Anastasiya Komarova

Russian designer Anastasiya Komarova created her brand, called FORMS in February 2010. The collection offers a series of alternative accessories which have both a vintage and futuristic feel. The collection includes a wide range of designs, including leather clutches, neckpieces and armlets, all with an architectural touch.

Anastasiya says about her work: ''I have never aimed to reflect any particular architecture developed or created by myself or other architects. I am just trying to reflect some fundamental things that architecture is based on. I really admire the laconic manner and unique aesthetics of some buildings and this is what I try to achieve in my accessories. It's true that there are plenty of buildings around the world that inspires me a lot.''

Groupa Studio

Groupa Studio have produced some innovative and creative products including this Books Lamp inspired by the way Ethiopian people carry loads on their back.

Anna Lewis

Anna Lewis is a contemporary jewellery designer based in South Wales. Her work explores ideas of memory and identity of story telling and fantasy.

Ella Doran

Ella Doran transforms everyday objects into design-conscious pieces through the clever manipulation of the photographic image, either on its own, in repeat or combined with striking hand-coloured backgrounds. Ella takes her cue from the everyday world, from the close-up of a flower petal to abstract US road signage, the hustle and bustle of a Moroccan souk to simple kitchen utensils. She has transferred her vision into a wide range of products that have breathed modern life into many interiors, from London to Tokyo and even film heroine Bridget Jones's kitchen and Buckingham Palace!

People will always need plates

People will always need plates

People Will Always Need Plates is the creation of Hannah Dipper and Robin Farquhar.

Launched in 2004, they aim to use high quality, low volume batch production to create witty, thoughtful and stylish products as a direct antithesis to the current proliferation of cheap, throwaway design. In keeping with their credo that good design should be used and enjoyed, treasured and shared, Hannah and Robin try to develop products that, while diverse in style and application, always retain the fundamental values of functionality and beauty.

Digitile

Digitile

Design and manufacture of digitally printed wall and floor tiles and wallpapers. Suitable for interior and exterior use.

Carole Waller

Carole Waller

Carole Waller is a visual artist who works with colour, light, textiles, glass, enamel and paint. She uses either figurative or site specific imagery to make paintings which become glass installations, clothing, textile hangings, or live projects and collaborations.

I AM CHEAPSKATE

I am cheapskate

Enthusiastic tea drinker, musician, writer

and illustrator.

Charlotte Farmer

Charlotte Farmer

Sara Mulvanny

Sara Mulvanny

Freelance Illustrator.

John Dilnot

John Dilnot

One-off box works.

Louise Evans

Louise Evans

Jewellery, textiles, found objects and

vintage clothing.

Catherine Hammerton

Catherine Hammerton

Home accessories, wallpapers and

fabrics.

Cathy Miles

Cathy Miles

Illustrative wire objects and wall pieces.

Sharon Elphick

Sharon Elphick

Limited edition and bespoke

photographic textile prints.

Lubna Chowdhary

Lubna Chowdhary

Ceramic tiles & products.

Johanna Basford

Johanna Basford

Hand printed wallpapers and home accessories.

New York brand Mother

Mother

Lela Tillem and Tim Kaeding recently joined forces to create a line of cashmere-soft jeans called Mother.

'Our idea was to create a brand that captured the excitement of our own newfangled denims. We are able to add a new element to the way people wear jeans in fit fabric finish and now feel.'

They discuss choice of name...

'We also like the various ways the word mother can be used in popular culture – the rocking ‘motha’, the bad mother, the tattooed biker mother, the domineering mother in Hitchcock films. The name really just stuck a chord, it sounded so powerful and tough.'

The website presents great video clips of the 'Mother I'd like to Film' summer 2011 collection. You can download a look book presenting stills of the videos and collection as a pdf file. Also,check out the link to their bedroom stories which presents both video and MP3 clips to help tell stories and discuss what going on in their world.

Product’s physical longevity

Emotional attachment: Developing lasting relationships with our belongings. These days, a product’s physical longevity will not prevent it from being thrown away if the owner no longer wants it. To avoid unnecessary waste of otherwise useful goods, is it time we should start to form emotional bonds with them? An article by Jonathan Chapman (a Senior Lecturer at University of Brighton, UK) discusses how waste is produced by products failing to sustain an emotional attachment to their users.

