Design Awards 2013 - the winner!

The results are in! Congratulations to Simon James and Scott Bridgens, whose 'Hex' pendant light takes top honours in our furniture and lighting Design Awards 2013. 

The 'Hex' pendant is a sleek, minimal beauty designed for Resident Studio that combines cutting-edge LED lighting technology with an elegant aluminium frame suspended from three slim wires (two of which, rather miraculously, also supply electricity for the light). It was launched at Milan Design Week in April and is already attracting serious international attention - deservedly so.

See this and our stellar lineup of Design Awards finalists in our new issue, on newsstands from Monday June 3. The photo is by Toaki Okano, and was styled by Sarah Conder and Juliette Wanty. Thanks also to Blum, our Design Awards partner, for their support. 

Our new cover

Here's the cover of our special Design Issue, featuring a group of our stunning furniture and lighting Design Awards finalists. The photo is by Toaki Okano, and the shoot was conceptualised and styled by Sarah Conder and Juliette Wanty. 

We don't like to brag, but we think this issue's an absolute peach. It focuses on the homes of product designers like IMO's Sam Haughton and Hannah Brodie and their enviable inner-city Auckland pad, or industrial designer Ross Stevens, who worked for Philippe Starck in Europe and is building an amazing Wairarapa home out of recycled coolstore panels. 

In this issue, we also travel to Canada's icy Fogo Island to visit artist Kate Newby, who's on a residency in an incredible studio there. And we go to Antarctica to see the restoration job on Robert Falcon Scott's rudimentary huts.

Also! We check out typographer Len Cheesman's lovely Greytown garden, our correspondents report back from Milan Design Week, we inspect a delightful dessert restaurant in Auckland by Cheshire Architects, and much more....

We hope you enjoy it. The issue's on newsstands from Monday June 3.

Christmas greetings

Christmas greetings from us to you - we hope you like our e-card this year, an image art-directed by Katie Lockhart and photographed by Darryl Ward (and laid out here by our senior designer Sarah Conder). 

We don't finish work until the 21st, but we've put this image up on the blog now because we've been finding its serene mood helpful in coping with pre-Christmas chaos. We hope you do, too.