Our pendant hits the news in Taiwan thanks the good support from our friends at Fun Fun Town in Taipei, voila!

30 March 2012

At Tuesday the 8th of February the Chinese Girls and Favourite Things check in for a one week stay at Stockholm’s most elegant and friendly hotel: Lydmar. With the good company of beautifully deigned objects by seven other designers at the “treat me like an object” exhibition we are proud to spend the Stockholm design week in good company.

The whole set up is yet another initiative by our dear friends att Meet My Project. The grand opening is at 8.30pm on tuesday , Södra Blasieholmshamnen 2 . The venue goes on throughout the Stockholm design week, but we would high recommend to make a visit on Tuesday evening to set off the design week the best bar and the most renown hotel in the city.

Varmt välkomna!

31 January 2012

We are happy to announce that the pleasant people at ENO Studio in Paris are pushing our lamps across

the European continent. Their distribution network is far superior to ours and many more people will get a chance to put their favorite things in a hanging vitrine with perfect illumination.

We salute the deal and hope for a great future together with Mathieu and his friends.

If you want to know more, visit their website at

http://www.enostudio.net/

We will still be handling Scandinavia and the rest of the world
ourselves – for now.

13 October 2011

A long summer of IT-realated idleness is now over. Our hard work of overseeing and coordinating manufacturing has resulted in a new batch being ready at the factory. A lot of lamps (of which a large percentage is going to France) are inspected and cleared, ready for end customers.

Europeans will have to wait for ocean shipping – but we have good supply of white and decent of black.

Pacifics can start ordering yellow, black and white now. We look forward to the autumn.

6 September 2011

Our favourite holiday is at the door. We will enjoy the long and bright summer nights together with the ever recurring variations of sill (raw herring) we have for almost any holiday up here. Even though we might not be pioneers in the culinary arts, we do know how to dance around the maypole. Wish you were here to celebrate with us! And for those of you who can’t, we will be back in office on monday.

Glad Midsommar

Chen Karlsson team

23 June 2011

Our pendant lamp “Favourite Things” has recieved the 2011 European Consumers Award. We are glad to see that our dear lamp is also very dear to so many of you. And as designers we can not be proud enough to note that it was the first product ever to recieve a 10 out of 10 score in the design category. These are the scores  - and the very kind words – from the jury. Voila!

Design : 10.0 (first time ever!)
Innovation : 9.8
Ease of use : 9.9

“Designers need to devote as much thinking to lamps as they do to chairs. All new products often adopt old codes and structures or run the risk that their innovation proves utterly non-functional. This object has never been seen before, is easy to install and showcases your very own favourite treasures. Possibly one of the most innovative and interesting creations of 2011″.

“Must be seen to get a sense of the impact. In fact you see the object displayed under many different angles. You rediscover day to day objects and can easily change your decor regularly”.

“Good ideas are where you immediately think « that should already have been created ». The « Favourite Things » should have been invented a long time ago and is therefore a superb idea. This product is not only beautiful and amusing, it brings theatre in the home where you can direct your own lighting and expand the work of the designer”.

About the European Consumers Award

European Consumers Choice is an organisation created to reward European companies who have taken the challenge to produce innovative, intelligent designs and provide added value and ease of use of their products.

Go check it out at and se the other short listed designs at: http://www.europeanconsumerschoice.org/

17 June 2011

6 May 2011

We are very glad to announce a collaboration with Swedish home interior company Indiska, a company with a 110 year (!) track record of bringing Indian design and crafts to the homes in Sweden.

Chen Karlsson Diningware for Indiska

Together with Indiska we have shaped the mini collection ”Karneval” – a set of dining-ware with a decisive footprint in Indian ornament crafts.

Inspiration

The collaboration with Indiska is the first opportunity for Chen Karlsson to work with Indian crafts, art and culture. The collection captures the modern and traditional India – with design inspiration from 18th century Rajastan paintings  to Kangha embroidery – and the production techniques mastered by skilled craftsmen in Indiskas factories today .

a cow surprise a sun bather on the beach

For the Karneval collection we wanted to capture the swarming crowds, the contrasts and the link between man and animal. Only in India can a cow surprise a sun bather on the beach with a morning kiss on the neck – and get away with it!

color scheme for Indiska

Beyond the linkage to Asia, Indiska is also a role model to Chen Karlsson when it comes to integrating business with ethics. More than strict and well worked out codes of conduct, Indiska partners with the India Peace trust to build genuine development. Over the years Indiska have supported schools, vocational schools, women’s groups and student hostels for girls. We are glad to watch and learn how to improve our own business and social model.

The collection consists of four pieces which all apply the colorful pattern designed by Chen Karlsson. The pattern displays green and pink flowers, elephants, lions and people living together.

