"I found a book called Dickens' Dictionary of London, written by Charles Dickens' son," says Wilcox. "In that book he describes the Seven Dials area as having many pet shops, with birds from all over the world."

Strung across the street in a line, the bird cages were left open to symbolise that the pet shops have now been replaced by clothes and shoe stores, though Wilcox claims he spotted a few birds using the cages.

Dezeen commissioned seven young designers to create seven installations to hang above the streets of Covent Garden during last year's London Design Festival, and Wilcox's The Birds of Seven Dials installation was located on Neal Street.

Watch Faye Toogood talk through her installation of 49 worker's coats in the first movie from this series here.

Wilcox presents more of his projects in a movie we filmed at Dezeen Live, a series of talks at 100% Design during London Design Festival.

Photography is by Mark Cocksedge.

The music featured in the movie is a song called Blue Sapphire by Remote Scenes. You can listen to the full track on Dezeen Music Project.

See all our stories about design by Dominic Wilcox »
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"I think we're all very tight and worried about what people think," Wilcox explains. "But actually fun, crazy ideas - maybe something else comes out of them."

Above: photos taken during the recording of Sounds of East London

Wilcox introduces the first of five images he chose for the talk, which shows pictures taken while creating his Sounds of Making in East London record; an alternative east London Olympic souvenir. "We have a huge amount of creative makers," he says. "What I decided to do was to celebrate that fact and so I visited 21 historical, skillful, creative makers and simply recorded the sound of them making, of them working."

The next image is a montage of his races against a 3D printer earlier this year, when he beat the machine on two occasions. "The ironic thing about rapid prototyping is how slow it is," he comments. He's also sceptical about the usefulness of 3D printers: "I think if the quality goes up and the price comes down then a lot of people will get them," he predicts, but asks "do we really want people at home printing off a load of rubbish?"

Above: racing a 3D printer during Salone de Mobile 2012 in Milan

Wilcox then explains some of his illustrations from the Variations on Normal series, including a family poncho, shoes for walking up hills and a reverse bungee jump. "In my sketchbooks I've got lot of inventions, or just ideas of things," he says. "It's just an alternative way of thinking."

Above: invention illustrations

Another of those ideas is his No Place Like Home GPS shoes that were inspired by Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. "When she clicks her heels together she gets transported back to Kansas and I thought, 'is it possible to make that real in some way?'" he says.

Above: No Place Like Home GPS shoes

Dezeen Live was a series of discussions between Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs and a number of designers and critics that took place as part of the talks programme at design exhibition 100% Design during this year’s London Design Festival.

Each of the four one-hour shows, recorded live in front of an audience, included three interviews plus music from Dezeen Music Project featuring a new act each day. Over the next few weeks we’ll be posting all the movies we filmed during the talks and you can watch all the movies we've featured so far here.

The music featured in the movie is a track called My Son is a Fish Finger by Reset Robot. Listen to more of their songs on Dezeen Music Project.

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Above: vinyl cutting machine that engraves music onto discs

Dominic Wilcox recorded the sounds of 21 craft and manufacturing processes in east London onto a 10-inch vinyl record to be sold as an alternative Olympic souvenir. The designer spoke about the project at the Pecha Kucha event at our Designed in Hackney Day on 1 August, explaining his surprise at hearing excerpts of his project on a Japanese radio station.

Above: tuning a bell at Whitechapel Bell Foundry

"I thought about what's unique about east London: so we don't have the big buildings like the west do but we have lots of makers," said Wilcox.

Above: illustrations by Clare Mallison

The sounds he recorded include the tuning of a bell at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, the oldest manufacturer in Britain and makers of the bells at St. Mary-le-Bow church and Big Ben.

Above: cooking at a Vietnamese restaurant on Kingsland Road, Dalston

Audio clips of illustrator Clare Mallison drawing "rosemary and chicken with sweet potato" and the cooking and eating of Vietnamese food at a restaurant on Kingsland Road in Dalston also feature on the vinyl.

Above: London's only maker of press knives for cutting leather

Wilcox struggled to his explain his intentions at the restaurant, and says that "after much confusion and me not leaving the restaurant, they let me in and I had fried frogs legs and fried goat".

Above: a factory that makes bespoke spectacles

Wilcox illustrated the front of the sleeve with pictures of the items he recorded and hand wrote descriptions about them on the back, which he explained "took nearly as long as the whole project" to scribe without mistakes.

Above: pie-making on Broadway Market

The record was one of five souvenirs for the London 2012 Olympics by east London designers, commissioned by arts organisation Create and curated and produced by Thorsten van Elten.

Above: packaging of air-curing rubber Sugru

Designed in Hackney is a Dezeen initiative to showcase world-class architecture and design created in the borough, which was one of the five host boroughs for the London 2012 Olympic Games as well as being home to Dezeen’s offices.

To find out more about the other discussions from Designed in Hackney Day, see our highlights reported here. See more stories about design and architecture from Hackney here.

