Vinçon: a design icon in Barcelona

Vinçon sells contemporary design products for the home (furniture, lamps, kitchenware) as well as many other carefully selected objects and gadgets coming from all over the world. It also has an exhibition hall, La Sala Vinçon, dedicated to graphic and industrial design. A visit to Vinçon is a complete experience:

Window dressing is always surprising, for decades they have shown creativity and innovative ideas.

http://www.vincon.com/web/en/infogeneral/escaparates.htm

Architecture. Vinçon is located in a listed Modernist building with a beautiful façade. Visit the furniture section on the first floor and you will get to know what a PRINCIPAL (main) apartment was a century ago. At a time with no elevators, first floors were considered the best. Therefore, the rich industrials who promoted whole buildings in the Eixample reserved that floor for them thus becoming the Principal, because, in addition, it used to be the largest. Usually, there was a single apartmet at the principal, while there were two or more on the upper floors.

http://www.vincon.com/web/en/infogeneral/arquitectura.htm

Shopping bags. The paper bags from Vinçon could be a collector´s item, as they are designed by well known graphic artists

http://www.vincon.com/web/en/infogeneral/diseno_grafico.htm

Vinçon is located at Passeig de Gràcia, 96

Metro: Diagonal, Green Line

Furoshiki: the art of gift wrapping in Japan

http://s1.hubimg.com/u/78004_f520.jpg

Thinking of presents, it came to my mind the sort of foulards with colorful prints that I bought in Japan many years ago, which were intended for gift wrapping. I found a blog that explains this exquisite art. You may like to practice it …..

“When it comes to Japanese gifts, it's not the inside that really counts. Gift-wrapping, called tsutsumi, is the most important part of the gift-giving it seems. How you wrap and tie the package is considered especially symbolic and carries a lot of expression about how you feel towards the person and the gesture of giving them a gift.

The wrapping around the gift is seen as being part of the entire gift experience. Japanese gifts are aesthetic and beautiful on the outside, with the same full expression of the culture's love of balance, nature, novelty and simplicity."

One type of wrapping that is uniquely Japanese is the furoshiki.
Keep reading and watch videos at: http://hubpages.com/hub/art-of-japanese-gift-wrap