Around Town

Timorous Beasties at the Harlesden jubilee clock tower

Timorous Beasties
Established in 1990, Timorous Beasties (the name comes from a Robert Burns poem) is the brainchild of Glaswegian duo, Alistair McAuley and Paul Simmons, both 40, who started by boldly creating extravagant and intricate designs inspired by entomology while minimalism was in full swing. Their skill lies in reviving traditional methods like screenprinting and hand-drawing to depict gritty contemporary scenes, which have led them to be dubbed ‘William Morris on acid’.

Sample piece
While London Toile, a parody of the traditional French fabrics depicting pastoral scenes, is its most celebrated, it was work like the baroque Thistle and nightmarish Iguana prints that garnered a nomination for the Design Museum’s Designer of the Year Award 2005.

Design philosophy
‘There’s a lot of textile design that is just churned out at the moment. But the gestation period for design take several years. Sometimes you get fed up with it, then when you revisit it having developed new techniques you find something good in it.’ Feature continues

How London inspires them
‘The first time I came across Harlesden, which features on our London Toile, was when I took a wrong turn. I thought: "Jesus, this is mental." It’s an amazing place to people-watch, there’s music blaring out of hairdressers, Rastas in pin-stripe suits, smartly-dressed people off to church, sirens. And then in the centre of it there’s this Victorian ornamental clock tower. We felt it was important to represent this side of London. The funny thing is Americans often mistake it for Big Ben when they see it on the print.’

Career high
Getting nominated for the Design Museum’s Designer of the Year Award. Opening the London shop.

Design festival picks
‘I can’t wait to see Stuart Haygarth’s new work,’ says McAuley. ‘I saw his "Tide" chandelier a few years ago and was blown away by its brilliance – I would have loved to buy that.’

Where to find them
The new Timorous Beasties store is at 43 Amwell St, EC1 (020 7833 5010). Angel tube.

Max Lamb at the Cemex concrete plant

Max Lamb
A graduate of the Royal College of Art and multiple award-winner, Lamb, 27, is a product designer who takes techniques and materials generally associated with large-scale production like metal-casting, polystyrene and laminate and uses them to create one-off pieces that he makes by hand.

Sample piece
At first glance, Lamb’s pewter stool looks like the product of an industrial foundry. Closer inspection reveals it as a hand-made piece with a peppered texture and variegated thickness. Lamb casts his stools in the sand of the Cornish beaches where he grew up. ‘I bore the leg holes and carve the shape into the sand, heat the ingots of pewter in my mum’s old saucepan on a camping stool then pour it directly in the shape,’ he says. ‘I like the way I can go to the beach and leave with a finished product without doing any secondary work like filing the metal down; the purity of it is appealing.’

Design philosophy
'My inspiration starts from doing the research into processes myself. I’m hungry for the knowledge of how things are produced. I think everything I make will always be by hand to some degree, because I like to be involved. I don’t think design needs to be mass-produced; I like the idea of slowing down the process and being in touch with everything from beginning to end. I see myself more as a craftsperson than designer.'

How London inspires him
‘Huge spaces like the one at the Cemex concrete plant in Battersea. All the sand and raw materials for concrete is delivered here; you could say it’s where London begins, in the sense that all buildings are made of this.’

Career high
Being nominated for the Designer of the Future award at Design Milan/Basel show in January 2007.

Design festival picks
‘This year I’ll be interested to see Grandmateria at Gallery Libby Sellers on Exhibition Road to check out what she’s done since she left her job as curator of the Design Museum. Libby always has great ideas – I wish I was working with her, actually!’

Where to find him
Lamb’s designs are part of Trash Luxe at Liberty, Regent St, W1 (www.trashluxe.com) Oxford Circus tube. Sept 20-30.

Rebecca Otero, plus chair, at Lisboa Patisserie on Golborne Road

Rebecca Otero
A recent graduate of Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design, Otero, 28, works in textiles and surface design and is a furniture maker and designer.

Sample piece
Otero’s wood-and-plastic conversation chairs look like thrift-shop finds draped in dust sheets. As people seated on them become engrossed in conversation, the single chairs can be slotted together jigsaw puzzle-style to form a closely-knit pair. Once connected, light shines through a lacy design etched into the plastic ‘drapes’. Equally innovative and fun is her lie-detecting tablecloth which uses a sound-reactive machine connected to conductive yarns woven into the cloth.

Design philosophy
‘I’m always trying to find a way of making textiles aid non-verbal communication. I look at social interaction and make people engage through the use of my pieces.’

How London inspires her
‘I’m London born and bred and have a love-hate relationship with it. The crowds and stress are hard, but that can drive me too – so much can happen in one day. When I was designing the chairs I studied people’s body language in the Lisboa Patisserie on Golborne Road – arguments, business meetings and friends gossiping.'

Career high
‘Completing my masters was the hardest thing I’ve done. Working for others is fine, but that was more of a self-challenge. I’ve also had a few exhibitions in Tokyo and have some work in über Fernweh, a prestigious crafts shop in Berlin.’

Design festival picks
‘I think 100% Futures looks really fresh and should be full of exciting new designers. I’ll definitely be going to that.’

Where to find her
Designersblock London 07, The Nicholls & Clarke Buildings, 3-10 Shoreditch High St, E1 (www.designersblock.org.uk) Liverpool St tube/rail. Sept 20-23.

Committee in their Deptford studio

Committee
Husband-and-wife Harry Richardson, 32, and Clare Page, 31, studied art at Liverpool University before moving into product design, making pieces from objects sourced from Deptford Market.

Sample piece
Their quirky ‘Kebab’ floor lamps, created using eclectic objects bought at the market, form a three-dimensional snapshot of the minutiae of urban life. Their strength lies in this ability to balance kitsch wit with elegance.

Design philosophy
‘We love not knowing what will happen next. For us the pleasure in design is when you come across a new type of beauty or efficiency that you didn’t anticipate. We’re not interested in just creating another form to add to all the rest. We want whatever we design to refer to the world outside, not just our own expression.’

How London inspires them
‘We have a saying, “Deptford provides”, because everything we need we can find here. Deptford is untouched.’

Career high
‘It’s yet to come. We’ve just had a week working with the Spanish ceramics company Lladró, which we’ve just started a new project with. We’ll be unveiling a new product in January.’

Design festival picks
‘We’re really interested to see what gets created at the Deptford Design Market Challenge. Designers buy an item in the market and then turn it into something unique. Julia Lohmann [makes surreal seating in the shape of cows’ carcasses], Max Lamb and Maxim Velcovsky, [makes ceramic animal-figurine moneyboxes], are ones to keep an eye on.’

Where to find them
Committee is taking part in Trash Luxe at Liberty, Regent St, W1 (www.trashluxe.com) Oxford Circus tube. Sept 20-30.