It has been a hectic year of change and rapid growth here at the Mance studio. After several weeks of moving to our new location at 103-105 Green Street, Richmond, we are now totally settled in and have used every inch of the 420 square metres we now occupy. Throughout the move, The Mance Design team have been busy with new projects around the globe, including The Borgata Water Polo Club in New Jersey, filled with our delightful Fruits pendants, The City Of Dreams Hotel in Macau which shall be graced with custom made wall lights, and the Gaylord Hotel and Entertainment Complex in Tampa, Florida now sports a pair of enormous Hedgehogs.

In August, we won the Home Beautiful "Product of the Year Award" in the Luxury Lighting Division for the "Ghost Story" pendant. It was a fantastic acknowledgement of our unique design sensibility. Closer to home, we participated in this years' Melbourne Design Festival with a 'Floating Light Palace' on the Yarra. The theme "When it rains, it pours" was interpreted by Mance Design as a reference to global warming- that if our seas are to rise and engulf us, we can at least have some beauty around us as we learn to be accustomed to a world that is in a state of constant change. The metaphor for Mance Design is that our worlds are one and the same.

As you can see colour is big this year- the bold use on one new product, the "Tutu" can be seen as a gesture towards embracing this important design element. Appreciating the psychology of colour is a fundamental; by incorporating strong graphic injections into our interior environments we allow a fuller and richer experience of life itself.