london

last saturday I went to the global pecha kucha for haiti night in the university of westminster in london. I have been at some pecha kucha nights and have even done a presentation (see below) last year in maastricht, nl.

when you think about london you think about a big city where creativity and design happens. but on saturday I was slightly disappointed about the organisation of the event. It meant to be be one of the pecha kucha network cities taking part to raise support in haiti but maybe 70 people appeared. I am aware of the fact that they just had 2 weeks to prepare the event but I just was hoping for a better result.

some people told me that design journalist max fraser and dezeen-founder marcus fairs brought the first pecha kucha to london in 2005. apparently these nights were sold out, unpredictable and funny. I mean, the idea is to to meet, network, and show work in public, isn’t it?

a good and funny moment was the unexpected skype call from tokyo-based architects and pecha kucha founders mark dytham and astrid klein, who thanked everybody for supporting the architecture for humanity project. I just checked the website. $5,692.60 are raised so far from all cities and presentations. hurray!

mark dytham + astrid klein on skype

‘how blogging improved my life as a student’, june 2009

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herdecke

some people might wonder where herdecke is. it’s a little town, located south of dortmund, germany.

that’s where I am now. with my family. my brother and I had a little photo shoot the other day because my parents wished to get a nice picture of both of us. finally they see us the way they want us to be.

‘mr. and mrs. business’ - picture by mueller3000

its not really a design related post. it is a personal one.

I am very angry today, especially because I meant to collect some good content for my blog at design miami in miami. I had loads of appointments and drawn interviews planned out. I mean, the great and good of the industry gather for this event. me and my friend robert andriessen from designguide.tv wanted to do some video interviews. and now I can’t go. I couldn’t fly to miami today because my passport is not valid the next 6 months. that’s it. it is valid now. enough for most countries. maybe it’s my fault because I didn’t realise that earlier. but why did I recieve a visa aproval from esta? I mean, I have been in america before. never had problems. sure, it’s annoying that they are asking so many questions at the airport but that’s how they are, the americans. they want to know stuff. the consequence is that I officially decided to never watch an episode of american dad anymore. I probably will have a weak moment about that when I can’t fall asleep next time but I will try.

thanks wallpaper magazine for the image. I stole it from your website. I really wanted to take good pictures in miami but what happend today made me a thief. : )

I graduated yesterday. yeah. here is my project:

modus operandi

‘Led by an obsession for clean-cut form, the product design graduate has created a number of archetypal forms that relate with the common conception of a chair.

Matylda distorts and extracts the functionality through her ‘modus operandi’, exerting and gaining dominance over the chairs, transforming them into her conceptual pieces.

She proceeds like a remorseful ‘serial killer’, demonstrating a hedonistic and sometimes crazed approach, before reassessing her ‘victim’, realising her conduct and ceasing.’

modus operandi from Daniel van Hauten on Vimeo.

maastricht

my life as a product design student has almost an end. I am graduating this week! end of june I participated at the pecha kucha event in maastricht. here is the video of my presentation:

‘damn, I am fucking nervous’

berlin/dmy

young swedish designer ramus malbert has designed a shelf that becomes a playful element when its filled with books.

I have to admit that the video embodies amateurism. we did the video on the spur of the moment. 3 takes and the 3rd one was chosen. but I said what I think and have finally an ‘ABOUT’. I like it that way.

find the ABOUT link on the right side …

… and the video appears!

I´ve met a lot people last week during milan design week. I also had the chance to do a drawn interview with ronan bouroullec, shay and yeal from raw edges, pieke bergmans, piet hein eek and some more.

I travelled with the bus from milan back to maastricht, nl. when I got off the bus I had to walk home in the rain. unfortunatly my bag isn´t that waterproof. all drawings got wet. after 2 days of little frustrations about this misfortune I´ve decided to publish them anyway. I mean, it happend and I can´t change it…

milan 2009 /

its sunday and I just got back from the milan design week.
unfortunately I couldn’t find an internet connection in milan. so no posts the whole week. but now I have enough content for the next few months.

here is a little preview from my spontaneous top 3 from last week.
and when I say top 3, I talk about the whole thing: exhibition, presentation, idea, products..

