Getting press in Greece

Insekt desk is coming next week to Cologne and meanwhile we are having a week with lot of exposure for our products.
In Greece, HomeGuide is featuring Insekt desk in their latest blog entry, which has prompt enough reactions from Greek retailers and public through the mail… nice to see Insekt desk and Arré moving on worldwide!

Interior Innovation Award 2013

Insekt desk winner!

Insekt desk +Kids, designed by Buisjes & Beugels Studio has been awarded the Interior Innovation Award 2013 by the German Design Council!

This is wonderful news for Kellie Smits, the designer, and for Arré, producer and distributor of Insekt desk range.

So for the second time, Arré has presented winning products to the Interior Innovation Award, underscoring the quality of our collection. That’s a good sign!

We are shipping an extra insekt desk +kids to IMM Cologne next january, where all the winners of the IIA 2013 will compete for the prestigious «best of the best of 2013» award. An international jury will select and award 15 products in the forenight of IMM Cologne opening. So we are still in the race for more!

Style in Rotterdam

We are getting Mirella Sahetapy on board for our photoshoots and style pictures. One of the best stylists in the Netherlands! With work at Elle wonen, VT wonen and all the good glossy magazine, and catalog work for competing danish furniture brands.

check it out!

Narratives

Walking around, looking carefully, and moving forward, that is what Arré is doing these days.

At the end, or meanwhile, we expect to come with a narrative that explains Arré. An explanation or an identity which is not «created» in a lab or at a advertisement Agency.

We have been looking (in the visual sense), and we have seen interesting things, developments. We have seen people who are active with great design and great work. We have seen that retail is changing. Manufacturing is changing as well.

So, what’s the narrative, the story that explains Arré? We will get to that.

Milan 2012

Milan design week is like a big river delta. Streams, small waterways, big water arms, all moving, converging, diverging,  flowing.

For the second time around, we visited Milan for the design week. We met designers, old friends, clients, manufacturers, people in the elevator, people on the bus, people in the train, on the street, everywhere a nice talk. Good coffee everywhere.

We have to mention two things: Scholten en Baijings Color One project for Mini, and Marina Abramovic exhibition.

About the later, we had the chance to visit an exhibition of works of Marina Abramovic, a leading contemporary artist. Remarkable and impressive works.

About Scholten and Baijings: a view and an approach for design that is beyond esthetics or functionality. A fresh view and a «deconstructive  yet at the same time compositional work».

IMM Cologne 2012

At the Pure Village!

We had a great week at Cologne, where Arré was present for the second time. This time in a professional setting at hall 3.2 in the Pure Village programme. Last year Arré was in the background, supporting Mediodesign at the D3 professionals programme, this time a step forward as a brand.

We met lots of interesting people, and we had a great team: Wibo Vermeulen from Amsterdam, Yoraco González from Berlin, Adriana Juncú assisting us with the visitors, and myself.

Great show and great products. We got compliments from trade visitors about the L-shelf designed by Juan Pablo Quintero/Mediodesign, which some people already recognised from last year, and about Insekt desk and Ecke Flow table. One of our major highlights, Metro Chairs designed by Azul Cadenas, never made it to the show… one of the minor things that happened. But we got good response to Insekt Desk, people love it. L-shelf still has to break some kind of resistance of the public, but when people see its simplicity and its genius they are crazy about it. Ecke flow had a very good international debut. German and France clients were quite enthousiast about the work of Michiel van Malestein from Rotterdam.

We are very much in the follow-up now, contacting our leads, and preparing shipment of the orders we took. We had a nice booth and a clear message: here is Arré, designed in Rotterdam, designed in Barcelona, designed in Miami, designed in Berlin.

The general public was really enthousiast about the L-shelf. During the last weekend of the fair, lot of visitors wanted to know where to buy it. How can we make this information clear to all the interested retailers?? We’ll solve that too.

