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	Review of The Design Annual 2007 - Inside: Private Identity, Part 2 - Design & Materials
	Review of Design Miami / Basel 2007
	Review of The Design Annual 2007, Inside: Private Identity, Part 1 - Design & Identity
	Review of the 2007 HOW Design Conference
	Review of DESIGNMAI 2007, Berlin's Favorite Design Show

	Getting The Right Feel … The Riddle of Texture
	Design also always has a function - an interview with Oliver Habboub, iF Award winning designer of INMYX
	"X" - Marks The Spot! #4
	How about good things? Or interesting things?

	Let's have some honesty - please!

	Taking Drawing into Another Dimension

Join the Ciba® Xymara™ team!

Are you an application specialist in plastics interested in working of the next generation of effects? Join the Xymara Team... Read full story on www.xymara.com

Review of The Design Annual 2007 - Inside: Private Identity, Part 2 - Design & Materials

This year's Design Annual was notable for spotlighting the best of current design, from high-end design to consumer design, but always design, and with a strong focus on the selection of materials ... Read full story on www.xymara.com

Review of Design Miami / Basel 2007

Basel in Switzerland has a special charm on a Saturday morning; you see people getting ready … Read full story on www.xymara.com

Review of The Design Annual 2007, Inside: Private Identity, Part 1 - Design & Identity

We live in age of instant gratification. For those with the means, any place in the world is reachable, anyone can be contacted, and any object can be obtained ... Read full story on www.xymara.com

Review of the 2007 HOW Design Conference

All designers take note: from June 10 to 13 in Atlanta, USA, designers will be able to tank up on inspiration in the areas of ... Read full story on www.xymara.com

Review of DESIGNMAI 2007, Berlin's Favorite Design Show

DIGITABILITY was the motto of this year's Berlin DESIGNMAI, where the city played host to a week-long presentation of the best of international design... Read full story on www.xymara.com

Getting The Right Feel … The Riddle of Texture

Imagine eating a peach that tastes like a peach and is peach-pink, but is shiny and hard. Imagine an apple that has all an apple's refreshing flavor, yet is soft and fuzzy. Biting into either would be a surprising experience - and maybe not a pleasant one. Texture matters; which is why people still willingly pay more for leather rather than vinyl car seats and wood floors rather than linoleum... Read full story on www.xymara.com

Design also always has a function - an interview with Oliver Habboub,
iF Award winning designer of INMYX

For a long time now, my work has centered around the further development of man-machine interfaces. A great deal is happening in this field at the moment. User interfaces are becoming increasingly better... Read full story on www.xymara.com

"X" - Marks The Spot! #4

There's always so much going on in the world of effects and often too little time to check it all out. Here's our monthly look at all the items you're too busy to investigate yourself - but which are themselves too interesting to miss! Read full story on www.xymara.com

How about good things? Or interesting things?

From rock 'n' roll rebel to furniture maker - an interview with London furniture maker Paul Kelley... Read full story on www.xymara.com

Let's have some honesty - please!

Let's have some honesty - please! Or the aesthetic repercussions of the growing need for honesty in product design. We are witnessing a growing trend in strongly pigmented lacquers for interior use. Lacquered furniture is being displayed to the amazement of customers in the most prodigious sections of furniture shops; textiles and accessories have long ceased to cut corners on opulence and lavish ornamentation. There are already suggestions that rugs in front of sofas are getting thicker, and that velvet cushions will have golden satin tassels trussed up into ponytails and tumbling out of their wide seams again before too long. And so it goes on: richer, warmer, more luxuriant. We live in the present but the seventies and eighties are still with us. The long-term influence of the oil crisis is still felt to this day. Yet we also live in an 80's revival of multiple styles, and this makes it possible to react simultaneously to widely divergent impulses. The threat of climate change coupled with an ever-increasing political apathy is taking its toll. Belief in a clear direction has given way to growing scepticism. People who have already decided that blind trust is not an option are now questioning things more often and more explicitly. However, political rebellion doesn't seem to be the answer and passive resignation is taking over. But this non-action has spawned a widespread desire and need for clarity, simplicity and above all "HONESTY". "Honesty is the best policy" seems to be the last remaining clause in the contract between foothold-seeking consumers and the providers in whom they trust. The aesthetic dimension of this growing, collective basic need is extreme and absolutely new: - everything must appear as it is - nothing should pretend to be more than it is - authenticity means: honest, open, fresh, natural and new < As photos taken at the recent Milan Furniture Fair show, this need is already beginning to manifest itself in design (see images): - the simplest furniture made from raw, freshly planed wood - "used" materials, employed without upgrading them in any way Anything goes, as long as it communicates naturalness. This development is as evident in the photographs of the pieces of furniture by eminent designers such as Jasper Morrison and Michael Young as it is in other contemporary garden furniture on display. Wood surfaces contrast with heavy lacquering in dark, greyed pastel tones. "Fresh" plywood - otherwise used for packing crates - is everywhere. Layered wood from pine, spruce, fir, seemingly of little value, elaborately worked, with (what appear to be but aren't) untreated surfaces. Matt-finish wood wax with strong UV absorbers replaces colour varnishes. It doesn't take a clairvoyant to predict the consequences of this development. It's not the first time that light-coloured wood is on the agenda. But what distinguishes our aesthetic demands from those back in 1984, is the clarity, naturalness and the emphasis on freshness. Light-coloured wood should remain light-coloured. And if the result works, then preserve that freshness. Using products that are both functional and honest about what they contain. And these are? Green - naturally! Naturally green!