llot llov – A Design Collective with Woollen Signboards
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The knitted lamps “Matt” and “Ray” have brought the four young Berlin designers international fame, too. Apart from these bestsellers, llot llov designs innovative interiors for scene shops, creates installations or simply maps German conurbation in unconventional ways with concept works such as “I love Ruhrgebiet.” Its unusual name evokes the most varied associations: a Bulgarian company? An abbreviation of the English “lots of love”? Even if the four designers might be comfortable with this interpretation: “llot llov” is simply an anagram of a common expression in Germany, “voll toll,” (i.e. “awesome,” “killa”), which is generally associated with approval. The group’s founding members Ania Bauer, Jacob Brinck, Lena Hirche and Ramon Toshiro Merker simply use the reverse spelling of the expression as their name. The name hasn’t done them any harm until now – quite the contrary. With their knitted lamp “Matt,” which has already most decoratively coiled and curved down from unplastered ceilings in a few design magazines, and their both whimsical as well as practical large macramé flower-cocoon “Lucille,” this Berlin design collective has gained success not only in German-speaking areas. In particular, the knitted lamps “Matt” and Ray” serve these young creatives as door-openers in the USA, where a Chicago gallery owner creates new settings for these objects in ever-new ways. |
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A design group in a trendy area
The four, who come from the areas of product, furniture and graphic design – and also have a trained cabinet-maker on board in the person of interior decorator Merker – got to know each other in 2004 while touring Berlin’s night-life in a taxi. They kept in touch with each other, cooperated on projects and then joined forces in 2007 as a permanent office-sharing cooperative, located on the boundary between the Berlin districts of Neukölln and Kreuzberg – a trendy area known as “Kreuzkölln.” Since then, they have been landing new joint projects, preparing for competitions, or just collecting ideas. Each of the four has already worked in design and contributes older projects to their joint portfolio. Tasks like looking after the business side of things and managing the group’s website are also shared, “Even though these aren’t jobs that designers normally go crazy for,” says Jacob Brink. But good customer support is also vital for a young design collective. In difficult times, bestsellers like hanging flower pots, side tables and lamps make less-lucrative projects such as art installations financially possible. All-of-a-piece would be just too simple
However, apart from products, interior design is llot llov’s most important supporting leg. In Berlin, they have decorated boutiques of fashion labels LaLa Berlin and Adddress, among others. Not one of the shops they designed is like any other, the four designers are far too focused on the products to be sold there to let that happen.
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llot llov presents designer Leyla Piedayesh’s fluffy, wooly dresses, scarves and tunics in a totally romantic, soft, white setting in which a sheep now and then also serves as deco-object. Chandeliers looking as though they were made of melted wax complete a British country-estate charm in the middle of Berlin. The Adddress shop, which the designers also decorated in Berlin-Mitte, is completely different. Here, they have contrasted shades of grey, openly laid piping and right-angled clothing racks with heavy baroque furnishing elements, creating an advantageous setting for Adddress fashion’s straight-lined, functional style and robust materials. “Lived-in” design
These and further llot llov shops in Berlin and Munich have in common the fact that they do not look as if they were pre-fab designer creations: “There’s nothing more boring than when one immediately thinks, ‘yeah, a designer was at work here, yet again,’ “ says Jacob Brink. For this reason, llot llov seeks to decorate shops so that they look as if their style has been emerging over a longer period of time. To accomplish this, the four like to make use of contrasts: wood meeting glossy-smooth surfaces, baroque elements offset by clear lines, or little glass tables placed next to brick walls. “It should always look ‘lived-in.’ Everything that is all-of-a-piece is just too simple,” thus Brinck. |
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But llot llov do not only apply this “lived-in” design concept in fashion boutiques. In Berlin-Kreuzberg they have transformed a down-and-out betting salon into a ice-cream parlour that also has to function as a bistro in the evening – and have thought up an interior decoration that not only was to look completely new, but at the same time as if it had already been in use for some time, with a patina suggesting many a successful evening. They achieved this by using dulled-down colours, lots of cushions, throws, and meticulous attention to detail.
All those interested in gaining an impression of these and other llot llov ideas can view their works in the four designers’ new showroom in Mulackstraße 12 in Berlin, which starting in September 2010, will be adjacent to the Baerck Store they have also designed – presenting Berlin labels and Scandinavian furnishings in an utterly simple ambiente.
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