introducing...Kabegami, Paper Room and Just Kids Wallpaper!

hello all, we hope you have settled into 2012 now. it's going by so quickly, isn't it? we all have to work hard now!

we have great news- our wallpaper is now stocked in three new wallpaper retailers: Paper Room in New Zealand, Just Kids Wallpaper in Australia and Kabegami in Japan. it is so wonderful to have contacts in other countries now- we are really looking forward to working with them! in this blog post we will introduce you to their companies and we hope you will check them out.

we met the lovely Sarah and Annabel of Paper Room at last year's 100% Design show- they were interested in our new Wish You Were Here in London wallpaper, and since then have decided to stock a selection of our wallpaper in their showroom and online shop. we think their company ethos is great- they became conscious of how time consuming it can be for both clients and developers to go through wallpaper books, fabric hangers and retailers to find good designs for the home, and so created Paper Room in order to collect a range of good design for everybody, including themselves! they will be stocking several of our bespoke wallpaper designs as well as our Wish You Were Here in London wallpaper. we can't wait to see how our designs will do in New Zealand- it would be nice to visit, too...any excuse for a holiday! they also have a really great blog, which features a lot of brilliant designs in wallpaper and home accessories. we really like to read it, and see what's popular in New Zealand. click here to have a look at our section on their website.

 we have only recently begun talking with the wonderful Clare at Just Kids Wallpaper, but we already feel like part of her design family! Just Kids Wallpaper are an Australian wallpaper shop who fully utilise the practical application of wallpaper- in Clare's own words, children's wallpaper should contain 'imagery which enables a child to lose themselves in the story, to escape to another land'. what a great idea that is! she has taken it upon herself to reintroduce wallpaper to Australia- by gathering together her favourite designers of wall coverings on her website, she hopes to give wallpaper the recognition it deserves. Just Kids Wallpaper have chosen to stock a selection of our bespoke wallpaper as well as our studio collection 'Wish You Were Here in London' wallpaper. we hope that many children in Australia can make their own adventures in a city that, to them, is millions of miles away! click here to have a look at our section on their website.

now we will introduce Kabegami, our new wallpaper agents in Japan. we first met them at 100% Design in 2010, and are glad to have established a good relationship with them. they have offices in Tokyo and Osaka as well as here, in London, so we will have a good market to work with. we are really happy that they will like our designs. they have our whole wallpaper book in stock, including panels, bespoke and studio collections, so we really are looking forward to seeing what the reaction will be like. Kabegami specialise in bringing English design into the Japanese interiors market- it's so nice to be included in their design 'family'. as a Japanese-European company we think it will be an exciting time for us. just think, now we can go and have a 'research' trip in Japan, maybe...? like we said, we welcome the idea of a holiday! click here to have a look at our section on their website.

of course, if you are looking for something a little closer to home, you can always talk to our London stockist Firefly House, or our Ireland stockist Garrendenny Lane. here's to a great new year working alongside them, too!

we are really fortunate to have such brilliant international retailers. now you can see that we can't wait to work with everyone this year!

as ever, we love to hear from you- you can contact me with any comments or questions at kimika@yukarisweeneydesign.com. you can also follow us on twitter, like us on facebook and visit our website for more updates and information about our little surface design company. you can also sign up to our mailing list updates here. we'd love for you to do so!

some inspiration for the new year

hello everyone! hope you are well. today i'll be telling you about some things that inspire us as a company, the new places in London we have discovered, and some personal touches we have made in our work that we think you will really enjoy.

as a result of the recent flood in our studio, we haven't been able to work indoors for a while- so apologies for the lack of blog updates! we've been coping by working at home as well as taking this little time away from the studio to have a look around our hometown London, and see what kinds of inspiration we can get in this rare moment of freedom!