We got some critical remarks from the blogs… surprisingly! 23sqstil was very dissappointed about Arré’s stand. She had followed the company, the work of Yoraco in Berlin, the L-shelf, the new products, etc. She expected more from our show. Well, a critique we take seriously, of course. But for us a kind of recognition that make us smile: we have followers!

We have clients. Clients we meet, we meet again, we retake our conversations, we discuss the next trends, the next steps. We are engaged in new proposals, new businesses. We chatted with the press, we explained our work as a new kind og agency to young professionals at the D3… and surprise, some want to be the next one at Arré.

A nice show, a great place to meet the world, to show our work. We are still working hard, demanding the best quality in what we do. Follow up time now!!!

Designed in Barcelona | Designed in Rotterdam | Designed in Berlin

Arré is ready to show the latest collection of designs and products at IMM Cologne. The show is focused on the international location of our designers and brands, their workplace, their inspiration. Each of them, Juan Pablo Quintero, Kellie Smits, Michiel van Malestein, Azul Cadenas, Yoraco González, are inspired by their cities, interacting with the creative partners, culture, architecture, businesses, friends and life in those places.

We like to think that, though it might be irrelevant for some, location plays a part in the creative process. It is the promise of Arré as well, to support those ideas and try to carry the stories and developments that brought them up in the first place. Designed in Barcelona, designed in Berlin, designed in Miami, yes.

But what does Arré? Organises in Rotterdam? Management? carries a Collection? Perhaps a new business model, a new mode for design, our way to contemporary furniture, a different approach. We are, most definitely, working on that.

We believe that we are preparing to become a furniture and contract label. But we are thinking and pondering, looking around and outside, thinking that perhaps there is room for a more collaborative approach, for effective production, for creating good value with these wonderful resources. We have started engaging conversations with our designers, clients, friends, suppliers, producers, design enthousiasts. In Chicago, Barcelona, Rotterdam, Berlin, Vienna, New York City, Kortrijk. Not only because we like to travel (we do!) but also because this journey of Arré has brought us there. We’ll get there.

Hello Berlin!

In a few hours we’ll be part of the great show of Qubique. A new sort of trade fair starting wednesday october 26th for the first time ever in Berlin. With a spectacular venue–decomissioned Tempelhof airport– it is going to be great.

Of course, everyone is working overtime, we are late, there are problems during the last day, the last hour, the last minute. But we are going to be present with the amazing work of Yoraco González. It is going to be his show at his german hometown.

So, pretty soon, more news about it.

Moving on towards IMM Cologne!

The opening’s day is approaching, people are working at the stand right now, printed material is being finished, the team is coming to the old Cologne, wow!

Yoraco has arrived to Cologne early today and he should be working at the stand, painting the walls, receiving goods and arranging things with the IMM Cologne organisation.

Juan Pablo and María arriving tonight from Barcelona. Tomorrow is the big day for set up.

In Rotterdam, rush hour for our offset printer! we certainly put flyerzone to work this week. 1500 Folders, 3000 postcards, 1000 business cards, it looks crazy, but we are just calculating that perhaps 2% of the 150.000 visitors  would pick up a folder and bring it home to look further…

The gross of the printed material is going by express courier to Cologne, it has been just picked up tonight and it will arrive monday morning at Cologne. There goes the euro’s of Arré Agency, because those express deliveries aren’t cheap! But that’s our work, a long stretch of support, marketing, logistics, phone calls, counseling, finance support, contracts, lawyers, and working with designers!

Soon the blog will report from the fair grounds, on site, at the heart of the matter…from Cologne!

official photos in the making

A sneak peek's preview of the official photos

At the moment Lucía Carretero is working at the post-production of the official photos of Mediodesign Collection.

In Barcelona and Rotterdam, layouts of the postcards and the folder are being made, preparing everything to send the digital layouts to flyerzone, our offset printer in Rotterdam. The schedule looks tight, but it seems that working on tight schedules is the only way to do it. Architects, designers, those kind of persons that are used to crazy deadlines…

Nevertheless, here’s a sneak peek’s preview of the pictures. They look so nice.