Category: Design and Interiors

Categories / Design and Interiors, Food and Drink, Homeware

Weber Smokey Joe barbecue at John Lewis

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Weber

Summer is coming, the season of burning food in the great outdoors. If you don't fancy spending a month's wages on something huge and gas-powered, you could opt for something more basic, but plenty of retro style – like this Weber Smokey Joe barbecue.

It's exclusive to John Lewis (both instore and online), offering a compact unit that's good for picnics and flat dwellers (if you have a balcony), offering up a weatherproof porcelain enamelled bowl and lid, a lid lock for easy carrying, rust-proof air vent, triple chrome-plated grate and a measuring cup for your fuel.

All of which will cost you £59.95.

Find out more at the John Lewis website

Categories / Design and Interiors

Surrealist-style vases by Catherine Gray

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Catherine Gray

These vases made by Catherine Gray are a contemporary design but have something of a surrealist look. 

Each yellow, orange or deep red coloured vase is printed with a digital photograph. In the spirit of the Surrealist movement, the images are the cropped faces of a 1920s-style girl whose eyes peer out at you across the room.

Unsettling or arty? You can decide. It's something of an investment piece though as each vase costs £195.

Buy them from Pedlars

Categories / Art and Photography, Design and Interiors

Cushion covers using 1940s Henry Moore designed textiles

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Henry Moore cushion covers

A reissue being sold to accompany the current Henry Moore exhibition at Tate Modern, these cushion covers use textile designs Moore did in the 1940s. 

Although the artist is famous for his sculptural works he did also produce textile designs, first for Zika Ascher from 1943 onwards and then for David Whitehead Fabrics after the Festival of Britain. The two textiles available, Wings and Ovals or Half Figures, were both designs produced for Ascher in about 1947.

The patterns are printed onto 100% cotton cushion covers, which sell without their pads. They cost £15 each. 

Buy them from the Tate shop

Categories / Books, Design and Interiors, Gadgets and Tech

Phaidon Design Classics for the Apple iPad

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Phaidon

Way back in our formative years of 2006, we feature what's still a must-have series of books – the Phaidon Design Classics. Well, times change, as does technology, so in 2010 you can now pick up Phaidon Design Classics for the iPad.

It really does look stunning, almost (but not quite) tempting us into investing in Apple's much-hyped tablet. For your money, you get the history of (primarily) 20th century design, just about everything worth owning with 1,000 timeless designs in full colour from the giants of our age, all in chronological order and in this version, rendered stunningly in 3D.

If you've got an iPad (or plan on doing so soon), Phaidon is doing the book conversion for $19.99 initially. Or you can still opt for the traditional book set, which is priced at £100.

Phaidon Design Classics for iPad

Categories / Design and Interiors, Homeware

Heals sale starts – up to 50 per cent off

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Mistral

We love a sale, especially when the retailer has some tasty retro items in it. Like the Heals sale.

Actually it's called the 'Spring Home Event', but it's much the same, with up to 50 per cent off its range. To be honest, we haven't found much to get our pulses racing with the full discount, but there is a good selection of items marked down, from retro-style Newgate clocks to larger items like the Mistral sofa and armchair range (pictured above).

We have featured these midcentury-inspired gems previously and if you like those 50s-style looks, they're now available with a price cut – the armchiars at £876 (from £1,095), the sofas at £1,436 (from £1,795). Check those out and all the other sale items online now.

Sale at the Heals website

Categories / Art and Photography, Books, Design and Interiors

Penguin Decades

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Penguin Decades

Penguin are celebrating 75 years of publishing with the Penguin Decades series. They've re-issued key novels from the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s which they claim 'helped shape modern Britain' and define the period they were released. 

Each decade's books are given a distinct look with the work of a different artist. The 1950s all have covers designed by Peter Blake – including the version of From Russia with Love shown above – while the selected books from the 60s, such as A Clockwork Orange and A Kestral for a Knave, feature the artwork of Allen Jones. 

Zandra Rhodes' patterns grace the cover of the selected books from the 70s, while John Squire tackles the 80s. 

The books cost £7.19 each, a reasonable price for a nice bit of design and a meaty read. 

Find out more from the Penguin website