Vitra Design Museum

One of the most inspiring places for an interior stylist to visit; Vitra Design Museum.

Vitra is known for its many design classics such as Eames, Verner Panton and many more. Just outside Wheil-am-Rhein in Germany, surrounded by green hills lies Vitra Campus. Not only the actual furniture factory, but also a few exposition buildings designed by famous architects such as Zaha Hadid. Eyecather is the Vitra Haus from Herzog de Meuron, in which you can find a fantastic showroom of Vitra products. Each room is filled with beautiful furniture, innovative use of space and stunning styling with an eye for detail.

So if you plan your holidays this summer in mid-Europe you should absolutely make a stop here!

Margriet Winterfair

Met de behangplaksel nog in mijn haar en de verfresten op m'n ellebogen geniet ik van het eindresultaat. De afgelopen dagen werkten we met een team van stylisten aan de opbouw en vormgeving van de Margriet Winterfair, een groot evenement dat jaarlijks zo'n 75.000 bezoekers trekt. Dit jaar verzorgde Studio West samen met Rosalie Noordam de aankleding van de Bezoekers VIP-ruimte. In de grote houten Barn maakten we met warme materialen en zachte winterpastels comfy zithoekjes die een echt Winter Wonderland gevoel uitstralen. 

Laat de decemberdagen maar komen!

Woonbeurs 2014

Studio West bezocht de persdag van de Woonbeurs voor de laatste trends en ontwikkelingen op het gebied van interieur. Interieur in de breedste zin van het woord; van verlichting tot verf en van kinderkamer tot keuken. 

Wat mij als eerste opviel was het vele gebruik van 'live' groen, bijna iedere stand had wel verse bloemen en planten staan, still going green!

Wat kleurgebruik betreft; zwart en wit blijven de basis, aangevuld met terratinten als cognacbruin, oranjerood en okergeel. Hierbij sluit ook mooi de laatste kleurtrend aan; goud is terug van weggeweest! Een prachtig herfstig kleurenpalet, zeker naast alle pastels en fluo-tinten die ook nog veel te zien waren.

Tenslotte veel aandacht voor ambacht, zo was er in het VT-Wonen huis een zeefdrukwerkplaats en zijn er in de styling stoere gereedschappen, zoals bijvoorbeeld een zaag verwerkt! 

Plants in the spotlight

Like every year I visited the graduation exposition of the HKU, Utrecht school of Arts, design department. It reminded me of my own graduation at Artemis; long hours of hard work, lots of black coffee and many visits to the copyshop. While I graduated in 2009 with a trendbook for Laura Ashley on the animals being the new heroes, Romanimal, some things have changed.

Now in several disciplines like interior, illustration and productdesign there's a theme to be discovered. Plants in the spotlight! 

website student Sanne Vos

website HKU Exposure

Medieval Pantone

Recently a Dutch book historian, Erik Kwakkel, did a stunning discovery in the archives of a library in Aix-en-Provence.

A mysterious Dutch crafstman, named A. Boogert made an encyclopedic book of colour charts,

intended to be an instructional guide to painting in watercolour. 

'Klaer lightende Spiegel der Verfkonst' dates from the year 1692 and contains nearly 800 pages with all different shades of colours, all mixed and painted by hand. Each colour is named in an enormous index. Even in the 17th century they were described by poetic names such as ‘grapevine black’.

The irony is the fact that only very few people will have seen this work of art live, while it must have been one of the most comprehensive guides to paint and color of its time.Fortunately the entire book can now be seen here :

digital library

Source:

Erik Kwakkel

Reference: 

Food Film Festival

Yesterday I visited the Food Film Festival in Amsterdam, which combines two wonderful ingredients: films and food! 

I saw an animation in a two-person photobooth cinema, discovered trends in You Tube food video's (apperently in Korea you can earn a living by eating in front of a webcam) and tested the special brew festivalbeer Lekkerbek! And obviously had some great food from one of the foodtrucks. Maybe one day I'll start organising my own FFF!

Food Film Festival website

Ladies and Gentlemen

Ladies and Gentlemen, after months of hard work I'm very proud to present my brand new logo. My graphic designer Tessa Kwee and I developed a clear corporate identity. We produced the (business)cards and tags ourselves at Kapitaal in Utrecht. I didn't now screen printing is such heavy work! After a long day of very physical labour the result is stunning, such deep colours can never be obtained with digital prints. So, now I'm ready to promote Studio West Styling! 

Tessa Kwee Graphic Design

Kapitaal Utrecht