One of the features at this year’s IDS was the salute to 10 Innovative Canadian Designers. Curated by Azure Magazine’s Nelda Rodger and Rachel Gottlieb for IDS, this exhibition ran down the very centre of the show and had the designers on hand to discuss their work. One such design team was Castor Design whose concrete bunker proved to be quite a draw on the floor of the show, fitting in almost as well as it would in the woods. Featured inside was the recent Blind Stool from a duck blind in Northern Ontario and some nifty lighting. Unusual dog tag invitations led the way to the Klaus by Nienkamper space where Castor’s sauna was fired up, all part of the IDS festivities.

+ castordesign.ca
+ interiordesignshow.com

And more... El Ultimo Grito created an impressive installation at Madrid’s ARCO that just wrapped up. The team created huge bags of 2 x 3 metres in the shape of letters and filled them with discarded packaging materials the day before the show opened. With the letters, that were also used as casual public seating during the fair, El Ultimo Grito formed words that made up part of a “poem” pertaining to waste and re-use. A video by Zaunka was made of the performance, an apt pause for reflection during the hectic activity of a typical design show. Poem after the jump.

+ elultimogrito.co.uk

The students at Beckmans College of Design in Stockholm produce innovative products and projects, so perusing their portfolios can be a lot of fun. We took a closer look at the Product Design group. The Bedris, by Daniel Enoksson, is a bed inspired by Tetris, and is great for the name alone. Evelina Johansson’s minimalist candle is imposing and subtle, while the embroidery greetings cards by Terése Björseius allow the sender to personalize their best wishes. Katarina Britse has fun using rubber gloves in her lighting (above) and Emma Mierse provides an alternative for those times when a diamond ring simply is not big enough. More after the jump …

+ beckmans.se

We met designer Tara Murray at last year's THAW exhibit where we saw her Take Note wall hanger made from wood and reclaimed waste architectural plotter paper tubes. We liked her work and asked her tell us more about it. Tara is a graduate from the University of Calgary and recently obtained her masters degree in Industrial Design. In short, she studies the design process from the perspective of product attachment, identity, value, meaning and memory. What we liked was that Tara's work goes beyond the superficial; adding "emotional connectedness to older products through new design". Her research and design interests have led her to explore such themes as sustainability, Canadian pop culture, and the construction of gender identity through design. After the jump, a few pieces from her studies. JGB

+ taramurray-design.ca

More from Luis Alicandu in Buenos Aires: Margen design was born from the union of two graphic designers and an industrial designer; Genoveva Castellar, Lucila Biscione and Marco Muscariello. The designers are constantly striving to balance the functional and the aesthetic to obtain a harmonic result. "Design tends to improve the quality of life. Everything that has to do with the image or aesthetic influences people in a direct way.". That's their Langostas (lobster) chairs above. More after the jump.

+ margendesign.com.ar

The great Vico Magistretti left us yesterday. He was considered one of the most representative protagonists of Italian Design and one of the most prolific; during his extensive career he designed more than 800 products for many important Italian companies; De Padova, Artemide, Kartell and Cassina among many others. His creative process followed a precise executive and functional concept, which endowed the object with its distinctive character. For Magistretti design was an intellectual activity always tempered by reality. I had the opportunity to meet him several times, he was a charming person, pure energy. It makes me happy to think I will find him again in each of his magnificent objects, simple, elegant, intelligent, just as the man who conceived them. Thanks Vico! GP