I am delighted to announce that we have finally pushed the start button for our Punch’n'Cuddle online shop. It has taken a little longer than we anticipated, however, we wanted to ensure that we only went live once we had a warehouse full of 100% perfect Punch’n'Cuddles – boxed & ready and eagerly awaiting (once you have ordered them of course) their instant transfer to their happy new homes. And a huge and cuddly thanks to the wonderful Evalotta for having done such a great job with the online shop.

What a wonderful way to end the year – and also to start the new one! It has been such a long process – and this milestone had been so desperately anticipated in the past few months, so that it now almost feels unreal… but amazingly uplifting nevertheless. Happy Holidays to everyone!

Today is a special day for me – as all Punch’n'Cuddle delivery has finally arrived in our Berlin warehouse. So now we have hundreds of eager excited Punch’n'Cuddles ready to set out on their journeys to the new homes they will – hopefully – get ordered from.

Right now we are in the final process of fine tuning our new web site, ready for Punch’n'Cuddle lift off – and are very excited at the prospect of finally opening the virtual doors of our online shop in the next couple of days.

Hot from the press: DesignMarketo’s Retrospective, which has only just been published for their forthcoming show in Barcelona. And I am honored to have been asked to write the introduction for their first book, which gives an interesting insight into their working philosophy, as well as summing up the numerous projects they have initiated and realised over the past few years. Delighted to participate in this wonderful design culture, I got nothing more to say but to wish them all the best for all their future projects.

Tomorrow I will give a talk at the »Link Together« Panel of Sofia Design Week. It will give insight into my experiences on my way of turning an initial design idea into a working and sellable product: Punch’n'Cuddle.

The focus will not be on the technical development for production, but rather aims to give an understanding of the infinitely variable problems, obstacles and indeed frustrations that lay on the long, winding and always rocky road to the marketplace. A lot of stamina and belief in what you do is needed to be able to take the knocks and stay motivated – but if you manage to ‘go the distance’ and bring your idea to reality it is very rewarding.

If you are around, I would love to see you on June 13th at 9:00 in Sofia’s Central Military Club. Yes, that’s right. But no worries – I come in peace.

I’m off to Sofia Design Week, where I will be quite busy giving a workshop, a talk, show a new project with Designmarketo and report for Core77. I am particularly looking forward to the workshop, as it addresses the Roma Community in Sofia.

Interested members of the community will be given mass-produced everyday objects and furniture in order to create something new from them. Whether it is just adding certain stylistic elements, or changing the object completely into something entirely different by also altering its function, is up to the participants. The aim of the workshop is to create a range of objects that will then be exhibited and auctioned in public. The money generated from this »value added design« will be going to the Roma community.

Workshop: 10.-14.6. in a Sofia Roma Camp • Subsequent Exhibition of the Workshop Outcome: 15.-17.6. in Central Mineral Bathhouse • Public Auction of the Objects: 18.6. in Shishman Street

The KISD Koeln International School of Design, where I had studied years ago, just turned 20! I wish a Happy Birthday by posting this nice little movie (done by current students), describing the teaching philosophy of KISD. Looking at this made me realise how much I actually got influenced by this generalist, holistic design approach – even though I’m very glad that I added the Royal College of Art experience to it some years later. I guess somewhere in-between both design approaches I eventually found myself…

For the first time in years I haven’t been to Milan Design Week (as I was still in Asia) – and one of the biggest bummers was probably to have missed the annual Fornasetti Party. One digital token, however, I got from it: the Nucleare Vade Retro sticker that they handed out. It is their latest graphic variation on the Fornasetti theme, using the iconic face of Lina Cavalieri to make a statement against nuclear power.

Just to make my New Year wishes complete, another Happy New Year to everyone – this time it’s the Thai one! The Songkran Festival is celebrated in Thailand traditionally from 13th to 15th April and coincides with the New Year of many calendars in Southeast Asia. It’s actually great fun, as it’s basically one huge water battle along the streets.

Everybody is armed with super soakers and (as shown above) bowls full of white powder that gets turned into a nice sticky paste by adding water – which then gets smeared on everybody’s faces, clothes, etc. So eventually the streets of Bangkok look like one huge army of smiling “guerilla fighters”. I’m making water paddles on the floor as I write this (Thais find it particularly funny to cover »Pharangs« in buckets of ice water), but it’s no point trying to dry, as it will not last for longer than a few minutes… and apparently the wetter you get, the happier will be your year (2555).

If you go traveling to Myanmar, better bring an iron – you might need it to straighten your dollar bills! As you can see in the pictures, there is quite a difference in the visual appearance of the bills of the local currency (Kyat) and the US dollars that the foreigners bring in. And now guess which note got turned down, when I wanted to make a payment? Nope – you mean you can’t you see the 1mm tear in the dollar note? I couldn’t either. But nevertheless it was already reason enough for people not to accept this bill – whereas the Kyats are ok to be completely dissolved, only held together by sellotape.