Design and Emotions

A teacup that shivers in response to its tea going cold. A chair that warms when you sit in it, revealing its aspirations to be soft and comfortable. A pan whose handle becomes impossible to grasp when it becomes hot to the touch. The animate characteristics of these everyday objects allow them to facilitate meaningful interactions with their users by actively responding to their environment and evolving through their conditions of use. Tara Mullaney

Emotions guide, enrich and ennoble life – they provide meaning to everyday existence and render the valuation placed on life and property. Moreover, with the power to entice us to select one particular item from a row of similar products, emotions have a considerable influence on our purchase decisions. Not only are emotions involved in our reasoning about what product to buy, but they also have a significant effect on post-purchase satisfaction and product attachment. In addition, the emotions we experience daily, including those we experience in response to the designed objects that surround us, have been shown to be main determinants of our general well-being. (Marco van Hout)

Through interviews with designers and experts Design and Emotions discuss the emotional content and effect that products, brands and design have.

Keep Calm Gallery

Keep Calm Gallery is an online gallery with prints available from a selection of artists, designers and printmakers from around the world.

In addition to the prints they have a growing collection of unique pieces of original art, postcards and screenprinted cards and a selection of screen printed cotton tea towels.

Gallery Blog Spot

All Tea Towels

All Tea Towels

Online company selling a wide range of cotton

and linen tea towels.

To Dry For

Todryfor

ToDryFor.com is an online boutique specialising in designer tea towels - a husband and wife team based in Oxford, England, sourcing over 100 tea towels from numerous designers.

In addition to acting as a retailer, they also produce their own ToDryFor range of artist-commissioned tea towels, promoting work by both prominent and up-and-coming artists and illustrators.

Teresa Green

Teresa Green a unique range of printed textiles designed and hand printed by Teresa Cole. The company was set up in 2000 after graduating in printed textiles from Loughborough University school of art and design. Fabrics are sourced from within the UK. Linen used comes from Ireland and inks used for printing are all water based.

The importance of the range having a function is also key- the utilitarian, functionality and the design play equal roles.

The items are a canvas for the prints, and are designed around the shape and layout of each object.

Teresa confesses to having a passion for antique kitchenallia- especially kitchen scales and ladle shaped spoons. Her grandparents have also fed her imagination with crammed sheds full of old garden objects and treasures.

Suzanne Lee

Suzanne Lee, London based Senior Research fellow in the school of fashion and textiles at Central Saint Martins in London and creative director of BioCouture, creates garments from cellulose bacteria which grow in a bathtub using only green methods to address ecological issues and to explore the future of fashion design in conjunction with technology. She mixes a green tea solution with sugar solution and introduces yeast which then produces fibers, which in turn form a compact leathery like layer. This layer is then taken and dried out to take the final form. Lee also uses fruits and vegetables like blueberries and beetroot, completely natural products in order to make stains onto the fabrics creating patterns and designs.

''Zombie boy'' face of MUGLER

Rick Genest, the Canadian born Zombie boy as he is most commonly known, is the new face of MUGLER's premier men's collection and the Muse of creative director Nicola Formichetti. Chris Roome from London based creative company Happy Finish has retouched these black and white images by top fashion photographer Mariano Vivanco, which are running as part of a larger campaign that include an online video launch featuring an exclusive new track fromLady Gaga’s new Album ‘Born this Way’. The new MUGLER campaign images are the brainchild of Nicola Formichettiwho is also the stylist of Lady Gaga.

Ada Zanditon

Ada Zanditon uses a range of organic and natural fabrics as well as innovative waste reducing and energy conscious solutions to create sculptural, elegant fashion. The fabrics she uses are ethically sourced and builds personal relationships with small units that manufacture the clothing. All the fabrics she uses are dyed with AZO-free dyes, which mean they won't turn into cancer causing chemicals.

Ivana Helsinki

Ivana Helsinki

Finnish IVANAhelsinki is an independent art and fashion brand.

Behind the brand is the artist Paola Ivana Suhonen whose work includes prints, graphics, short movies, art direction - everything that is involved with the visuals. Paola runs the family-owned company with older sister Pirjo.

BBC2 Programme - Cool Hunters: Levi's

TD4F Level 4 Students: Slow Fashion

BBC2 Programme - Cool Hunters: Levi's

Please watch this video as part of your initial research for unit 3.

Second programme of a three-part documentary on those employed to spot future trends in food and clothing. Christine Detlefsen and Frederik Willems are the designers behind Levi's 'Engineered' jeans range, which halted a slump that had left the company in debt. The program follows the duo scouring the world for new ideas and materials, to create a successful follow-up line. Please Note: you can only view when logged onto the MMU network.

Christopher Raeburn

Christopher Raeburn recycles militarily parachutes and turns them into whimsical creations for a rainy day. You can find his pieces in both Liberty and Browns in London.

Christopher Raeburn: Designer 2 Watch from SRmanitou on Vimeo.