Yukari's background is rooted in fashion, and mine in fashion illustration- so we both love to look at our favorite designers, their runway shows as well as the shop fronts of their flagship stores. Yukari has always maintained that fashion and surface design have the same mentality in terms of balance, structure and combination, so it's always interesting to see what kinds of things designers do, and have done, and how we can incorporate that sensibility into our surface design work.

a big favorite of ours is Vivienne Westwood. of course, she is the original punk! we love her clothes and her sense of style. she can be outrageous sometimes, but her clothes always make sense. that's what we enjoy the most about her work, and what we have tried to convey in our own design work- we like things to be unconventional and even quirky sometimes, but we always want our products to work well and be designed in that manner for a reason. her clothes are always tailored and very 'British', but with a little twist of humour. we try to have that sense of tailored, individualistic design in our own work too. recently we visited her shop World's End and we loved the shop's intimate and friendly sense of space. have you ever been? we really recommend you go- it's amazing! we thought our little studio was a small, uneven space- but this is another experience! 

we loved visiting, and the staff are so informative and friendly. just by talking to the lovely staff of such an established company like Vivienne Westwood we felt as though we had made friends and learned some interesting and new things that we didn't know before. we really want to make sure that our own clients can feel at ease talking to us, too- we want them to feel like they are having a good time when they visit us, and be happy with what they may order. 

we also visited Dover Street Market, which is Comme Des Garçons' flagship store in London. they have recently rehauled their interior space in the shop for this year's collection. if you have never been to Dover Street Market, we would really advise you to go and see the new shop, inside and out. they have a wonderful little café on the top floor as well as four more floors of clothing, shoes and accessories. the setting of the shop adds to the experience- not only are the clothes beautifully designed, selected and displayed, but the way of using space and colour in the shop are amazing. it feels very calm and airy, whilst never being daunting or over the top despite the unconventional settings.

we had a really good time there. it was great to browse and see the beautiful clothes as well as take in the new layout of the shop! our favorite space was the distressed, industrial feel of the basement floor. when we went there we talked to a very informative and enthusiastic staff member who explained to us all about the collection that was on display in the basement area- the clothing by the late designer Christopher Nemeth. as we learned about his design and work ethic, we saw the way his clothes were very unconventional yet perfectly tailored to suit the body's movement and natural curves, lines and bends. Nemeth, through his years as a designer, created clothes out of anything- sacking, canvas and string, for example- but they all came together to create beautiful and wearable yet unique clothes. he is well known for his embellishment of hand stitching or drawing onto his clothes. we love this twist! to take something that is special and make it even more wonderful by adding a personal touch is something that we want to do, too.

by working closely with our clients in bespoke projects, we have gotten to know what works best when it comes to bespoke design. often a little tweak to suit the client's needs, or an appreciation of one room being a little darker, lighter, narrower or larger than the others and how that can effect the balance and potential use of a product. we also know that it's important for the product to have a special place in the home. so recently we have started to add personalised touches to our home accessories- for a gift to a friend or family member we can add a small message to the reverse. the response we have gotten from providing this service is very promising and we hope to continue with it! we also really enjoy adding a nice touch to our packaging and gift wrapping. the oversized offcut labels with our wallpaper design add a little bit of masculinity to the gift- and the string makes it easy to carry. they may seem like small details but it always is important to see this kind of thing!

we have recently completed a set of blinds with our Wild West Toile print for our friend and client Clare. these blinds that we made were specifically printed on fabric that allowed light to shine through into the bathroom during use. the pattern of the toile was designed within the size of fabric- it's not a repeat pattern that we used, owing to it being made exactly for her window size and shape.

Clare wanted to see the sunlight as much as possible through the blinds into her white tiled bathroom, as well as having the cowboys and horses stand out clearly on the blind. we think the colour choice looks great, and we are glad to hear that she is happy with it! in this picture you can't really see it, but the blind's background colour has a slight hint of green in it due to her predominantly white bathroom having green accents. it's a small touch but it definitely makes our product suit the home and client. thank you, Clare!

we hope you enjoyed this little look at our inspirations and likes in this blog update. we have some great news for you coming up later this month and in early march,  so stay tuned. you can keep updated with our news via our facebook, twitter and website, and as always you can email me with any comments or questions at kimika@yukarisweeneydesign.com. see you soon!

