Unlike many retro printed cushions, the Abbey Cushion from Habitat is a simple enough design to work in most homes.
It features a strong graphical pattern in black and white. It measures 60cm by 60cm and is supplied with a feather-filled pad. The Abbey Cushion was previously priced £35, but is now on sale for a reduced price of £28.
Buy it online from the Habitat website.
This set of Espresso Cups is another product that makes use of London Transport’s vast back catalogue of poster designs.
Each cup is decorated with a design taken from posters created by Arthur Watts for the Underground Group in the 1920s. The set consists of four cups and saucers, sold in a presentation box.
The set costs £32.99 and can be bought online from the London Transport Museum shop.
As part of their Rediscovers range, Heal’s has a series of prints based on Lucienne Day’s designs from the 50s and 60s.
Pictured here is the reinterpretation of the Calyx design, which Day created for Heal’s in 1951 and was the first design that brought her fame. Other prints include Small Hours (1952), Graphica (1953) Springboard (1954), and the Apex print from 1967, which is geometric pattern that typifies Day’s work from the mid to late Sixties.
The prints are sold unframed for £12 each from Heal’s.
Pedlars currently has a stock of Distressed Tripod Lamps which have been assembled from a mixture of reclaimed and new parts, meaning each one is unique.
The lamps are available in a choice of sizes. Large stands at 102cm when fully extended with a lamp head measuring 33cm by 24cm, while the Medium size is 51cm high with the same size lamp head. Both of these are available in a rusted metal finish. The Small size reaches 41cm high with a lamp head 15cm deep. This size is available with a red reflector as well as the rusted metal option. The lamps are priced £250,£375 and £425 according to size.
Visit Pedlars to buy.
Back in the days before computers, designers had to draw everything by hand, which produced some truly unique lettering, the likes of which are celebrated in this book “Custom Lettering of the 60s and 70s”.
Across 576 pages, editor Rian Hughes has collected together over 4,500 examples of headline type from the two decades. Most of the book is dedicated to the designs from the 1960s, with a whole section devoted to psychedelic styles. Whilst most the Sixties’ examples are in black & white (my only small criticism of the book), the smaller section on the Seventies is a riot of colour.
The book is available to buy from Amazon, priced just under £24.
The Buildings Mug by Beyond the Valley should appeal to anyone with an interest in architecture as it is printed with various styles of buildings, including several Brutalist style tower blocks.
The mug has been created by Beyond the Valley, which is a designer boutique in Carnaby Street, who have now expanded into producing their own label of clothes and homewares. The mug is made from white ceramic with a black print, and the Beyond the Valley logo printed on the base.
The mug costs £15 and can be bought online from Culture Label.
