Scan Magazine | Design Profile | Helbak ApS / Kidi ApS
Interiors that brighten your day
By Heidi Kokborg | Photos: Helbak
Malene Helbak designs colourful and versatile products in a clean, Nordic style that makes you smile, and which brightens up both your day and your home. Her hope is that her designs will inspire people and radiate happiness and positivity. In 2000, ceramist Malene Helbak founded the company Helbak, creating beautiful and colourful products for everyday use in your home. She wanted to design products that would brighten up people’s day. “When I studied in London, I went to markets almost every weekend, and I loved all the products from the ‘50s. To me, they radiated such positivity, happiness and optimism about the future. It might just be a cup, but to me it was so much more. This is what inspires me when I create my products. I hope that it makes people’s day better if they start their morning drinking coffee from one of my mugs,” Helbak smiles.
limit. “I love the idea that people can use a cup for coffee, as a toothbrush stand or to keep pencils in it. Or use the plates for a flower decoration on the table. I like to break the habits and let people decide what they want to do with the things and use them for,” says the designer. You can buy Helbak’s designs online and in a range of boutiques around Denmark.
Web: www.helbak.dk Facebook: helbak.dk Instagram: @helbakdesign
Let your imagination run wild One of the unusual things about Helbak’s products is that you can use them for anything you like – only your imagination is the
Design your own unique Square Reol The Square Reol is Kidi’s baby. It was how the company started, and the shelf is still the heart of the company. You choose the colours and wood for your own unique Square Reol, so you effectively end up designing a shelf that is exactly how you want it. In 2004, Flemming Didriksen felt that there had to be a better way of building shelves, so he sat down and started drawing the shelf he thought was missing on the market. Shortly afterwards, the Square Reol was born, and Didriksen and his wife, Kirsten Stilling, founded the company Kidi. “The Square Reol is our company’s baby. It is a modular system consisting of six modules that people build, like Lego. The customer chooses between seven colours and decides whether they want it to be in finger-tapped solid oak or walnut,” says Didriksen.
Luxurious furniture What makes the Square Reol stand out from other shelves is the fact that the external dimensions are fixed, and therefore, 28 | Issue 111 | April 2018
no matter how you combine the modules, they are always aligned. As a new and luxurious touch, you can also choose a leather grip on the Square Reol. “We wanted to offer people something more luxurious. The grips are made by people from the Institute for the Blind and Partially Sighted, because we realised that they needed work, and they are very good at creating the grips,” Didriksen explains.
By Heidi Kokborg | Photos: Kidi
Kidi also makes furniture such as sideboards and tables made of luxurious solid lumber. Web: www.kidi.dk Facebook: Square Reolen Instagram: @kidi.dk