Actually, I’m not very keen on the word lifestyle when preceded by the word designer as it smacks too much of advertising and too little of design but then it is too easy to think of design for the home as just being about furniture or lighting and tableware. There are many other things that deserve to be and are carefully designed and well made.

There were several companies at Finderskeepers that produce leather goods including Silleknotte with their bags, key hangers, loop handles and shelves hung from leather straps and Ham/Lerche of Aarhus produce a range of leather boxes and desk tidies. It was someone on the Ham/Lerche stand who said, as I was looking carefully at their designs, “Go on … you can look with your fingers” … maybe an odd phrase but an extremely important idea as so much good design, particularly in wood or leather, doesn’t just look good but is tactile.

As well as tables and desks, Christoffer Jørgensen of Manufakture, makes linen-covered pin boards with frames in oak, ash or Oregan pine; matching black boards or chalk boards and a range of linen-covered boxes for papers and documents in sizes from A5 up to A1.

walnut table top from Noyer

Noyer

Noyer made by hand, with Janus Larsen and Nikolaj Hviid, are a very new company and this was their first time at northmodern but they create furniture with real confidence and with a very strong distinct style, cutting the thick walnut of their table tops with angles and sharp chamfers and then supporting the weight on thin, angled, inverted tripods that give the pieces quite some drama.

Along with the table, the collection includes substantial walnut chopping boards and bread boards with knives and the same American walnut is used for the arms of a wall light and a floor-standing lamp.

It was impossible to take the right photographs of the main conference table to do it justice, given the lighting and the number of people that were looking at the display, so I have arranged to go out to their workshops north of the city to talk to them about their work and, hopefully, to take some better photographs to post here.

Noyer made by hand

InaCircle

The FrejaChair by Henrik Frederiksen, in Danish ash with a soaped finish, has thirteen parts that fit together without fixtures or screws and it is the weight of the person sitting on the round plywood seat that pushes the structure together.

FrejaChair from InaCircle and in its the packaging for shipping

Self-assembly means shipping and delivery is easier and cheaper but then packaging becomes an important part of the total design and of course instructions for assembly. There is a clever and attractive animated video that shows the sequence for putting together the chair.

On their stand at northmodern, the chair was also used to create a striking display which, I guess, in an art gallery would be described as a multiple.

InaCircle

Manufakture

The work table and pin boards from Manufakture were shown at northmodern alongside wire chairs from Overgaard & Dyrman.

Christoffer Jørgensen formed Manufakture in 2011 and has workshops in Copenhagen.

The table is available in ash, mahogany, oak or Oregon pine and the same woods are used for the frames of his range of linen-covered pin boards.

Manufakture

linen-covered boxes for papers and documents from Manufakture

Nordic Appeal and Foto Factory

Maria-Louisa Rosendahl and Martin Bray were at northmodern again with their range of stands and holders for iPads and Apple computers and screens. These are all beautifully made in plywood and are very cleverly designed to set the screen up at the right height or to set the keyboard or the laptop at the optimum angle.

There is a version for a lap top so that you can latch the support over wooden knobs fixed into the wall to create a small work station, they call a standing desk, and a variation is about to be launched for your tablet computer which should be about the best way there is to keep it up off the work surface and away from food if you are one of the growing number of people who keep and use recipes digitally.

They were at northmodern to promote their other company Foto Factory with beautiful photographs of landscapes and sea and harbour views. Their first prints came from trips to Scotland and around England … Denmark has most things you could ever want except mountains … but back here in Denmark Martin is creating an amazing portfolio of photographs of the coastal scenery and woodlands and forests and the estuaries, creeks and harbours of the very beautiful natural scenery here.

Nordic Appeal

Foto Factory