a belated happy new year!

hello all, we hope you are well. we're very sorry for not posting a blog update until now, but we have had a very tough start to the year! we'll explain more below. but we hope that your years have gotten off well- good luck with keeping any new year's resolutions!

this week we have been talking to our friend and fellow designer in Tokyo, Joe. he created our websites and soon-to-be-released online shop for us, and as well as keeping us updated about what is popular in design in Japan, he is also a product designer himself- so we are very lucky to have him! this week he showed us pictures from his trip to a boro-ichi, a type of Japanese flea market that is held in Setagaya-ku, Tokyo. what makes it so special is that it's only opened up every 15th and 16th of January and December, and draws over 20,000 people- it has also been running since the 1500s, so it's a great event to attend. when he visited, Joe found some really interesting things on display there- we especially love the cast iron kettles, as we have one ourselves!

we would love to see these things ourselves, as looking for upcycled products is a great hobby of ours- be it furniture or things for the home, we really enjoy seeing old objects put to good use again. it's a great way of making life a little bit happier, too- the people in the second photo look like they're enjoying themselves, and you never know what you may find! it would be great to see this kind of market for real some day...we hear the festival they hold as part of the market has really yummy food, too! thanks, Joe, for showing us! you can read a little more about the boro-ichi here.

but now, a little bit of bad news. last week, we found out that our studio space in Greenwich had been flooded during the day. luckily, it wasn't a big flood- a few inches of water- but as our studio space is in a basement, the damage was a lot worse than we were prepared for. we have lost quite a lot of wallpaper, samples and a fabric, which we are very disappointed about! here are some pictures that we took of the damage. crazy isn't it!

we hope to be up and running again soon. sadly, as the flood damaged the floor, we can't work in the studio at present, so we'll be doing all of our work from home! it's a little tough, but we'll get through it. i hope you can be patient with us whilst we get everything sorted.

there is some really good new though, to cheer us up from the week we have just had! our new friend and client Sara from Stockholm, Sweden, has sent us a picture of her daughter's room that she has wallpapered with our Wish You Were Here in London design in the 'Winter Morning' colourway. here are a couple of pictures that she sent us below- day and night!

thank you so much Sara- we hope that you and your daughter can enjoy the design for many years! it looks great. we're very lucky to have such happy clients!

we've added Sara's photos to our facebook album of client's photos- there we have a lot more pictures that we've been sent by our wonderful customers of their beautiful homes with our products in. take a look!

if you have any photos of our products, let us know- we always like to hear from you and, with your permission, will pit them in our facebook album! you can email them to me at kimika@yukarisweeneydesign.com, or leave a comment below, so we can reply to you. of course we also have a twitter, website and facebook for you to follow us on, so there's no excuse not to get in contact!

it's almost christmas!

hello all, i hope you are wrapped up warm!

today we will be thinking of some different gift wrapping ideas, in the form of our furoshiki, and sharing with you our new studio-cum-shop layout that we have made in Greenwich, London. we hope it inspires you to have a different approach to gift giving this year!

you may remember a while ago our 'tying project' that we made when we launched our range of furoshiki at 100% Design in 2010. we want to remind you again of it as the season for exchanging presents and visiting friends and family arrives- instead of carrying food to a house for a party in a paper bag, why not wrap it in a cloth or one of our furoshiki? there are many different ways of tying the furoshiki to hold wine bottles, presents, food gifts and more! you can see all those ways in the various furoshiki blog posts we have done (here, here and here) telling you how you can tie your own.

our charity furoshiki using the 'bin tstutsumi' method- literally 'bottle folding'!

we think that it's nice to give a friend, family member or loved one something a little different- wrapping paper can be beautiful but it's often thrown away after one use, and can't be used for much else. but if you give somebody a gift wrapped nicely in a special furoshiki, the gift becomes more special and what is on the outside can be treasured just as much as the gift within. all of our furoshiki come with a sheet of folding instructions and presented in a small cardboard box, so if you want to give the gift of a furoshiki on its own, that can easily be done too. there is also the added touch of the furoshiki having been made for charity towards japan- you will be doing a good deed as well as brightening up someone's gift!

