The Design Daily Milan 2013 App

The concept of the DESIGN DAILY app was to select approximately 20 new items in each of the major furniture and lighting categories but rather than focusing just on the obvious “look at me” designs or products from the big brands, to also include subtle designs and new products from small design studios and recently graduated young designers. In addition the app was to contain extended text on each design rather than the usual cursory caption. With over 350 new products listed, the app does not contain all the new releases but does represent an extensive selection of the more important and interesting ones. The Milan fair was chosen for the first app purely because it remains the world’s most prestigious furniture fair. However, with a number of similar fairs now gaining traction in cities such as Stockholm, Paris and London, the intention is to cover these in future apps.

What it’s about

The Milan Furniture Fair (or Salone del Mobile as it’s officially called) is held each year in April. 2013 was the fair’s 52nd year and as usual attracted the cream of the world’s furniture brands both big and small, plus a large number of young designers at the associated young designer showcase, Salone Satellite.

Every one sets up shop for 5 days to show their collections and what the Italians refer to as “novelties” - literally their new things. Despite the economic climate over 2500 different brands were on show this year and a surprising number of exciting and sometimes groundbreaking new products were launched. Coinciding with the fair every second year is Euroluce - a fair within a fair - featuring all the best lighting products from around the world. This year Euroluce filled four enormous halls and housed more than 480 specialty lighting brands.

The app also covers products by brands and individual designers who preferred not to show at the vast official fair grounds. This decision is sometimes taken because of cost (it costs big bucks to show at the fair) or to escape the somewhat homogeneous atmosphere of the fairground. Currently Milan’s main alternative design areas are Brera, Lambrata and Tortona. The app also covers a number of the most interesting installations that were found at venues across the city.