I’ve been thinking about embodied contexts for maps lately, beyond flat paper maps. I have 3 sets of keys that I carry around and I thought that a simple way of differentiating them would be to design location-relevant key rings. There’s such a familiarity with specific locations like the office, home, your partner’s home, that… Continue reading Tiny Useful Things: KeyMaps
Category: Product design
Papercamp 2 writeup
The power of postcards View more presentations from Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino. PaperCamp is a sweet and strange little weekend affair. Mostly attended by friends or friends of friends, you end up having conversations about stuff, work, life and everything in between. Not quite recovered from my recent travels, I hastily put together a short rant on… Continue reading Papercamp 2 writeup
Thoughts on the paper experience
Two thoughts late in the evening as I continue to think about what makes paper different. Not better or worse, just different from pixels. 1. I bought this month’s Wired UK as I’m a sucker for a cup of earl grey and a read and right in the middle of it, there was a perfume… Continue reading Thoughts on the paper experience
Design as survival tool for the 21st century
Forgive this: a quick and dirty theory that I’ve been working on passively as I read Novecento this weekend lounging in a metal chair in the jardin Luxembourg in Paris and later as I flicked through this month’s Marie-Claire Maison in one of Brixton’s fashionable cafés. I wonder if design as an activity, a field… Continue reading Design as survival tool for the 21st century
Public failure at Interesting 09
I had the great honour of speaking this Saturday at what I can only describe as a great British institution and cocked up massively trying to talk 300 people into making an origami box. Failure is a good thing, it’s something you can learn from, it makes you humble and since it was only the… Continue reading Public failure at Interesting 09
To those young blessed souls
I’ve been invited to lead a sort of online discussion for the near-graduation 4th year students of the BA in Industrial design in Montreal. I was in their position in 2004 which seems like so ages ago and I remember the feeling. I felt like I was sortof on the brink of an abyss, the… Continue reading To those young blessed souls
Know your food
After Open Sauces in November, I got interested in food again, especially the way food is presented and communicated in the context of supermarkets. There’s something deeply depressing about the presentation of fruits and veg in the UK and there is also something cultural about that presentation. When I lived in Italy, access to certain… Continue reading Know your food
Design's role in the descending economy
So I find myself more and more motivated to blog as a way to scratch an intellectual itch triggered just today by visiting the V&A’s Cold War Modern exhibition and coming back home to read the Guardian’s interview of Philippe Starck, Terrence Conran and Kirstie Allsopp. As I walked through the Victoria and Albert’s completely… Continue reading Design's role in the descending economy
2009 resolutions
I don’t like chocolate that much anymore and I’ve already promised myself to do more exercise, so all there’s left to commit to are a loose collection of interests I’d like to pursue in the coming year: – Find out what’s behind the current trend of doomsday scenarios for the future..is it only a byproduct… Continue reading 2009 resolutions
10 seconds
It’s August finally and as a form of relaxation, I’m forcing myself to do some video editing, something I used to enjoy tremendously when I was studying. This one is for Karola. What is jewellery? from Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino on Vimeo.