Designersblock is more than a design show, it’s a culture that has grown over 12 years. It has students and graduates together with long established design companies and everyone in between. This year, Designersblock has been an exhibition inside an exhibition. It took place in Earl’s Court, in a pavilion apart, during 100% Design. Among its stands, there was a very strange installation, that looks like a room: the place in which two artistic projects met each other. The two projects are “Invading memories” by Chu YinHua and “Strange•R” by LimWeiLing. Now, they converged in a unique project, then in a unique website too.

It’s not simple to explain the two projects. It’s better to use the words of their founders. “The term Strange•R comes from the word stranger. A Strange•R is an everyday object which once was familiar but now seems strange, having random words deriving from the dreams and experiences of the people in the city applied on them. R is Re-live, Re-born, Re-use, Re-visit, Re-learn, Re-think, Re-create, Rejoice, Relationship… These diverse interpretations will see the transformations of everyday objects into something that can be reapplied into our daily life in a renewed way. At the same time they assume characters that tell of the stories of our city”. We can say the essence of a Strange•R is an “Invading memory”.

People had an active role in the project: they could be “Object Translators”. Their task was to give life to an abandon object. Re-think it. Re-invent it. In a way that allow to see the strangely familiar and the familiarly strange. Results are surprising. And if we do catch hold of the surprising and wonderful in the everyday, let’s think about the limits of what is possible and peraphs you may come face to face with a moment of revelation.

Its name is The Pallet Project. It has been projected by Nina Tolstrup of StudioMama, defined by herself as “sustainable, accessible and an agent of social change”. The furniture collection is made from disused pallets – a source of cheap, often wasted, wood. The raw material is easy to find and the instructions are available to download from www.studiomama.com. Enjoy to try yourself to made your personal pallet-chair.

The Pallet Project has been introduced at 100% Design and exposed at Gallery Jacqueline Rabun in London until the half of October. An art gallery for a project like this? Yes, because three British artists have customized Pallet Lo Chairs which has been auctioned for charity. They are Gavin Turk, Cornelia Parker and Rachel Whiteread.

The proceeds of the auction will go to found a workshop in Lugano, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Buenos Aires. Here, using Nina’s instructions, gallery owner and charity worker Cecilia Gilk has taught unemployed people to make the Pallet Chair in their co-operative. So, in this way, discarded pallets will be turned into saleable furniture, with the hope to help people in poverty to improve their lives.

A collection of newly designed pallet furniture and accessoried made by Nina Tolstrup will be view and on sale at Jacqueline Rabun’s shop in Belgravia.

As explained in her website “[re]design is a social enterprise that propagates sustainable actions through design”. She seeks out products and projects that are friendly to people and planet. [re]design is partner with a wide range of organisations to pioneer sustainable innovation, promoting their ideas and acitvities,

[re]design has just token place at 100% Design in Earl’s Court with an imaginative exhibition called “Doing it for the kids”. As you can just imagine, it was a show of a lot of fantastic products about sustainable play design. The project explored play types, the importance of play in child development, how toys help mould our kids’ values and how they impact on the environment. All the play resources shown in this surprising exhibition can inspire designers, educators and parents to be more critical and creative.

Almost fifty designers have given their interpretation about what it is re-design philosophy in childhood world, in a great stand made in paperboard, that looked like an enormous box of toys just opened on the floor. In “Doing it for the kids” album in Flickr you can see a few of images.

Now “Doing it for the kids” will move to other cities, with a tour that we hope long and successful. From 16 to 25 October it will be in Newcastle, from 19 to 21 November in Birmingham.

What is your source of inspiration? Last week we piddled in London, during the London Design Festival, seeing & seeking a lot of  interesting things. You know, London is creative in every single corner and in every period of the year. But this event has something special.

Re-use, re-cycle, re-design have been ones of the most popular keywords. We want to share with you a few images, thoughts and feelings we gathered in that days. A rough colletion of short sources of insipiration for your creative minds.

So, let’s start from the first image we shot in Earl’s Court at “100% Design” expo fair. This image can be considered the thread of the next episodes you’ll read at Refashinoso.com. See you soon with other inspirational posts from London Design Festival.

Shicon and Refashinoso at London Fashion Week 2009.

Are you a creative talent? Shicon, the leading community of icon designers and creative minds about style, is born the 14th september 2009. The 19th went at London Fashion Week not as a sponsor but to feel the atmosphere for next year and to introduce Shicon and Refashinoso to the creative side of London.

We’re growing, creating and buzzing every day.

Join our community, share your talent and your point of you.

See you around.