We are happy to announce that our colourful and decorative Rainbow Trivet, designed by the German design trio Ding3000, has been awarded the prestigious 2011 GOOD DESIGN Award.

From the designers point of view:

“Design has a magical ability to make products desirable as opposed to merely functional. When we developed Rainbow Trivet it was a question of finding the optimal folding mechanism, making the finished trivet both aesthetically attractive and practical to use. Rainbow Trivet has a playful expression and looking at the colours puts you in a good mood.” 

The award is hosted by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture & Design and Metropolitan Arts Press Ltd and is awarded for quality designs of the highest form, function and aesthetic appearance. GOOD DESIGN Award was established in Chicago in 1950 by Edgar J. Kaufmann Jr. in collboration with design pioneers such as Eero Saarinen, Charles & Ray Eames and Florence Knoll.

The winners are:

Most creative idea

Philip Christensen, turned the Norm 06 lamp, a swing vase, and a Krenit Salad set into a beautiful swan. Congratulations!

Best Craftmanship

Congratulations to Emma Sivell!
From the first time we saw the three bears we fell in love with them. It takes quite an imagination and craftmanship to turn a wine stopper, the Kula hooks and the fusion ladle into three bears.

Most liked picture on Facebook. 

Just like last year we let our fans on Facebook pick their favourite. And this year it was “Pip” by Tanja Nørgaard, with more than 200 Likes. Congratulations.

See all the submissions on Facebook or Flickr

Their latest feature of adding recipes for drinks and food is mind-blowing and plays with almost all your senses. Still nor Scope or we have figured out how to have add smell and taste to the online experience – but mouth-watering it is.

Experience for yourself and start cooking – no need to understand Japanese:)

Scope always gives the presentations of Normann Copenhagen´s products a Japanese spin, taking storytelling to a higher level.

Our Japanese friend and online partner Scope is well known by the keen followers of spottedbynormanncopenhagen.com. But it is very likely that only a few have visited their great website and experienced their stunning presentations.

Read the blog post A japanese man fell in love with Gry´s Mormor

All we can say is:

At the Normann Copenhagen flagship store in Copenhagen, we have mixed brands and products that we love, trying to create inspiring settings of lifestyle and shopping experience. One of the trendsetters of the design industry has set new standards taking a brand showroom to a whole new level.

The Swiss furniture company Vitra has a stunning collection of world class architecture at their Weil am Rhein location in the crossing between Germany, Switzerland and France. We find the Vitra house from 2010 to be the best of this impressiv collection covering some of the biggest names around.

The Reception

Elephant kindergarten

Create your own wish list as you go along

Taking the idea of color samples to a whole new level.

Vitra Showroom kitchen

Respect to Vitra for their vision and focus on their home collection – best brand showroom we have ever seen. The fact that they have made it into a museum like experience with a brillant gift shop and a ”NIKEID like” shop in shop to specify your own EAMES lounge chair takes it to the top.

Seriousness with a superb touch of humour and love for great design.

Claydies a.k.a. Karen Kjældgård-Larsen and Tine Broksø

One project from Claydies is True feelings where they designed a raw and romantic porcelain series blindfolded… we don’t know if they in fact were naked during the process… we will ask them next time they drop by the Normann HQ.

Killing a vase! – part of the Chamber of horrors exhibition at Malmö Art Museum.

A ceramicist´s worst nightmare was Claydies contribution to thinking out of the box when it comes to creative use of clay. They exhibited the murder of 12 clay pots at the Malmö Art Museum.

The making of the Grass vase

At Normann Copenhagen we are proud to produce 3 of Claydies designs. The Grass vase, the True feelings candle holder and the beautiful woolen rugs Dahlia which will be back in stock this summer.

Claydies just published their very own magazine full of fun (like a Claydies Crosswords) and exciting stories… it’s a must read for anyone who like creativity and design.

What do you do if you live on a small iceland in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and you want to attract the attention of the rest of the design world?

By March 24-27th we have been attending the 2011 edition of Design March in Reykjavik, Iceland.

With its mid Atlantic location and a headcount of little over 300.000 heads of all ages, it is really impressive to see their involvement and dedication towards spreading their viewpoints on design.

Like Denmark, Iceland is a small nation, with a low headcount. With much less of a Design tradition, design institutions and design network, it is mindblowing what they have been able to achive in only 3 years of running the Design March.

We truly  believe that living on an Island in the Middle of the Atlantic Ocean makes you tough and creative.

Again and again it shows that it is never about the money, but about the core dedication of the involved partners. Where else would you see that the best retailers, designers of all levels, the industry, the ministers, the president and most importantly the Icelantic consumers teaming up to support such events?

You wanna know how you can create such an even for the smallest of budget?

Show your respect to the following TEAM of the Islantic Design Center.

Lilja Gunnarsdóttir, Guest Coordinator

Edda Sigurjondóttir, Project Manager & Poul Madsen, CEO Normann Copenhagen

Kristín Gunnarsdóttir, Project Manager

Þórey Vilhjálmsdóttir  & Greipur Gíslason, Project Manager

Halla Helgadóttir, Managing Director

How awesome is this. Imagine taking a shower but instead of drops of water falling on you – its Lego bricks. Well now you can. The super creative people from Billund has created the worlds first Lego brick shower. Spotted in Copenhagen during the Lego World expo.

Related blogposts:

The secret behind Danish design revealed today

You should play more with Frank

Didn’t you get your gift wrapped at the store – don’t panic – help is right here.

If you are a skilled at wrapping gifts – nothing new here! But if you are like most of us, and don’t know the Zen of wrapping you might want to watch this video. In just one minute Peter Elmegaard – our Flagship store director  will show you how easy it is to gift wrap.

This is the Swedish bank SEB… nothing interesting about that. But take a look at how the brand new SEB HQ in CPH interacts with the surroundings. Note that the architects (Danes of cause) have made holes in the deck – to give room for the trees. What a awesome thing to do. The front of the building is created so that it looks like a Swedish mountain side with trees, bushes, grass and and  moss… when the result is this beautiful we don’t mind having a bit of Sweden in Denmark!

Pictures by tsaaby

Siren Elise Wilhelmsen, this year’s winner of the Time to Design Award

We are proud to announce this year’s winner; the 28-year-old Siren Elise Wilhelmsen from Norway.
She won with her design project Developing Time – Time Developing. The winning project is a development of her graduation project from the University of Arts Berlin.

Photo Credit: Miriam Lehnart, Developing time – Time Developing

Siren’s design project can best be described as a combination of a knitting machine and a cuckoo clock. The project form to visualise the otherwise invisible time factor, every half hour will be marked with a mask, every day with 48 masks and a calendar year ends with a about 2 meters long scarf.

Photo Credit: Miriam Lehnart

The jury said; “The outcome of Developing time – Time Developing can either be interpreted in an artistic or design oriented realm of understanding, but the project is so different that it carries potential to show the world something truly innovative.”

The jury wishes to give Siren, time to design time and Siren will use her time at the Danish Art Workshops to bring the project closer to the user.
We look very much forward to follow the young talent and to showcase the innovative project in our Flagship store from the 25th. of November to the 9th. of December.