1 - design miami/ fendi present craft punk
design performances by designers at spazio fendi

2 - ‘mat, satiné, brilliant’ by belgium-based fashion designer
maison martin margiela at zona tortona

3 - prophets and penitents by damn magazine, showing chairs in prototype form at the oratorio della passione, a 15th century hall

I announce couple changes that will or have occurred on my blog:

- I have added a ‘drawn interview’ symbol to the interviews of the designers to separate the pictures from the drawings

- I will start to watermark my pictures. It happens often that I find my pictures on other websites without putting a link to matandme.net. shame on you!

- I will finally publish more information about me. so people who don’t know me will find out whats behind all this

lalala, matylda

last friday I attended at the 2nd pecha kucha night at the ainsi in maastricht, netherlands.

pecha kucha forces a presenter to show 20 images for 20 seconds a piece, for a total time of 6 minutes, 40 seconds. this form of presentation was invented in japan in 2003 by tokyo based architects astrid klein and mark dytham, klein dyham.

I am sure everybody of us know some creatives that tend to talk to much and too long about their ideas. anyway, I think I am going to participate at the next pecha kucha maastricht on saturday, 20th june 2009. lalala

okaystudio is a design collective of former royal college of art students. all of them were studying design products at the college and after graduating they still wanted to share the same workspace. I had the chance to go and see their london-based studio in stoke newington and meet some of the members. more about 2 of the members and their assistant ;-) in the upcoming days.

the collective consists of:

tomás alonso/spanish
jordi canudas/spanish,
peter marigold/british
ed swan/british
oscar narud/norwegian
yael mer and shay alkalay/Israeli
mathias hahn/german
hiroko shiratori/japanese
jorre van ast/dutch

main hall in the old factory building

office area

entry to office area

‘table objects’ for the dinner of the design musem london

‘table objects’ for the dinner of the design musem london

last new years eve I lost my wallet. I needed some new business cards, wondered what to do … and that’s what I came up with..

young london-based designer matthew plummer fernandez, english designer max lamb, my grandma (she wears my cool sunglasses), maarten baas furniture producer bas den herder with eindhoven-based designer alexander pelikan, fashion designer branko popovic, dezeen founder marcus fairs with his wife rupinder boghal (what a great couple!), the e pellicci team (my favourite greasy spoon in london), my brother and me (we did not change), hong-kong based designer michael young, spanish artist-designer jamie hayon, fashion concept designer miriam hartwig, london-based designer tomas alonso

I am back in the netherlands. maastricht, eindhoven.. lalala

and this is my favourite burger at the dutch mc donalds. I even like the layout of the packaging

eggs and bacon sandwich. I will stay a week.

the miele products are winner of the red dot design award 2007 and are ‘produced for the north american market’. I wonder if the people in north america are bigger than in europe?!..

miele t9800 tumble dryer - me - w4800 washing machine

concrete - the trusted construction material. my academy in maastricht is a concrete building. maybe one of the reasons why I feel so comfortable there. I like the hard and massive appearance of concrete buildings.

the southbank centre london, europe’s largest centre for the arts is one of my other favourites. next to the barbican. (see my previous post here) the southbank centre consists of the royal festival hall, the hayward, queen elizabeth hall and the saison poetry library. the entire complex is build in the 50ies and located at the thames in southbank. It’s close to the tate modern, which openend in 2000 and is another cultural enrichment in bankside, at the thames.

(continue…)

ok, call me lazy or believe that I am human - I have been sleeping, watching dvds, eating (everyday an egg and bacon sandwich) and hanging around in the last 10 days. some people would do amazing things while being in london but I’ve preferred to stick to do ‘nothing’. the only fucked thing happening to me is that I’ve lost my wallet on new years eve. I forgot it in the cab. I guess I just had to much mc donald’s food on my lap. a pakistan cab driver is now 50 pound and 30 euro richer and has surely sold my drivers license to a desperate 17 years old who wants to get into a club. lucky me…

tomorrow I go back to maastricht and I will be back ‘to blog’.

the amazing eggs and bacon sandwich. I really love english food!

I am spending my days off at my boyfriend’s parents house in chingford, east london. I knew that the british always give cards to any occasions like christmas or birthdays but I didnt knew that they are so obsessed with that. its amazing.

his mum is writing about 200 cards every year! (continue…)

no post since 5 days.

time for a little christmas break. everybody needs some holidays.

me and my family, breakfast on the 25th december. we always look like total twats. especially when we wear our christmas caps.