Archive for the 'WE HATE…' Category

Waterworld in Copenhagen – design edition!

Saturday the 2th of July was a wet day in Copenhagen – very wet! Within hours we received the same amount of rain that we normally get in two months – 150 mm or close to 6 inches. Here is a few pictures from the basement in our Flagship Store at Østerbrogade.

The store is open for business – and right now we are busy moving everything that is not wet up onto ground level… you see, nothing can stop a great Design Sale – not even a waterwold in the basement!

Continue reading ‘Waterworld in Copenhagen – design edition!’

Ladies and…


Sign spotted close to the Little Mermaid at Langelinie.

We love to spot signs with weird illustrations. You may have read our “No pole dancing on Swedish trains” and “Pole sitting on Danish roads” but this sign got us wondering. We have figured out the female part, but what’s with the huge person next to her? We are guessing:

  • A person with a broken leg on a hospital bed?
  • A motorcycle rider frozen solid, lying on a bed?
  • Man size diaper change?
If you have a better suggestion, do let us know.

What happens when a copycat has bad taste?

What happens when a copycat has bad taste? You end up with a bad replica in a sick color! We spottet this freaky color on the Australian webshop Matt Blatt… not that we want to promote them in any way. The laws may be different in Australia – but to us – copying a design is stealing, no matter where you live on the planet, and Matt Blatt have stolen Simon Karkovs design.

Shame on you!

Click below to see the copycat version… but don’t say we didn’t warn you!

Continue reading ‘What happens when a copycat has bad taste?’

Simple design doesn’t always stay simple

You probably know the problem. You arrive at a building  - and don’t know which door to use!

In this case someone really did a great job with a brilliant solution. By combining the door handle with a red or green dot you easily understand which door to use… but what started simple ended up being very complex…

Continue reading ‘Simple design doesn’t always stay simple’

Design chamber of horrors

Unfortunately it is not unusual that our design is copied somewhere in the world. Going after the design-pirates is often a long, costly and difficult process. Instead, we thought you would like to see some of the design-freaks we sometimes spot and then make the judgement yourself!

Swing-vase-detail

Click below to enter the Design Champer of Horrors.

Continue reading ‘Design chamber of horrors’

No more frogs in Copenhagen

This morning one of the oldest (1965) and most well know neon signs in Copenhagen was taken down. The Chocolate frogs! Not familiar with the frogs? The frogs was a “ring of frogs” in neon on top of a chocolate factory (Galle & Jessen). In 1971 the chocolate brand was bought and “swallowed” by a bigger brand (Toms), the building sold to an IT company and nobody wanted the frogs… Well except for all the kids dreaming that the frogs were made out of real chocolate – or the grownups on the way home from a party – in desperate need of a neon fix-point to help navigate home.

IMG_0187

Meet a original copycat

The original (red) strainer is designed by Boje Estermann and was introduced by Normann Copenhagen in august 2005. The other version is a copy made by the company Sagaform – we found the pictures in their 2009 catalogue.

 

strainer-copy1

We are pretty sure that Sagaforms lawyer would argue that their version has no visual or funktional comparison to our Strainer… we will let you be the judge of that.

 

strainer-copy-2

… and yes, our original strainer also comes in green. More info on our homepage.

Related blogposts:
Respect to Fritz – Fritz Hansens fight against copies of their furnitures 
Fake Y-chair – We feel the pain 
Zone Denmark – Do you need help 

Pole-sitting on Danish roads!

525_250_250

A couple of weeks ago we spotted a few odd signs in Stockholm (No pole-dancing in Swedish trains!)). But it seems that we Danes are just as bad. The text above the sign reads “Green wave”. Sorry, but that doesn’t help us much when all we see is a person with one leg shorter than the other sitting on a very thin pole. Do you have a different interpretation of the sign, please let us know.
Spotted outside our store in Copenhagen.

Respect to Fritz

egg-chair

We just spotted this cool fight the copies campaign from Fritz Hansen furniture.

No pole-dancing in Swedish trains!

pictugram

We spotted this pictogram on a train in Stockholm last night. But what does it try to communicate? Does it have something to do with dancing…in the rain or maybe that you are not allowed to stand on one foot when waving to your friends… we don’t know. 

Making pictograms is probably one of the most difficult graphic design assignments one can get – so we really respect the designers (like Ole Søndergaard) that master the art… but something went very wrong in Stockholm. Please help interpret the next couple of examples. 

pictogram-2Our suggestions are: 1. A strange new moon cart. 2. You are allowed to use a fitness ball on the train. 3. Bike with one small and one large seat. 4. Something with Marilyn Monroe. 5. Don´t smoke cigarets in the wrong end!

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We love great design

Normann Copenhagen is a way of living - a mindset. We like to think of it as putting on a pair of glasses and seeing the world in a different way. We love to challenge the conventional design rules.

On this blog we write about our design, the designers, and interesting things we spot around our hometown - Copenhagen.

Enjoy
Normann Copenhagen


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