we have some good news to bring you about our studio space in Greenwich, London, too- now, as well as having a studio space to work in, we also have a small area in front of our workstations that we are using as a showroom for our lampshades, wallpapers and home accessories.

a few shots of the space, which we hope you can come and visit!

we thought it was about time to have some space to show off our products since launching the wallpapers and cushions that make up our studio collection. now that we are being lent the beautiful 1951 Ernest Race Rocker made for the Festival of Britain, a collaboration piece between ourselves and the lovely people at Firefly House, we want to be able to show it off in a nice way. so we worked with the small display space we had to make a little shop where people are able to come in and browse our products or look through our wallpaper book. we have our studio space to work in, behind the shop area, so we can quietly get on with designing and making nice things for you.

and of course we have teddy to keep an eye on us in his custom-built-by-kei doggy house...

if you are interested in visiting us, please do drop by. you can find our address and a map to follow if you want to find us, on our website! please give us a call if you do want to see us, as we aren't always in. sometimes we have to drop things off or take out our little Teddy monster. if you have any comments or questions please feel free to email me at kimika@yukarisweeneydesign.com, or leave one below, so we can reply to you. of course we also have a twitter, website and facebook for you to follow, so please don't hesitate to get in contact with us! until next time!

our kodomiru christmas

hello everyone! hope you are well. today we'll be giving you a quick update on our Kodomiru Christmas project.

it's very nearly december, which means it's time for us to send off the gifts to everyone at in Fukushima. Ms Ishimaru, of the kodomiru charity, told us about a school and their wish when we were talking about our role in helping Kodomiru at Christmas time.

in the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011, the coastal and some inland towns in Fukushima were completely destroyed, with very little or no remaining buildings left intact. we are helping one of the schools demolished in the flood. they are a pre-school and nursery, caring for children ages 0 to 6. their school was left in ruins by the earthquake, but Ms Ishimaru told us that their christmas tree, which was carefully put away in storage upstairs in the building, was one of the few things that they could retrieve from the wreckage. what a touching story. but of course, all of the decorations were lost. so they needed some help, and that is where kodomiru and yukari sweeney design came in!

here are some photos of what was left of the school. i think you will agree it is a worthy cause to help out with.

we asked our friends and colleagues to help us with getting together some decorations that we could send to Ms Ishimaru for her to give to the school, which has relocated to another school to look after the children. you can read more about that, and the kodomiru charity, in this blog entry posted earlier last month. we were so very pleased and surprised that we got a good response! we have to say a big thank you to the kind messages of support we recieved, as well as the decorations that were sent. 

みんな　ありがとう　ごさいます！

thank you so much, everyone!

below are some of the gifted decorations that we were sent. we think they will have a charmingly decorated tree this year! we really do appreciate it, everyone. we hope you will continue to keep supporting us so greatly with our charity work in the future.

lorna at garrendenny lane interiors sent us a big box of elegant decorations and a signed card. thank you lorna!

this is a box of cute baubles from everyone at the illustration studio i work at. we also signed a card! thanks guys!

 

the brilliant people at the church of london agency sent us this cool decoration and a message to the children. thank you!

and these are just a few of the decorations and gifts we are sending the school, on behalf of yukari sweeney design. we hope they like them!

as ever, please do leave any comments or messages below, or email me at kimika@yukarisweeneydesign.com - we love to hear your thoughts! we also have a facebook, twitter and website for you to visit, all of which we update frequently with pictures and notices of what we are getting up to. we hope you enjoyed reading the blog!

keeping warm through winter

hello all! it's suddenly turned very chilly, hasn't it. now when we take teddy out we have to wear warm clothes...teddy loves the autumn leaves in greenwich park, though!

today i'll be telling you a little more about the latest project that More Trees/ LIFE311 charity are implimenting to keep the residents of the wooden prefabricated houses warm during the cold winter months. you will remember my blog update telling you about the charity project earlier this year- we are supporting this very worthwhile cause by donating 100% profit from our 'wish we were there' furoshiki and tote bags.

