Design Debate

I love a piece of design that makes you look twice, and Gregory Beson’s Salt Chair certainly does that. Created in 2019, it is fashioned from 76 blocks of Himalayan pink salt. Yes, actual salt. Beson is a New York-based designer and sculptor with a fascination for materials and the stories they carry. The salt blocks came from a cave in northern Pakistan before being sculpted into the chair in New York. It is simply beautiful, but the choice of material is about rather more than its lovely pink glow. The Salt Chair was created for the 2019 In Good Company exhibition, and Beson used it to explore our complicated relationship with natural materials and resources. Salt feels completely ordinary to us, yet here is a natural mineral extracted in Pakistan, transported across the world and transformed into a piece of collectible furniture. That contrast is really the point. There is another clever reference hidden in its architec...

I love any excuse to draw and I do often get the opportunity for our c lients. Being based in beautiful Cornwall makes an easy subject, one I never tire of.  Our clients Cornish Horizons have a stunning portfolio of holiday cottages based up and down our fair county, they asked if we could draw them some maps of where their offices are based to hand out to customers.  I needed to make sure these maps could actually be useful as well as pretty to look at so I marked on key roads and illustrated landmarks. Dotted with drawings and full of colour and texture, hopefully conjuring that holiday feel. They will be used as print-outs in welcome packs and available to download at the Cornish Horizons website.  We have done some really lovely projects with this client, creating tote bags, brochures, magazines, greetings cards, email marketing - even cookies and a fairground-style selfie frame!