In the Clouds / Planes - Crowdyhouse premiere starting soon!

In the Clouds / Planes
photograph by House of Thol

It's been a couple of months since we first launched our original 'In the Clouds'-series during ShowUP. (Back then, i wrote this blog about the heritage of the clouds and birds as a porcelain print.)
In August, the initial pieces were received with great enthusiasm, and even more so in October, when we presented the first extension of the series: the In the Clouds bowls, during the Dutch Design Week.

In the Clouds / Planes - porcelain cups
photograph by House of Thol

And then... well, we didn't put any effort in getting the porcelain pieces out there.
Truth is: we had made the range of variations within the series too large for us to produce in the quantities needed.
This made us hesitant to approach stores and resellers in fear of orders that would be wildly inefficient to make.

production original In the Clouds-series
photograph by House of Thol

Well... we made a few minor adjustments in the design and are now launching a new In the Clouds series.
And this time we're keeping ourselves in check: Instead of offering 24 variations to start with, we're relaunching the In the Clouds cups in one size: medium, two versions: birds and planes, and three possible colours: white, greyish white and light-blue. All cups have a glazed finish.
Still plenty to choose from!

In the Clouds cups in light-blue and greyish white
photograph by House of Thol

To give ourselves the much-needed time to produce a little supply, we're launching the new In the Clouds / Planes cups as a Crowdyhouse premiere: From April 4th onwards, the In the Clouds/Planes cups will be available exclusively via Crowdyhouse for three weeks.
After this launch-period, the cups will be more widely available and we'll keep you posted about new points of sale.

In the Clouds cups
photograph by House of Thol

To be the first to own the new In the Clouds / Planes, check out our campaign on Crowdyhouse.

Interested in reselling these cups? Get in touch!

IMM / Passagen - all set up!

Passagen / IMM 2016 has started and we're all set up at Salon Zwei in Ehrenfeld, Cologne.

If you're visiting the IMM, don't forget about Ehrenfelds' design parcours, and -more specifically- make sure to visit Salon Zwei at the Gutenbergstrasse.

Here's a close up of the little map from the Passagen booklet, showing where you should be (#76):

Don't just look through the window, but walk in for a closer look of our latest projects: The first chapter of our stoneware glazing experiment Off the ground and the Confetti & Fireworks necklaces.
Also, many of the products are for sale. Some of them only during this week.

We're having a little soiree with music and drinks this Thursday.
Will we see you there?

Not to miss: Ceramix @ Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht

Ceramix - Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht until January 31st

Last Weekend i got to flip through the catalogue of the beautiful exhibition 'Ceramix' that's currently on show at the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht.
Looking through the book made me realise i almost forgot to mention that House of Thol is a tiny bit part of the show: For the duration of the Ceramix exhibition, our porcelain tableware 'In the Clouds' is part of the collection of the gift shop of the Bonnefantenmuseum.

Ceramix exhibition at the Bonnefantenmuseum, with work by Ai Wei Wei
photograph by Jeroen van der Wielen

Sadly we didn't have a chance to visit the exhibition ourselves yet, but i hope to be able to schedule a trip to Maastricht somewhere in the next weeks.

With the catalogue in mind i'd advice anyone with a love for ceramics and art to visit Ceramix before the end of this month.
The exhibition will travel to France later this year: first to Paris this spring, and after that to Sevres.

Bita Fayyazi, Cockroaches, 1998-1999
By courtesy of Isabelle van den Eynde Gallery, Dubai

Thomas Schutte, Basler Maske, 2014

In the Clouds tableware - temporarily part of the collection of the Bonnefantenmuseum gift shop

Baking corks and firing kilns against the clock / DDW prep

Only a little time left before the Dutch Design Week officially kicks off in Eindhoven. And although we thought we were on schedule, this final week before the show always seems to have about three days too few.

We'll probably make it.
In the end.

Anyway...
Right now we're fighting the clock newsletter writing, cork making, cone casting, waterworks packaging, cold battling, porcelain producing, exhibition building and (especially) kiln firing.

Come check out the results of all our hard work at the Design Perron in Eindhoven next week.
We'll be there every day and would love to see you.

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All square images are from our Instagram account.

House of Thol @ DDW 2015

It's that time again: leaves have started falling and pepernoten are in the stores, which means the Dutch Design Week must be coming up.
The city of Eindhoven will be all about design from October 17th till 25th, and we'll be part of the program.
This DDW we'll be showcasing our fresh range of porcelain tableware 'In the Clouds' as well as the new Scape Mirror, Neotribal jewelry and the Waterworks project.

