Each year Humanscale organise a charity auction title face in the wild. The aim is to raise money for the World Wildlife Fund . A select group of artists and designers are asked to contribute a pieces of work which represents a non domesticated animal. This is the third year we have taken part and we wanted to follow up on the success of previous years where our pieces have raised the highest bids.

Our design is titled "flamingos, reflect'. It did not raise the highest bid this year, but from over 60 entries it was selected by the judges to be one of three winning designs.

We want to say a big thank you to London Metropolitan University who donated the time on their rapid prototyping machine to build the flamingos and also Andrew Hunt from Working Idea for making the base for the mirror.

After many months of design and development, we are pleased to launch our new dishrack design - high&dry.

Our aim was to create something extremely functional yet sculptural, and we were inspired by architectural models of buildings. We noticed that photos of high-end modern kitchens, don’t include any dish-racks out on display. We assumed this meant there were none that complimented the kitchens or warranted being on show, and hoped to change this situation with high&dry.

High&dry miraculously folds out from a flat and neat storage solution to create a unique and intriguing form. Many dish-racks fail to solve the problems of supporting wine glasses. The subtle wave of spikes creates a stunning visual wall, but more importantly a functional area to hold even your largest or most delicate champagne flutes. The design also includes an optional drainage tray which has an ingenious flip up spout so that you can chose to drain or not, depending on your kitchen set up. It is made from stainless steel and polypropylene and is packaged in thin unbleached cardboard box, which means everything can be recycled. The thin flat pack form also means that we can transport with less packaging, which reduces the carbon footprint.

We have a limited number arriving towards the end of October. If you are keen to get one this year, then we advise you email us as soon as possible to register your details. Please register by emailing design@black-blum.com

We are proud to announce that our Spudski potato masher was highly commended in the prestigious Gift of the Year Awards.

Our Spudski potato masher and flower loop vase have both been shortlisted for the prestigious Gift of the Year awards. The winning design will be announced on the 22nd June.

At recent trade fairs we previewed our new flower loop design. It sits in the same range as our loop candelabra and fruit loop designs. It received a fantastic reaction and we hope to have stock in a few months time. The design will be sold with the artificial (but very realistic) Lilly shown in the image.

If you are interested in the design, then please don't hesitate to email us at design@black-blum.com and we will contact you as soon as it comes into stock.

We are pleased to announce the launch of please & thank you. This is an exciting new retail venture which combines an online store with a monthly magazine. We have been interviewed for the latest magazine and you can read the article at
www.pleaseandthankyou.co.uk/mag/0903mar/01blackandblum1

We were very excited to win Hidden Art's Most Inspiring Member Award for 2008.

www.hiddenartlondon.co.uk/events/hidden-art-awards

The award was presented by Anthony Dickens  (last years winner) at the ceremony which was held at Richmix in Shoreditch. We were also pleased to be shortlisted for the Best Interior product.

We would like to say a big thank you to Hidden Art for this prestigious award and to thank them for all the great work that they do.

We are proud to have been asked to join the judging panel for the Restaurant and Bar Design Awards. This is the UK's first and only restaurant and bar awards dedicated exclusively to project and product design.

 

Further details about the awards can be found at

 

www.restaurantandbardesignawards.com/

With the success of our paper Penguin sculpture last year, we were again asked to contribute a new piece to this years WWF faces in the wild auction.

 

Our design reflect sold for $35,000! Humanscale will match that and the proceeds of $70,000 will be donated to the World Wildlife Fund, the leader in international efforts to protect endangered species and their habitats.

 

Our polar bear design was made from profiles of glass that were bonded together. The solid form was then placed on a frosted glass surface that was on top of a blue mirror.

We are pleased to launch our new Salad Plant salad servers (they will be coming into stock in March)

 

These leafy salad servers stand upright in their own pot and will give life to any table setting. The pot can also be used for mixing (and serving) your salad dressing. They are also the ultimate salad decoration when stuck into the salad upright!

 

The servers and pot are made from melamine.