in japan, winters can get extremely cold, and for those left without permanent housing after the earthquake and tsunami earlier this year will be struggling to keep warm inside. though the wooden structures are insulated to an extent, there is no central heating installed, so for the colder months something else must be done in order to maintain a comfortable living environment. this is where the concept of the 'pellet stove' comes in.

we would love to experience and enjoy the warmth of a pellet stove!

pellet heaters are an environmentally friendly, renewable source of energy and heat. they are free standing, natural material burning stoves powered by 'pellets', a 100% recycled product made from manufacturing by-products that would otherwise end up in landfill. these 'pellets' can also be made from wood chips, bark, waste paper and other organic materials. another advantage to the pellet heaters is that they leave minimal mark on pollution levels- the burners don't produce much ash, and only contains 5% moisture- wood has up to 50%- ensuring that smoke pollution is kept low. for a project that relies on sustainable resources, this small detail is very important.

these are the 'pellets'. they look a little like bran cereal, don't they...! 

we like this new project because it really emphasises the importance of sustainable energy and of warmth in not just in the body, but in the spirit too. one new owner of a stove, living in the housing project, said 'It's kind of nostalgic, isn't it?' - another resident said 'With the warmth of this stove, we can warm our hearts throughout the cold winter'.

another comforting factor about the stoves is the cost to keep them running through the colder months: for 10kg of pellets, it costs 399¥ - that's approximately £3.20 or $5.10. such a small price for a large bag of pellets is great news, and heartening to the residents of the houses. 'If you compare [the price] to typical winter heating bills, it is a lot cheaper, which puts us at real ease', said one young resident.

as you can see here, the pellet stove produces enough external warmth to keep water warm, reducing the cost used for electric warmers.

the reason for such low costs of manufacturer is the local production for local consumption ethos that LIFE311 maintain. by using a local stove maker in the town to make the stoves and provide the pellets to the houses' residents, they can cut down on the costs used for importing from elsewhere in Japan. not only that, but the installation is performed by the manufacturer and his team from the factory- this way labourer fees are kept to a minimum, but the factory is still able to promote its craftsmanship whilst keeping costs down, as well as keeping locals employed. below are some photos of the installation in progress:

the installation is practical, and because the stoves are a special compact and slimline version, they fit cosily into the home without too much distraction.

LIFE311 say about the project: 'The pellet stove has been a popular heater in the past few years; [the] heaters convert wood base biomass into high quality fuels...there is also the advantage of being able to promote a new energy industry and recruitment opportunities' (source: LIFE311 website). we really are enthusiastic about this project and support it wholeheartedly. there is a video of the pellet stoves arriving in the community by NHK Japan, which you can watch here:

we are glad to think that there is the opportunity for warmth and security during the winter months for those in all of the houses built by this great charity project. we hope you can continue to support them by donating even a small amount or by our 'wish we were there' products.

please also visit the LIFE311 facebook page and twitter- all photos seen here are courtesy of them, and we hope you 'like' their page and follow them too. if you are interested in a pellet burner of your own, this website has some great information that can help you do so.

and please do remember, folks, that we are in the process of sending off as many christmas ornaments as possible to children and families in Fukushima. we need all the help we can possibly get! click here to find out more.

as ever, you can contact me with any questions or comments at kimika@yukarisweeneydesign.com - i can help you with any questions or further informations you may need, as well as translations of the video or anything on LIFE311's facebook page that you want to find out more about. if you haven't already, be sure to visit our facebook, twitter and website for constant updates and information about our upcoming projects and products. until next time:

がんばれ，日本〜！[you can do it, Japan~!]

help us make a christmas for everybody

hi everyone! hope you are well. we know it's a little early, but we want to bring the thought of christmas to you for a little while.