For price, availability and high resolution press picture: please see Indiska website: www.indiska.com

18 March 2011

Finally! Our pendant lamp Favourite Things has reached our retailers. It is now available in he following stores throughout Europe:

• DROOG DESIGN STORE Staalstraat 7b AMSTERDAM t+31 (0)20523 5059
• INTERNI- M Museumstraat 35 ANTWERPEN t+32 (0)32575755
• DESIGN CORPORATE EXITS GALLERY Via varese 14 MILANO t+39 (0)236550249
• FLEUX 39 Rue sainte croix de la bretonnerie PARIS t+33 (0)142777385
• R.O.O.M. Pub – Hötorget, plan 3 STOCKHOLM t+46 (0)86925000
• DESIGNBUTIKEN I VARBERG Kyrkogatan 1 VARBERG t+46 (0)340644620
• SLOW FASHION HOUSE www.slowfashionhouse.com ON-LINE

A complete list list of all retailers for all our products is available at: www.chenkarlsson.com/shop/

3 Comments18 February 2011

As Sweden is entering the fall season we are glad to go south and set up a temporary office in Taichung, Taiwan. Between the green hills of the Taiwanese mountains we have close access to stunning nature, high tempo city life, great food and numerous of skilled industries and craftsmen to help us develop future releases – and also – to finally get our Favourite Things in serial production. If we do thw work we have set us to we can all expect the Favourite Things lamp to hit the shelves just before christmas.

Green dressed mountains outside Taichung

Taichung City

Haka

Johan and Hung-Ming outside the temporary Taichung Studio

1 October 2010

clockwise; Hung-Ming, Tina, Chen-Yen and Johan

A  Scandinavian - Asian design studio producing it´s own homeware collection. What’s in it? Blond birch wood and jade dragons? As for our very first blog post we’d like to share our experience of east vs west, and why we believe these two opposites are not at all as opposite as we first may think.

Johan and Hung-Ming sketching

It’s easy to imagine a vast difference in climate and culture between Taipei and Stockholm. But  as we first came together in 2007 at Konstfack University we found our lifestyles and life situations closely intersected, both beeing recently married couples, waiting our first children and sharing the same visions and concerns of family life and professional future.

Chen Karlsson 2008

The east-west gap just didn’t appear in our everyday situations – but as our collaboration evolved we started to spot differences in how we interpret the very same situations. Usually it turns clear at drawing table. Chen-Yen and Hung-Ming take in lots of inspiration from the Nordic functionalism and genious business model and flat-pack design of Ikea, where as Tina and Johan direct the interest to the far east like Chinese drawings, Sung Porcelain and tea rituals. We all seem to experience that the grass is greener on the other side – and ironically the situation often turns out Chen-Yen and Hung-Ming are arguing for simplicity and honesty in materials – when Tina and Johan is promoting figurative ornaments and narratives.

Hung-Ming in workshop

Seeing the very same things but seeing them with different eyes we believe is our very greatest asset – and the origin for most of our products. At our first show  ”Two famillies and a dog” at Stockholm furniture fair we display the Chen family´s flatpacked “Birdlight” (which is now produced by Hommin)  together with Karlssons 100-boys paraphrase “Chinese Girls”. The dog then? Thats our one and only; Rosa, Lagotto Romagnolo, exccellent moodlifter and coach in office and home.

Rosa

As our lifes have evolved from student to families a new inspiration have entered our lives and practice – our children.  The recent Favourite Things lamp came up at a family visit to the museum where it in fact it was our children who saw the potential of the dramatically arranged animals in the glass bins.

The table cloth “dinner stories” is designed as a fairytale on the meter – with a vast landscape of asian and scandinavian history and present mixed together. In platevase we want to display two accuring  things in swedish “fika” tradition. One is serving “seven kinds of cookies” when having coofee, and the other to pick wildflowers from outside.

Meeting while kids are sleeping

How about cultural differences then?

Tell us all about them! We have regular updates with our cultural standpoints all the time. It´s  really necessary to talk about them. And eventually when all steam has left the building, laugh about it. Often it´s obvious that we have totally different references. Quite frankly its refreshing to be forced into rethink that many times a day as we do when seeking solutions or sketching  new ideas.

Tina at drawing table

Finally, a few words on working together as a family. Is it a good thing to do?

Yes! Despite intensive days together – living and sleeping Chen Karlsson and spending Sundays discussing budgets or quality control, the family way of working gives us the flexibility and opportunity to pursue what we really want to do with the people we really want to be with.

Meeting outside

And as we all have small children in kindergarden there are no problems in understanding that some of us might need to take a few days home with sick children – or leave the office at four to pick them up.

Chen-Yen setting colours

In many ways the familly way of working connect us with the former farmer society where the farmer family lived and worked together. We’ve shifted the showel for the pen – but in many other ways life is very similar, wich we believe is a really nice thing.

Chen Karlsson holiday

17 June 2010

It’s been quite a wait – now we are really glad to be here! At chenkarlsson.com we will bring across news and updates as well as showcasing our collection. At the blog section we will get more personal and share ideas and impressions of people we meet, places we go to and things we like, on a weekly basis. There is also a press section and a catalogue of retailers so you know where to find us. As the website runs just like a blog it easy for you to comment what we do, and if you like it, share it with your friends on Facebook and other social networks. If there is something you are looking for but can´t find – let us know. We are looking forward to seeing you around!

5 Comments21 May 2010