Is it weird to enjoy the interior design, rather than the food, in a restaurant? When I was in Paris recently I went to a Japanese restaurant that had some amazing pendant lights. I grabbed this photo, and I’ve been trying to figure out who designed it ever since.

It turns out that it’s called the Big Bang, made by Foscarini, and designed by Enrico Franzolini & Vicente Garcia Jimenez. It’s pretty expensive, but if you see one in a real enviroment it’ll blow you away. The photos don’t do justice to it’s design or it’s large size.

It’s available from places like Made in Design and Purves in Europe.

Fancy sniffing around a big name designer’s home? If you fancy having a nose about Marc Newson’s Parisian Home, then there’s a NY Times Article just for you. The NY Times website may require registration, in which case you can use BugMeNot to bypass the registration process. However, if you just want to see the photos, you can see them here, here (I’m jealous of his Lamborghini Muira) & here.

It’s a lot less “Marc Newson” than I would have imagined his home to be.

Read the NY Times Article

I always seem to change my mind about wall vinyl stickers. The trend has been a bit overblown and has always seemed a bit cheesy to me, but then something always comes along which tries to make me change my mind. At the moment, I quite like the wall vinyl stickers by Adrien Gardere. Especially the Arco Shadow (larger photo here).

It’s a lot cheaper then buying a real Achille Castiglioni Arco Lamp, and it’ll save you space. Probably won’t improve your lighting though.

If you like wall vinyl, check out the great range available at POAA.

Interesting kitechen design idea. Rita have created a really quirky kitchen where kitchen utensils seem to be extruding throught the doors and drawers of the kitchen units. Check out these photos to get a better look (photo one, photo two & photo three.)

Rita do loads of design stuff completely unrelated to kitchens, so go and see everything else they do at the Rita website.

Pray to God, nobody asks you the time! The Internal Watch by Leon Ransmeier isn’t going to be much good at keeping you on time for appointments.

The Internal Watch is encased in leather, rendering it non-functional as timepiece. The hidden watch transcends typical associations of status by isolating the emerging form rather than acting as a flashy signifier.

It’s wrong that I like the idea of an expensive watch that can’t tell you the time.

Leon Ransmeier’s other products are quite functional in comparison.

Weddings are boring. The while spectacle of weddings bored me to death. Unfortunately. At some point I’m going to be drawn into one of these organised regimented events, but if I had my way it would be done spur of the moment with an Emergency Wedding Dress by Aleksandra Paszkowska (Rachel, if you’re reading, you should buy one!)

No more posts today! I’m going for a long drive to go and pick up a couple of chairs I’ve wanted for a while. Tom Dixon gave away a number of Polystyrene chairs in what has become known as the Trafalgar Great Chair Grab.

In the midst of the London Design Festival 2006, Tom again took over Trafalgar Square in London in order to introduce a little bit of his design to Londoners. This year, he teemed up with EPS (Expanded Polystyrene) Group in order to demonstrate the possibilities of moulding furniture in polystyrene. After a day of lounging around in the square, Londoners were invited to take the chairs away, absolutely free, in what has become known as “The Great Chair Grab”.

I wasn’t able to make it to Trafalgar Square on the day, but I still want some of these limited edition chairs that made a little part of design history. Luckily, I found someone willing to part with two of them, so I’m off to pick them up.

I’m meeting some guy in a motorway service station to collect them, which all seems a bit shifty. So if there are no posts for a few days, I’ve probably been murdered. In which case, let it be known that I died for my love of design!

I stumbled across a bunch of french design videos Even though my french isn’t good enough to really understand what’s being discussed, they’re worth a look if you’re curious about designers studios & design processes.

Videos by designers such as: Arik Levy, Philippe Starck, Philippe Starck, Olivier Gagnère, Christophe Pillet, Garouste et Bonetti & Jean-Marie Massaud (Click the ‘voir un extrait’ bit to play the videos).

See all the available design videos.

I’m a big fan of urban street art. If you like that sort of thing too, you should add Art of The State to your bookmarks. The “10 Sugars Is Not A Crime” work made me laugh. I always think people are mental if they have more than 2 sugars in their cup of tea.

Check out Art of The State.

There’s been a lot of ball-shaped pendant light ideas going around recently. Tom Dixon’s Copper Shade is a good example, but my favorite so far is the Sphere Lighting from Alain Monnens.

Alain Monnens has got a load of other great designs though, so go and check them out.