recently yukari has been in contact with the lovely Ms Ishimaru, founder of the kodomiru charity based in Nagoya, Japan. from Nagoya, she organizes volunteer work in the Tohoku region of Japan, in areas where the earthquake and tsunami hit the worst. kodomiru is a charity focussing on the well being of childrens' futures. it is important to remember that schools and communities were destroyed in the earthquake, not just homes, and that for many young people their futures will be very uncertain. 

we met kodomiru's Ms Ishimaru through a mutual friend in Yukari's home town of Nagoya, after they did some volunteer work for her charity. we were introduced and since then we have been discussing with her the best way to go about helping those in Japan who have lost everything begin to rebuild and feel even a little bit 'normal' again. 

kodomiru began life as a charity formed in order to gather resources for the schools in the worse effected areas of Tohoku. by asking individuals for their support by donating unused picture books, she was able to supply vital educative supplies for nursery schools and daycare centres to use with their children. it was a popular drive, and though donations was plentiful, the reality of the situation was that the small size of these nurseries and day cares restricted the amount of space that could be used to house books and resources. 

four  (of many) filled bookshelves! well done, kodomiru!

ever resourceful, Ms Ishimaru then began to approach companies and individuals for donation in order to buy and send bookshelves to the various nurseries, daycares, and prefabricated housing areas in Tohoku. of course having books is wonderful, but it can be problematic when you have nowhere to store them! so it seemed natural to send these storage cabinets to them. now, Ms Ishimaru and her colleagues in kodomiru are concentrating on supporting and helping those involved in the nurseries themselves, including the staff, teachers and carers that work for the wellbeing of those struck by the disaster.

Ms Ishimaru has been a parent for 10 years, so she knows how important it is to have the right kind of environment for your children when they are developing. during her work recently, she has visited the temporary housing communities in Fukushima and was reminded of the time of year- winter was approaching, as were the traditional holidays of christmas and new years. of course, it is hard to think about how somebody in that situation can enjoy a christmas in a place so different from normal.

a 'christmas cake', a tradition in Japanese households for the family to eat. isn't it cute?

in her own words, Ms Ishimaru wanted to become santa for those children! her plan was to have a christmas tree in the community, and have lots of decorations on it for everyone to enjoy. in Japan, christmas is celebrated as more of a commercial, as opposed to religious, festival. new years in japan is very important and a long standing tradition is to spend this time with your relatives and humbly think about the year past, and the year ahead. so many families will come together in Japan at new year, and special efforts are made to do so. but for children, christmas is a fun time- it's exciting to eat a christmas cake, get a nice gift and decorate a tree!

this is where we come in: kodomiru and Ms Ishimaru need our help to decorate trees! a small ornament for a tree can make a big impact in a child's christmas night. they can become little gifts to the children and adults who have lost so much this past year. to us, christmas is an important time because we get to spend time with our loved ones and exchange gifts- so what better way to think about others, and give a small piece of happiness to people in Japan who have had such a tough year.

let's decorate a tree and make christmas a fun time for children in Japan with kodomiru.

it doesn't have to be expensive, it just needs to show your empathy for those left with so little at christmas. often people don't need expensive gifts or a lot of food- it is sometimes enough just to know that you are being thought about at a special, beautiful time of the year. so please help us!
the best kind of ornaments to send are light, non-fragile and something child friendly. it doesn't have to be expensive or hand made, it just needs to be something that a child or adult can hold and place on a tree, together, at christmas. you can send your ornament (the sooner the better!) to us at:

Yukari Sweeney Design

46 Royal Hill

Greenwich

London SE10 8RT

United Kingdom

we just know that all the people living in temporary housing communities in Fukushima will be so delighted to recieve something from wherever you are. maybe you can include a message of support too! anything is going to be very appreciated. we'll keep you updated on this as much as we can in the run up to christmas. we really hope it will be a success!

for any comments on the post or questions about mailing us your ornament, please email me at kimika@yukarisweeneydesign.com. for more updates and pictures, as well as news on the project, please visit our twitter, facebook and website. we'd love for you to share this blog post with everyone you know- the more, the merrier! thank you for taking part, if you choose to do so. your contribution will make such a difference!