Although the north west is home to team bwd, Bev’s career began in the capital city, so London still remains close to our hearts. One of our favourite things to do in London occurs each year, and comes in the form of London Design Festival.

The festival features hundreds of events and design shows, exhibiting works of all shapes and sizes from a range of new and long established designers.

Unfortunately for team bwd, we didn’t have enough time to visit every show, but here we will share with you our favourite things from the shows we did get a chance to visit.

Held in Earl’s Court, 100% Design call themselves “the largest and most prestigious single-site design event in the UK”. The show is divided into four key areas – 100%Interiors, 100%Office, 100%Kitchen & Bathrooms and 100%Eco Design & Build.

This was a design company we enjoyed so much we forgot to ask for the name! The company were showing lampshades formed in plywood to emmulate natural forms.  The young designer uses his love of nature and awareness of being eco-friendly to re-cycle the felt off-cuts from his felt lampshades to make ‘leaf-shaped’ keyrings.  He said the keyrings were selling faster than the shades!

We love this Butterfly lamp by Guo Shengrong, made out of aluminium alloy, and think it would be a fantastic piece for busy designers on accompanying desks.

A trend we spotted throughout the design show was the use of magnets, such as the Magic Wall. Our friends at Feather and Jones have already been using magnets in an incredible way for the their changeable wallpaper, and many of the companies at 100% Design have been getting on board, with one designer displaying magnetic shelves which can take a load of up to 10Kilos!

A great design company that caught our eye is Joule Flow Designs, a company that creates customised resin sinks. The idea behind them is fantastic, and we can think of so many ways in which we could use them in our creative interpretations. We think they would sit fantastically in cafes/restaurants/bars and could even feature logos or adverts for own or featured brands as an extra, interesting promotion technique!

Designjunction was the second show that team bwd visited, which was made all the more interesting by the choice of venue – the old 1960s Royal Mail sorting office.

We didnt get to spend as much time as we would have liked at Designjunction, but one of our favourite design pieces was definitely these pendant light fittings, which were created using material usually found in the car industry.

Over at the Tent design show, which has been one of our favourite design shows for a while, bwd came across the fantastic Swallow X Clock by Haoshi Design. Each number is represented by an individual swallow bird in different stages of flight, flapping its wings. The individual swallows are attached to the wall separately, but thankfully the designer has included a fantastic guide to help install the clock.

Design shows are a fantastic way for designers to display their works that combine art and interior design, and these wardrobes, by two young designers who go by the name Freshwest Design, are another of our favourite examples.

Visiting London Design Festival is one of our favourite things to do, and, as always, this year was an incredibly inspiring experience. Our legs may be tired, but our brains are fresh with new ideas! Click here to visit our Facebook and see the many more photos we took!

Did you visit the London Design Festival! let us know which shows you visited and what you thought!