Laura Snoad
I am a London-based journalist specialising in design, arts and culture.
I am currently features editor at Grand Designs Magazine but was previously on the features team at Marketing Week and Design Week.
I have also writen for Icon, Digital Arts and onoffice.
I'm available for projects and commissions. Click here to download a copy of my CV.
Search
Find me on...
Posts I like
-
Back to Basics: Retro Electronics Made of Paper by Zim and Zou (via Colossal)
-
Any map, printed onto a blanket! I am mentally refurnishing our home today. I gotta get off these damn design blogs!
Soft Cities is a San...
Tag Results
66 posts tagged design
Unfortunately, when designers hit the headlines, it’s normally due to a massive cock-up. Websites that cost £100,000 and then don’t load properly, new brand names that mean ‘prostitute’ in Spanish slang and, of course, logos that bear an unfortunate resemblance to cartoon characters doing inappropriate things – the list is endless.
Luckily for most, failure is usually on a much smaller, more personal scale. It ranges from a nagging suspicion that you could have made that project just that little bit better if you’d had an extra hour, right through to weeks of work that are met by your clients with a resounding: “That’s not what we had in mind.”
For this Digital Arts feature I spoke to some of the UK’s leading designers about the importance of failure, and how to manage your disappointment and that of your client when things go tits up.
Only partly visible from the leafy West London road, Audrey and Jeff Lovelock’s huge four-floor home is something of an iceberg. Its top storey protrudes above street level, with several residential flats on top, but the bulk of the property stretches underneath the surface, in a complex footprint of staircases, walkways and spacious rooms.
Formerly a recording studio and squash court, the finished home was created by joining four separate properties and weaving a path through a maze of rooms spread across a huge number of levels. But despite its labyrinthian floor plan, the original layout devised by Audrey just three weeks after the first viewing has stayed more or less identical.
For this Grand Designs Magazine feature, I spoke to Audrey about this impressive basement renovation and the experience of being on the TV show. Download the PDF.
Few British designers can claim such a broad footprint as Wayne Hemingway. Setting up his own studio with wife Gerardine in 1981, the pair built up rebellious fashion label Red or Dead, before pursuing new avenues in furniture and interior design, urban planning and the Vintage festivals. But despite this rich career, 2013 looks to be one of the most exciting years for Hemingway Design yet - with Wayne and his team (now including children Jack and Tilly) launching new collections for iconic brands G Plan, Hush Puppies and Formica, as well as GDM favourites Surface View and Graham & Brown.
For this Grand Designs Magazine feature, I caught up with Wayne to chat about what makes him tick. Download the PDF.
Beside one of the canals that stretch crescent moon-like across Amsterdam, Ursula and Henning Van de Broeke’s four-storey converted warehouse sits inconspicuously alongside its eclectic neighbours. Its traditional stone-clad facade is flanked by a patchwork of merchant buildings spanning the city’s many centuries of prosperity, plus a smattering of twentieth century new-builds erected when the stilt-like wooden foundations of the original warehouses began to decay.
The neighbourhood’s seamless mixture of old and new is in many ways a metaphor for Ursula and Henning’s three-year-long renovation. The old building desperately needed modernisation: the foundations wanted substantial repair, modern staircases had to be fitted and several new construction walls were introduced. But, working closely together with architect Mark Fuller and interior designers from Studio Erik Gutter, they were at the same time keen to preserve and enhance the site’s unique original fixtures, both by revealing the wooden beams and industrial trappings towards the front of the house and encasing one of the decaying walls in glass.
For this Grand Design Magazine feature, I spoke to architect Erik Gutter about this inspiring build. Download the PDF.
Patricia’s new armadillo-like Tatou light for Italian manufacturer Flos is something of a rare creature. With its bold shape and sleek finish, it has all the hallmarks of a modern design icon but, for a high-end brand like Flos, it’s surprisingly affordable. Starting initially with paper and metal, Patricia experimented with injection-moulded plastic to keep the price accessible, creating delicate interlocking modules that click together to form large ornate shades.
It’s this kind of offbeat experimentation with form and materials that drove Patricia to set up her own Milan-based practice in 2000, after training as an architect in her native Spain. From her studio she has masterminded vibrant and imaginative creations, propelling her to the forefront of international design, while also juggling a home-life and young family.
For this Grand Designs Magazine feature, I spoke to Patricia about her home in Milan and what inspires her practice.
For this Grand Designs Magazine feature, I spoke to artists Ben Coode-Adams and Freddie Robins, who converted a derelict barn into an impressive live-work space largely under their own steam.
Their passion for restoring post-industrial sites and a need for more space drove ad man Jean-Jacques Meunier and his wife Anne-Laure, who runs a children’s e-commerce business, to buy this former wine shed located in the grape-growing heartland of France’s Loire Valley. The couple had outgrown their home in the busy city centre of nearby Tours and wanted more living and working space, as well as a more relaxed environment for their son Joseph, 6.
For this Grand Designs Magazine feature, I spoke to Jean_jacques and Anne-Laure about their new home, and their mix of stark modern design and cultural artifacts from Africa.
One of my all time favourites from the programme, grand designers Tim and Philomena O’Donovan took a huge risk when transforming a crumbling lifeboat station into their home.
For this Grand Designs Magazine feature, I caught up with them to get their advice for others wanting to undertake a similar project.
When Maddy Darrall and Simon Reay began planning an extension for their Victorian home in Twickenham, they were certain about what they didn’t want: a box on the back. Enlisting the help of Ashton Porter Architects, the couple set about carving out the inside of their property, carefully manipulating and extending the spaces, while preserving all the eccentricities of the original building.
For this Grand Designs Magazine feature, I spoke to Maddy and Simon about their London home and how they created a uniquely contemporary home without loosing its historical charm.
