I like walking along the Thames.
I think, around Westminster is always full of tourist, but around Design Museum which located near to Tower Hill is rather less people and good place to relax. If the weather is good, Tower Bridge looks amazing as well.
The museums on Japanese tour guidebook are usually something focus on fine arts, but Design Museum handles rather contemporary designing including commercial arts, and it’s good for me to study. The building is not so big, but I like it as well. The museum shop inside it has lots of interesting books. I got an one year membership!
So, the current exhibitions are “Tim Walker” and “industrial Facility”. Tim Walker’s pictures are mainly used for VOGUE, and I really liked them. The tone of transparency + British + Fairy tales. The layout and curves are extremely sophisticated, and the contrast created by lighting is also beautiful. In case the layout is simple, he uses unique balance of colours or unique impression of the model (people or animal). It seemed he liked treating words as visual factor as well, and the exhibition, including his sketches, was clearly showing his world.
The other was a typical product design exhibition which is quite common in Japan as well. It was interesting lots of “MUJI” products were shown. I remember John Maeda, in his blog, also said how MUJI’s design succeeded simplicity. But the one I liked the most was Two Times by Establish&Sons. I like imbalance of this. But…is it easy to use???