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London on Tokyo radio" - Dominic Wilcox appeared first on Dezeen.

Structures by young designers Faye Toogood, Vic Lee, Paul Cocksedge, Philippe Malouin, Aberrant Architecture, Gitta Gschwendtner and Dominic Wilcox are installed above the streets of the Seven Dials area of Covent Garden, London.

There are little exhibits on each one at our pop-up shop Dezeen Super Store at 38 Monmouth Street, where you can still get 10% off any Dezeen Super Store purchase (excluding sale stock and Jambox) and enter our competition to win a designer watch worth £150 by downloading this flyer and presenting it at the shop.

Dezeen has also put together a free map to chart all the events at this year's London Design Festival. Explore the large map here.

The Seven Designers for Seven Dials installations will be in place until 5 October and Dezeen Super Store is open until 30 September.

See all our stories about the London Design Festival here.

Above: 7 x 7 by Faye Toogood - hanging high above the heads of passers-by on Monmouth Street, Faye Toogood’s installation is a series of 49 outsized workers’ overcoats, representing the different trades within Seven Dials that have shaped the area over the years.

Above: Aerial Escape by Gitta Gschwendtner - German-born designer Gitta Gschwendtner has also taken inspiration from the area’s slum history, when each of the seven apexes facing the Seven Dials monument housed pubs linked by underground escape tunnels. In Gschwendtner’s installation, seven interconnected ladders link two windows either side of Earlham Street to seemingly provide an escape route across the road and beyond.

Above: The Birds of Seven Dials by Dominic Wilcox - London designer Dominic Wilcox has created an arch across Neal Street made out of empty bird cages, symbolising Charles Dickens’s description of Seven Dials as a place full of bird shops. Each cage is left open to symbolise the memory of the bird shops and birds long departed from the street.

Above: Catchpenny Quackery by Aberrant Architecture - Aberrant Architecture’s installation consists of 18 large metallic coins hanging above the street. Each coin features a unique symbol that advertises one of the bogus products and services that used to be offered by quack doctors in the Seven Dials area in years gone by.

Above: Bunting by Philippe Malouin - Philippe Malouin has erected a giant installation of bunting made from transparent PVC to celebrate and highlight the Seven Dials area and its landmarks. Blown by the wind, the sixty bunting lines point the way to the Seven Dials monument.

Above: Illustrations by Vic Lee - London-based illustrator Vic Lee has created a series of flags that draw on the shady history of the Seven Dials area. The illustrations incorporate the old street names during the 17th and 18th centuries, a time when Seven Dials was a slum famous for its gin shops.

Above: Dial by Paul Cocksedge - Paul Cocksedge has suspended a mysterious interactive installation called Dial, consisting simply of a large floating telephone number suspended between two buildings. Only those curious members of the public tempted to call the number will discover its secret.

Photographs are by Mark Cocksedge.

Dezeen's London Design Festival map

.

The map above is taken from Dezeen's guide to the London Design Festival, which lists all the events going on across the city this week. We'll be updating it over the coming days with extra information on our highlights so keep checking back. Explore the larger version of this map here.

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audio guide appeared first on Dezeen.

One of the No Place Like Home shoes has GPS technology embedded in the heel and an antenna in the red ankle tag. It communicates wirelessly with the other shoe.

Custom-made software plots the location of home on a map before the data is uploaded to the shoe through a USB cable that plugs into the insole.

The ring of LEDs in the left toe points the wearer in the right direction while those on the right toe show the journey's progress.

"I had done a doodle about a month previously on my 'Sounds of Making in East London' record cover of a shoe with a switch on the front," Wilcox told Dezeen. "I think this was in my mind somehow, but I also thought about the Wizard of Oz and Dorothy's shoes to take her home. Mostly it was just an idea for a pair of shoes that I wanted to own myself," he added.

Dorothy's red shoes are referenced in the red calf-leather lining, while Wilcox's illustrations of different homes are etched on the soles.

Wilcox worked with technology expert Becky Stewart from Codasign and Northampton shoe makers Stamp Shoes. The project was commissioned by the Global Footprint project in Northamptonshire, an English county famous for shoe making.

The shoes are being shown at Wilcox's solo exhibition during the London Design Festival at KK Outlet, 42 Hoxton Square, N1 6PB – scroll down for a map.

See all stories about Dominic Wilcox »
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London Design Festival map

.

The map above is taken from Dezeen's guide to the London Design Festival, which lists all the events going on across the city this week. We'll be updating it over the coming days with extra information on our highlights so keep checking back. Explore the larger version of this map here.

Dominic Wilcox will be speaking on Thursday 20 September at Dezeen Live, our series of live daily shows featuring talks with designers and critics during the 100% Design trade fair at Earls Court, west London.

Dominic Wilcox features in our book, Dezeen Book of Ideas. Buy it now for just £12.

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by Dominic Wilcox appeared first on Dezeen.