+ VOIX: Coeur Noir
“A printer’s blood is black as ink” claims Konstantin with a devilish grin. I’m instantly captured by the poetry laced through macabre words. Meet Konstantin Grab and Alex Kasavin – the pitch black attired duo of letterpress and specialty printery COEUR NOIR and secret romantics at heart. A walk through their workshop is a step...
+ VOIX: Workhorse Printmakers
Jason at Reserve Supply Company suggested I pop up the road to investigate his friends at WORKHORSE PRINTMAKERS. Taking his good natured advice, I make the trek on sidewalks that have rarely seen soles, and surprise!, John and Jennifer turn out to be ex-New Yorkers. And when ex-New Yorkers meet, they contagiously reminisce about their...
+ VOIX: Jason Bruen
Jason Bruen – owner of Reserve Supply Company – is busy laying out new stock when I walk through the door. Shaking hands, I leave him to sort things out while I make an inspection of the other-worldly interior. Other-wordly that is, to Houston. Upon return, I make a remark about the unique character of...
+ VOIX: Evin O’Riordain
“Excuse me, I’m looking for Dockley Road Industrial Estate, Arch 11?” It’s the exhausted drooping eyes and permanent frowns set into the chiselled haggard faces of manual labourers that silently size me up. They pause to drag on their smokes, and in unison raise their fingers in theatrically slow motion to point my way in...
+ VOIX: VW+BS
I’m sitting in front of a terrain of smoothly lathed mushroom-resembling wooden abstractions. I can imagine Super Mario jumping to and fro collecting golden coins. The “mushrooms” are attached via magnet to an equally smooth wooden tray masking a plate of steel beneath. On contact, magnet meets wooden surface and the sound of the resulting...
+ VOIX: Stoëmp
Sharing the wood floored atelier above Avenue Louise 134 with PieceOfChic featured in our last VOIX article, is yet another duo team running the graphic design studio, Stoëmp. Gaetano and Wojciech come across as an incredible force and their love for living life is quite apparent through the INTERVIEW BELOW. Why even their studio name...
+ VOIX: PIECEOFCHIC
This was news to me: an entire career path dedicated to producing patterns. Those to be sold to fashion houses that either catalogue them as inspirational sources, or incorporate them straight into their seasonal collections. I was under the misconception that patterns simply appeared on cloth; it was never a design issue, a designed idea...
+ VOIX: Ralf Rüller
Remember Folgers? I resist an urge to gag. I point to those commercials where the dead are resurrected (noted: by the suspicious whisps of invading steam) and zombie out of bed to the tiled kitchen island to sip their American sized mugs of brackish liquid. Well I weep to add, I’ve never had those endearing...
+ VOIX: Hien Le
If you allow the massive graffitied face by the front entrance to put you off from buzzing the bell at Eisenbahnstr. 11, you’re missing out immensely. Buried within – by which I mean you have to shoulder past several doors, a couple of courtyards, one holding a quaint two-story house, and then descend into a...
+ VOIX: Issever Bahri
A grey mist swallows up Berlin but in a Cuvrystrasse apartment-turned-design studio at no.21, a wood stove sends comfort waves from the far corner, keeping the pace flowing for the eponymous duo of ISSEVER BAHRI: Derya and Cimen. Their welcome is as warm as the massive wool jumpers being respectively worn and in protest of...
+ VOIX: The Fundamental Group
Stephen pounds down the stairs from the design studio into the kitchen, scrambling to catch his flight with half hour to go. We assume it’s a mad dash to meet a client. In contrast, Gunnar languidly disappears for milk to make us some coffee. THE morning necessity taken care of, GabrielDesigns is then introduced to...
+ VOIX: Michael Sontag
His face pops up all over Berlin and the fashion mags have termed him as a rising star. But his fame isn’t due to Berlin languor. Expecting a weekend rendezvous exception, GabrielDesigns met up with fashion designer Michael Sontag on a sunny Saturday morning to find him in a t-shirt busily working away in his...
