The Shop at Bluebird has donated a section of its floor space to the Digital Wellbeing Showroom, a new kind of retail environment for digital lifestyle products and services,launched as part of London Design Week.
I went along to see what exciting new things I could find, and was lucky enough to get a guided tour from Alexander Grünsteidl, one half of Digital Wellbeing Labs. He explained that the idea behind the concept was to create a technological reflection of fashion trends for an integrated lifestyle, and therefore the whole showroom will change its collection every two months with the first installation being ‘Black and White’ in a reflection of current fashions.
With a history in product design, marketing, branding and anthropology between them, Alexander and his partner Priya Prakash have recognised that the downfall of many products comes from problems within the retail experience and so are working on how to remedy this and get people intrigued and excited by electronic products by prototyping different in-store models to help grow interest and understanding through honesty and interaction. They are also passionate about helping graduate designers engage with buyers in a commercial gallery space and so are offering these products alongside those from industry names such as Philips, Hulger and Marcel Wanders.
The result is an amazing array of new technologies, home accessories, and products that cross the line into art pieces, all of which are arranged in a communicative way that involves the buyer. Personal favourites from our visit were the Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus by Plumb Design, Intempo DAB radio with interchangable artwork fascias, cable jewllery by Bless, and SMS cross-
stitched message samplers by Kate Pemberton, and that’s being selective- any of their wares would fit happily in my office!! The next showroom, due to open in November, is entitled ‘Into the Woods’ and encompasses the relationship between technology and organic lifestyles- so look out for wooden computers and much more.
Digital Wellbeing Labs
The Shop at Bluebird
nb- Digital Wellbeing Labs are also working with Digital Plumbers, a company that will install and integrate any equipment to enable your digital lifestyle throughout your home in an easy to use format, a clever addition to the showroom and one we can forsee receiving a lot of business.
Filed under: products with a purpose, worth seeing, digital design, London, retail
for what it's worth 