House and Leisure – July 2019

• Editor

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Design, in general, is a strange

concept to get your head around. It relies on

so many abstract components and it’s so difficult to decide

objectively if it’s ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – or maybe it’s just difficult for me.

I have sat with my peers in many sad and uninspiring convention centre

back rooms during design fairs, figuring out who did something new this year,

who did it better and what innovative design consists of at the moment. There’s the

whole question about design answering a brief, and the issue of whether design can make

the world a better place, but I’m more interested in beautiful design or inspirational design.

Which is a whole other tricky conversation – what is beautiful and what inspires? For this Design

and Architecture Issue, we decided to have a little fun and just relax about this topic, and try and let

the process be a little more organic. It all started with a talk about an imaginary vertical city at Design

Indaba – a conversation via video call between architect Dong-Ping Wong and multidisciplinary designer

Virgil Abloh. That triggered some thoughts on city planning, on colour formations, on interesting ‘stacks’ of

material and on texture. Then we also looked at the patterns created by Sebastian Wrong for Hay, which are

about primary colours done in a Tic Tac sort of way, and lots of open space that allows for us to relax and breathe. 

There are so many ugly buildings out there – this might just be my opinion, but as I have said many times

before, Sandton is filled with seriously ugly structures and is exactly the opposite of what I wanted this book to

be about. We wanted bright colours instead of the usual grey (that everyone seems to be obsessed with lately and

is looking very passé) and we wanted a mix of textures instead of just concrete, which seems to be dominating

architecture lately. And then, as always, we wanted homes with personalities – there are a lot of boring, same-

same projects out there with average designers. Which is exactly what House and Leisure is not about!

I’m proud of this issue, which is my last as editor, and proud of the journey I’ve travelled over the past

three and half years with this brand. I have decided to explore other creative avenues.

And going back to my first point above, we might not have single-handedly revolutionised

magazine design, or fixed the design community’s problems, but this much I know:

during my time at House and Leisure, my team and I tackled design head on

and consistently produced editorial that is plugged-in, modern,

dynamic, engaged and totally beautiful. Yes, beautiful. And

that’s also enough! At least for me.

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LETTER / FROM THE EDITOR

JUN JUL 6

ILLUSTRATION: STACEY KNIPE