HBL Retail: Turner Pocock Cazalet

Zebra in blue/grey by Turner Pocock Cazalet

London-based interior design brand Turner Pocock has developed a range of wallpapers with illustrator Catherine Cazalet, available for sale now through The Secret Arcade.

HBL Retail: Safari interiors

Fleux, Paris

As safari styling takes over both menswear and womenswear this season, WGSN-homebuildlife notes how the African outdoors has also begun to enter the home, with exotic animal prints, ethnic patterns and a range of safari-style furniture coming to the fore.

HBL Guide: Seattle

Seattle

One of the US’s most literate cities, this seaport - named after a tribal chief - is the birthplace of Starbucks, Hendrix and grunge.

HBL Tradeshows: Global Melting at Hong Kong Premium & Gift Fair

Global Melting at Hong Kong Gifts and Premium Fair 2011

At this month's Hong Kong Gifts and Premium Fair, WGSN-homebuildlife came across Global Melting, a range from Hong Kong lifestyle brand Additude, launched to provide products that entertained city dwellers and encouraged curiosity of life.

HBL Analysis: iPad art and craft

A number of apps for smartphones and tablet computers now mimic the process and end result of traditional art and craft practices, and practitioners have quickly adapted their working methods to incorporate this new technology. WGSN-homebuildlife examines how the tablet computer is already changing the way art and craft practitioners work.

HBL Technology: Google unveils digital wallet

Google Inc has unveiled a ‘digital wallet’ that from this summer will enable US owners of Android smartphones to pay for goods and services by simply scanning their handset at checkout readers.

Aesop Bondi Beach by Zenta Tanaka

Australian skincare brand Aesop have sent us images of their new store in Bondi Beach, Australia. Aesop are known for their experimental store designs that reflect their individual location through their use of locally sourced, sustainable materials. The new Bondi Beach store designed by architect Zenta Tanaka is no exception to this theme. Opened last month, the Bondi Beach outlet will be Aesop's fifth store in Sydney. The interior features a carefully combined selection of natural materials that reference the beach, including boulders in the walls and dips in the floor.

HBL News: Williams-Sonoma Outperforms Projections

Williams-Sonoma Inc has beat its own estimates in its latest quarter, subsequently raising its full-year forecast.

For the three months to May 1, 2011 net profit lifted to $31.6m, or 29 cents per share, up from $19.5m/18 cents a year earlier. Excluding items, it would have earned 30 cents per share, beating analyst estimates of 28 cents, according to Thomson Reuters.

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Darkest Afrika by House on Fire and Dokter and Misses

Darkest Afrika is a new lighting collection that was launched in Swaziland earlier this week. The project is a collaboration between Swaziland based art studio House on Fire and South African design studio and retail store Dokter and Misses. Each studio designed sculptural lights carved from Swazi Soapstone with additional mild steel detailing. The project combines hand craftsmanship together with industrial production methods. The result is a series of pieces that showcase each studio’s distinctive aesthetic.

HBL Book of the Week: In Case it Rains in Heaven

In Case it Rains in Heaven by Kurt Tong

Photographer Kurt Tong's book In Case it Rains in Heaven (Kehrer, 2011) documents the ever-growing range of items available as paper offerings - objects which, traditionally in Chinese culture, were burnt "as offerings to the spirits to ensure they lived well in the afterlife".

In the past fifty years, the range of items has expanded in line with China's growing consumer culture: McDonald's takeaways, gold watches and MP3 players are now all available to purchase for the ceremony.

HBL Interview: Natalie du Toit of Indigi Designs

During this year's Design Indaba in South Africa, WGSN-homebuildlife came across the work of new design brand Indigi Designs. We loved their mix of traditional South African colour and pattern with characterful, contemporary forms, and we spoke to Indigi Design's founder Natalie Du Toit to find out what inspires her collections.

"Tradition is a very strange thing - we consider it as something positive, right?"

404 chairs by Stefan Diez for Thonet

WGSN-homebuildlife spoke to young German designer Stefan Diez about the changing relationship between manufacturer and designer, how he is bringing technology from the automotive industry into his latest chair design - and why tradition is overrated.