staff picks: Nicola loves the Trellick Tower cushion

Nicola, our very cool production co-ordinator, has chosen the Trellick Tower cushion by The London Gift Company as her all-time favourite item from the site. “Saturday mornings rifling through the treasures of Portobello market is my weekly treat. This cushion of the iconic Trellick Tower that looms over my favourite street brightens up my room and reminds me just how much I love our diverse and interesting city.”

Posted by jenniferbaldwin on 24 February 2011

Holly and Sophie hit Silicon Valley!

Last month Holly and Sophie were invited to California to meet with our investors, Greylock, who are based in the US and present at their LP (Limited Partners) Conference. Their trip was jam-packed with brilliant meetings which will no doubt play a part in defining the future of notonthehighstreet.com. They were rather humbled to attend an event with Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, and Henry McCane, the Chairman of Greylock, and were super-excited to get a personal tour of the amazing Google offices. They squeezed in a trip to the famous computer museum (where they were asked if they were in the right place! Their enthusiasm should have clearly showed that they were…). They also took the time to see the local craft and design talent in San Francisco city and, of course, they visited Alcatraz (because that’s a given when in San Francisco). An amazing trip all round – they’ve kept us very entertained with the stories!

Posted by jokite on 16 February 2011

hello Mabel

Carrie, our merchandise and picture editor, picked up a very special delivery at the weekend, and brought her into the office just now. Mabel got a lot of attention to put it mildly, and she just lapped it up peacefully. We’re in love…

Posted by jokite on 08 February 2011

Harry's birthday wish

Holly’s son Harry turned six last week – he was just three months old when Sophie and Holly were working on the concept for notonthehighstreet.com. He came in to the office because his birthday wish was to ‘code’ with the cool dude Joe Simms, the technical director. The genes run deep in this one – he hopes to work here in 15 years time!!

And on the way to the cinema for his birthday film, Harry questioned Holly on how Joe could have built the whole website when he hadn’t seen any wood or nails in the office. Just so cute! If only it were that simple…

Posted by jokite on 08 February 2011

it's a pin-up...

Since we moved offices to Richmond in October, we’ve been working hard to make our new space feel like home. It goes without saying that we love anything craft-based, so when we discovered the work of textile artist Debbie Smyth, we had to enlist her to help us put our stamp on the place.

Debbie creates contemporary artworks which employ a variety of skills and techniques to transform unusual materials and objects into playful yet sophisticated pieces. We particularly fell in love with her pin and thread work (see examples above), where she creates a network of lines by stretching strands of thread between accurately measured and plotted pins, giving new life to simple illustrations.

So after adoring her from afar, we asked her to come and create a pin and thread artwork of the notonthehighstreet.com logo in our cosy reception area. We were amazed by how quickly and skilfully she tapped the hundreds of tiny pins into the wall, and then began threading the coloured cotton around each one. We are all really pleased with the result and feel privileged to have our own, original artwork in the office.

We’re thrilled to say that Debbie is also applying her talents to other projects, and will soon be selling a range of products through the site. Watch this space!

Posted by jenniferbaldwin on 03 February 2011