this stunning new series of limited edition functional artworks at the Craft Central gallery space, EC1 - more details at www.craftcentral.org.uk