The design world has taken over the streets of London this past week with the London Design Festival. You can find countless exhibitions around the capital as well as some installations such as this year's festival centrepiece The Tournament, a giant chessboard designed by Spaniard Jaime Hayón in the middle of Trafalgar Square. Unfortunately, the installation was only there for a few days and has now been removed.
Luckily, most of the exhibitions won't finish for some time. The V&A Museum is housing quite a few at the moment, one of which I went to at the beginning of the week, Telling Tales. The exhibition is comprised of pieces mostly by Dutch designers and are all inspired by fairy tales. Whilst much of it would be considered design art, designers such as Tord Boontje and Jurgen Bay comment on how they wish for their pieces to have functionality as well; part of the appeal of these objects is that they reflect the unfamiliar and mysterious atmosphere of the fairy tale world. There's also a very interesting section inspired by Heaven and Hell which includes a marble seat and lamp that is simply stunning.
The exhibition runs until 18th October and is free.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/microsites/telling-tales/
