I was able to get a quick sneak peek into what’s coming up at Designersblock here in London’s Covent Garden Piazza starting tomorrow. I already mentioned Haidee Drew as one to watch, but here are some more, this time from South Korea. In recent years, Korea has transformed itself into a brand for itself, and these designers exhibiting at Designersblock tells exactly that story.

For instance, take a look at this Wine Speaker by Sante Kim. He used the top part of a wine bottle for the acoustics through glass, and coupled with the iron design to give it a new look. It’s not only creative, but also environmentally sound.

This is a simple lighting installation from the design team of Moonjung Kim and Sungsu Kang, collectively YLEM.

This X-ray Light by Wonsuk Cho uses X-ray film and lighting to display a different type of view from a “normal” light bulb. It almost turns lamps inside-out.

The next two are probably the most practical items that we would use. Ever had issues with dangling wires from your headset? This wire button will “organize” the wire for you so that you will never again be bothered by wires.

This I’ve Got Plastic Bags is a rubbish bin and a storage for your plastic bags all in one. Simply store your plastic bags at the bottom, then pull them out as needed. Sounds good to me.

Tomorrow, watch out for more reports from Designersblock and the opening of 100% Design!

I made today a relaxing day before tomorrow’s press events and then the opening of Designersblock, 100% Design and Tent London on Thursday. I headed out to the local grocery store Waitrose to check out the store.

The eco bag above may not look very exciting, but it’s quite simple and practical. UK grocery stores have been promoting the use of reusable bags as part of an effort to reduce plastic bag usage. These are definitely much sturdier than the reusable bags that you see in the US at stores such as Whole Foods or Safeway.

Then there’s the packaging. How do you make a product on the shelf stand out amongst others? This freshly squeezed orange juice literally “screamed” out at me when there were hundreds of other bottles out there. The label itself was definitely bright enough and it caught my attention. It was just as simple as that.

For lunch, I ended up at The Natural Kitchen while walking up Marylebone High Street, the main shopping street in the Marylebone area, just north of Oxford Street. This is definitely a first for me in the area, and it was definitely very charming. I had a great meal at the cafe upstairs, with a Thai spiced sweet potato soup with roasted pine nuts, then a spinach and feta quiche + salad.

The evening was just quite mellow. It is now just past midnight in London, and I have a press event first thing in the morning. So stay tuned. More to come tomorrow from the events.

My first day at the London Design Festival was spent around the Brompton Design District, which is an area around the South Kensington tube station, encompassing landmarks such as the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Natural History Museum and the Royal College of Art.

In general, the LDF is not as large as the Milan Design week, and each exhibit seemed to be quite spread apart, so one would really have to have a good pair of walking shoes in order to complete the tour. Even in the Brompton Design District, there were still limited openings, but I did run into one exhibition that was quite enticing. This was the Double Dutch: Appetites and Emotions exhibit created by the Flower Council of Holland.

The exhibit was divided into two sections, the first was “Appetite”, which pairs objects such as china and antiques with flowers to entice visitors. My favorite was actually the “Emotions” section, in which six different bouquets were displayed representing different emotions: sympathy, love, happiness, anger, jealousy and gratitude. My personal favorite is the anger bouquet (see above). The flowers just scream out anger, doesn’t it? The Emotions bouquets were created by Dutch designers Niels van Eijk and Miriam van der Lubbe and curated by Jane Withers, while the Appetite was created by horticultural trend expert Lisa White with Graham Hollick.