Category: designer desire

Designer Desire: Wells Coates

Montage of Wells Coates architecture and furniture designs

Born in Tokyo, Wells Coates (1895-1958) was a British modernist architect and designer of Canadian parentage. Greatly inspired by the likes of Le Corbusier, he designed a number of public and private commercial and residential buildings.

My first proper introduction to Wells Coates was when I was at the University of Brighton. I did a summer school course in photography where I focussed on capturing images of Embassy Court (seen at the top of our montage above) – my favourite building in the city – located on the seafront in Hove. It was the mid-1990s at the time, and the building (erected in 1935) was in a very sorry state; the 11-storey façade was rusty, crumbling and strewn with ugly satellite dishes – but its beauty still shone through. Today it’s a des-res and one of the 72 flats would set you back a cool half a million pounds and more!

In 1934, he designed the Isokon / Lawn Road Flats, Hampstead for Molly and Jack Pritchard. The couple and their family lived at the address, with some of the other 32 flats being occupied by design greats of the time; Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and László Maholy-Nagy.

The following year – with David Bartholomew Pleydell-Bouverie – Wells Coates designed the Sunspan Houses. Fifteen of them were built; including one in Portsmouth, another in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, three on Woodlands Avenue in New Maldon, Essex, Chadwell St Mary, Essex and Esher in Surrey.

In 1939, he designed 10 Palace Gate, a block of luxury flats in London’s Kensington for construction company, Randall Bell. Flats currently command rents of over £1,000 per week. A space in the building’s underground car park is currently for sale for the princely sum of £65,000.

He designed the Telecinema – one of the 1951 Festival of Britain buildings. Apparently it was:

…the first theatre in the world in which big screen television, 3-dimensional pictures and tereophonic (sic) sound took its place on par with the cinema… spectators wearing (the) special stereoscopic spectacles…

The woven upholstery fabric for the Telekinema’s seating was designed by Lucienne Day in 1951.⁠⁠

In addition to buildings, he designed office furniture for Kingfisher Limited of West Bromwich, some examples are included in our montage above. He also created 9 models of radio for Ekco including the round Bakelite AD65 (1934), AD75 (1940), A22 (1945) and rectangular A33 RadioTime (1946).

There are a number of books that investigate the man and his works. His daughter, Laura Cohn, authored The Door to a Secret Room: A Portrait of Wells Coates. There’s a 1970s monograph written by Sherban Cantacuzino and a more recent one by Elizabeth Darling.

Portrait of Wells Coatescredit

Additional image credits:
Artnet | V&A

Designer Desire: Michael Meister

Montage of Michael Meister illustrations

Michael Meister is a Swiss illustrator. In the early 1980s, he studied graphic design in Bern, initially working freelance for museums, advertising agencies, newspapers and magazines.

He has lived and worked throughout Europe being employed by companies such as Daimler-Chrysler, then over to New York where he remained for a few years. Currently, he lives with his family near Basel in Switzerland.

Michael has created illustrations for clients internationally; these include the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Nestlé and Deutsche Bahn.

A selection of his work is available on his website.

Portrait of Michael Meister

All images: © Michael Meister

Designer Desire: Oskar with a K

Oskar with a K montage of graffiti artworks

I’ve just realised that it’s not very often that we’ve featured a graffiti artist in our Designer Desire series. As luck would have it, I’m very familiar with – if not the work itself, then – some of the locations of work by Oskar with a K.

In a past life, I worked in a few different arts organisations in Manchester city centre, one of which was directly opposite the Ritz where his Ooh Child work is situated. At a later date, I worked in the city’s Northern Quarter, and I walked past the former public toilet where his Hello work now lives on a twice-daily basis.

Here’s what Oskar with a K says about himself:

I would describe my work as graphic design unhindered by scale. I love working in public space, engaging fully with the environment I’m in and contributing to a world in which art and design is implicit to our cityscapes.

 

 
 
 
 
 
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Designer Desire: Sarah Westwood

Montage of Sara Westwood Sprocket illustrations

A couple of weeks ago, I was searching Etsy for a birthday bandana for Barley; he turned one-year-old on the 12th of August. I didn’t actually come across a bandana that I wanted – I eventually got one from Pets at Home. What I did do, though, was find the work of Sarah Westwood.

Sarah is a graphic designer who makes fantastic prints, notebooks, greeting cards, coasters & place mats, tea towels, badges and more. Most of her illustrations features her Weimaraner, Sprocket. Sprocket is often accompanied by a few of his mates;  Scoot the little bird, Sid the squirrel and Parsnip the hedgehog.

We’ll let Sarah herself tell you a little bit about herself:

My business as artist and illustrator started way back in 2005 and my work was completely different… My digital art didn’t start until I decided to do the Instagram hashtag theme #onehundreddays and I decided to do #onehundreddaysofsprocket and this changed the whole course of my work, a long with my inspiration. Sprocket was my dog and he is my muse. I love drawing his adventures. Sadly he’s no longer with us but we had him for 12 amazing years. My studio is based in Great Fryup Dale on the North York Moors. I use an iPad Pro to hand draw all of his adventures, if you love dogs then you should hopefully like my work. Sarah Westwood

I think I’m going to go and stock up on some of her Christmas and birthday cards. I know it’s Sprocket on the front, but I can pretend that it’s Barley!

Self portrait of Sara Westwood and Sprocket the Weimaraner

All illustrations: © Sarah Westwood