For the second consecutive year we'll be at Designperron, not far from Eindhoven's city centre, near the train tracks.
And we're not alone: For a full list of all designers and companies participating in the exhibitions around Designperron, visit the Designperron website.
A little scoop: This year Designperron will have a pop-up shop on site that offers exclusive design products from the participating brands.

Come visit us at Designperron, only a short 5-minute walk away from Eindhoven Central Station.
We're planning to be at the location during all regular opening hours of the exhibition and would love to see you there.

House of Thol @ Designperron
Fuutlaan 12
5613 AB Eindhoven

17-25 October 2015
Open daily 10:00 - 18:00

Official DDW location for Dutch Design Rides. | Free parking space available.

We'll keep you posted on this blog.

Clouds & Birds

Our new series of tableware 'in the clouds' has a decoration of, well... clouds. And birds of course.

Clouds and birds.

Why?

It all started with an inspirational visit to the ceramics collection of our Dutch National Museum: Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. 

Browsing through the vast collection of both Asian and Dutch ceramics, we saw a huge variation of themes and decorations. 

We were almost getting overwhelmed by the collection and enormous variety of decorations, when we started noticing a lot of the Delftware landscapes had clouds on them with birds flying by. 

close up of a Delftware plaque - ca 1780
Photograph via Rijksstudio / Rijksmuseum

Once we zoomed in on the clouds and the birds we saw them everywhere. We found that clouds and/or birds are quite often an inconspicuous part of the decoration on both Asian porcelain as well as Dutch Delftware.  

All photographs via Rijksmuseum / Rijksstudio

Ever since visiting the museum our heads have remained in 'clouds & birds'-mode. We've been so focused we started seeing pictures of clouds and birds everywhere.

Anyway, that's the inspiration behind the print of the 'IN THE CLOUDS' tableware. 

We thought you might appreciate a bit of background information.

It took a lot of trial and error and many revisions to develop the decoration into the graphic print it is today, but that's a whole 'nother story.

For a collection of examples of Clouds & Birds on Dutch and Asian ceramics, click here to visit Rijksstudio.

The first pieces of the 'IN THE CLOUDS'-set are now premiering on Crowdyhouse - get them here. 

ShowUP - the aftermath

As you may or may not have noticed, we've been working our behinds off to prepare for our first official tradefair ShowUP.
And it was worth it!

Slightly dazed from many short nights (add up deadlines + a 4-month-old) we pretty much made it through the two-day fair on enthusiasm and adrenaline - and coffee of course.

Since it was our first time at ShowUP, we had no idea what to expect, and were pleasantly taken with the totally fresh and mellow atmosphere and the many lovely new products.

The response we got to our booth was great and we spoke with many people, bloggers and retail merchants alike, who are appreciative of the way we're developing our brand as self-producing designers.

Aside from the direct orders that we're obviously content with, we're very happy about all the interesting people we met and contacts we made.
New stockists will be added to the website soon!

There's just one thing i regret about the two days: being at the booth the whole time, we only got to have a little glance at the many other lovely brands and their products.
Actually, it might've been just as well, the greed would've probably taken the better of me otherwise.


All photo's from our Instagram.

Less than a week till ShowUP...

We'll be participating in the ShowUP tradefair in Expo Haarlemmermeer on Sunday August 23, and Monday August 24.

 Since it's our first time, we've rented a small booth in which we'll present our project Waterworks, the Scape Mirror and the Neotribal collection. We'll also launch our new collection of porcelain tableware 'InTheClouds'.

 ShowUP has been gradually growing over the past years, up to the point where it's now the go to tradefair in the Netherlands for independant creative brands.
 Visit showupbrands.com to see what other brands and designstudios will be presenting their latest products.

We'll both be at the fair on Sunday and Monday and would love to meet you there. Our boothnumber is 172, which is right opposite the doors to the outdoor area.

For more general information about the fair click here.
Admission to ShowUP is free, however the fair is only accessible for professionals from the Home&Gifts industry.
Register here to get your tickets.

ShowUP Tradefair
Expo Haarlemmermeer
Stelling 1 Vijfhuizen (next to Schiphol Airport)

Sunday August 23 | 10:00 - 18:00
Monday August 24 | 10:00 - 18:00

Get in touch if you have any questions about our presentation at the fair or if you like more information about the products we'll be presenting.

 Hope to see you at ShowUP!

Lately, in the studio...

ShowUP is around the corner and we're working our asses off to have our newest project ready to launch. 

Follow us on Instagram for realtime studio sneak peaks.