As there are no ways to get cash in Myanmar, peoples’ sensitivity towards the physical state of dollar notes can turn into a big problem – and you might have to end your trip sooner than planned… only because there’s a tiny tear in you bill, or because you folded it slightly in your wallet. Fortunately I eventually found someone who accepted the note, so I could stay as long as I intended…

One of the courses that I was teaching in the past six months at Raffles International College in Bangkok has designed the Local Essence exhibition. It will be launched at TCDC design institute in Bangkok later this week and actually mark the end of my guest lecturing, before heading back to European soil in April.

This exhibition is a collaboration between Raffles Design College, the Material Connexion Bangkok (MC) and Thailand Creative & Design Center (TCDC) to enhance the potentials of locally produced materials by investigating and discovering their qualities. The aim is to communicate these materials as an exhibition to the public, through design projects based on research and materials chosen by the students. Fashion Design, Product Design and Interior Design students together with Brit Leissler (Lecturer), Guiseppe Guerriero (Lecturer) and Jett Pisate Virangkabutra (Product Design’s Program Director) investigated innovative applications of Thai materials within the Material Connexion library.

The opening is on Thursday, 31. March 2011 from 18:00 to 21:00 at Material Connexion | TCDC (6th Floor of the Emporium Shopping Complex, 622 Sukhumvit 24, Bangkok).

So, if you are in Bangkok, drop by to enjoy some free drinks and canapes while observing interesting design investigations on Thai local materials.

We just sent off the first Punch’n'Cuddle newsletter – which means that we have now officially launched our company! Just in time for Valentine’s, we were able to express Punch’n'Cuddle’s love to all its fans (so maybe it was more a loveletter than a newsletter), by finally being able to give a date for our online shop opening: May 2011. If you would like to stay in the loop about Punch’n'Cuddle, please join our mailing list. A love-filled day to all of you!

One of the many good things about living in Thailand is that you can celebrate at least three new years – every year! Having done the 1st January celebrations just about a month ago, last night followed the next new years eve party – this time welcoming the new Chinese year of the rabbit! And in case all those well wishes and new year resolutions will still not work out this second time, there will be a third chance in april, when the Thai new year will be celebrated. Pheeeeeew!

Just as the of-going fire works and paper lanterns around me announced the beginning of the “bunny mode”, while standing on the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok, I received a phone call from London, that the delivery with the very final samples from Vietnam of Punch’n'Cuddle bases had just been unloaded. For me that was the best way to start this new year (2555 btw), as this basically gave the starting signal for our production – a moment that I had desperately anticipated in the past year!

So, apart from wishing everyone a happy new year again, I am very delighted to announce that we have finally left the sampling stage and now officially started the Punch’n'Cuddle production – and will therefore launch our online shop in Summer 2011 (because producing will also take some time, but not nearly as long as getting there)!

Having just returned yesterday from a trip to Cambodia, I would like to quickly share these two wonderful simple designs that I came across over there: sandals made from old tires and a bamboo jaw’s harp.

Even though an artifact of the Khmer Rouge killing regime, that has devastated Cambodia in the 70′s with an aftermath present til today, those sandals are a very inventive and functional design – true to the maxim that necessity is the mother of invention: No additional materials other than old tires are used, not even an additional fixing – the rubber straps are just put through slots on the sole. Apparently these sandals were part of the Khmer Rouge uniform – even Pol Pot was wearing them.

The bamboo jaw’s harp is carved from one single strip of bamboo and has a beautiful warm sound – which I prefer to the one of its »metal brothers«. Plus it works perfectly! Yet another example of how reduction & simplicity in most cases automatically generates good design.

A very happy new year to everyone – with this picture of a screen printed piece of fabric, that I had just bought in a temple in beautiful Luang Prabang in Laos. To European eyes it might look rather occult, however, I was assured by the temple worker that I bought it from, that it means nothing but good luck for the person who carries it.

I was very intrigued by the graphics and could not resist purchasing it. The temple worker seemed actually very delighted that I was so interested in all those pieces of fabric that he was selling (it is an open question whether this was because I spent some dollars or because I showed cultural interest). And who knows – maybe by looking at the picture it will rub off some of the good luck to the reader of this post.

In this spirit all the best for 2011! By the way, I have extended my contract teaching at Raffles International College in Bangkok, so will manage to completely escape the European winter by staying here til middle of April. Bliss.

Just received this footage of the London Marveland show, that has wrapped up last week. As I unfortunately was not able to see the show myself (still teaching in Bangkok), it’s great for me to see that Punch’n'Cuddle seems to have been very popular with the kids. A huge thank you to Sarv Ghazanfar, who shot a wonderful documentary about the whole show, for Manoto TV. Unless you speak farsi (or urdu) you are not very likely to understand much, unfortunately, but as we all know: pictures are worth thousands of words, so watching the following video will still make you see the show.

And many thanks to Hector M. for his fabulous drawing: