HAY

This post will probably be a shorter one but I wanted to highlight one of my favourite homeware design brands at the moment - Hay Design Denmark.

Images of the HAY Design Showroom "Hay House' in Copenhagen

I suppose HAY is similar to Alessi in a way, which is maybe why I am so fond of them. The brand which was founded in 2002 has a similar whimsical style to all of their products with the application of bright colour and simple shapes. The brand is very much recognisable as "scandi chic" but they do enlist independent designers from across the world to produce their collections and have produced some great pieces over the years.

Some of my favourites are the colourful kitchenware products they sell, particularly the Sowden collection of appliances and kitchen tools.

Designed by George Sowden who was one of the founding members of Memphis you can see his influence of bright happy colours that make the products look almost like sweets or they are from a set of kids kitchen toys. But the liveliness they bring to often boring appliances makes them really appealing to me.

The use of colours like these is prevalent in the HAY catalogue and is used to bring joy into life. Sometimes in addition to simple patterns, they use stripes often in rugs, curtains and bedsheets.

The designers will look top bring colour into your life at every opportunity and challenge modern living in house of whites and greys. A tree that is definitely gaining weight at the moment as can be seen in my previous blog which mentioned the logo coffee table.

Though almost all of the HAY products are just on my Wishlist for now, myself and my sister got my dad a HAY cafetière for his birthday last year. It is made from coloured borosilicate glass and looks great. I was a bit disappointed at the functionality of the product compared to a bodum cafetière for example but with this it's more of a thing to bring out when guests visit I guess. It still makes a nice cup of coffee but the plunger is a bit annoying to use as it has no resistance against falling down.

I will hopefully own some HAY when I can afford it and love all of the colours in the range.

For me Memphis was a bit too much of throwing caution to the win and cool products that ignored the functionality of products to much. But with brands like HAY and ALessi that I posted about, they seem to get the balance right between function and fun for the most part. I loved my visit to HAY house in Copenhagen when I visited, hopefully I'll get the chance to go back and would recommend any designer to check it out if they are interested and in Copenhagen.