London Design Festival: Day two takes in the mystery of lost shoes and London in comics

Every year by dint of their size and the publicity machines behind them certain LDF projects get more attention than others. But to really appreciate the festival in all its glory, it make sense to seek out some of the hidden gems which always help make LDF what it is. So today we are looking at a show inspired by abandoned shoes, one which celebrates London in graphic novels and a Mexico/London-inspired exhibition form the award-winning Bethan Laura Wood.

Bethan’s show Zig Zag: Criss Cross at The Aram Gallery in Covent Garden brings together work inspired by her wanderings in London and work produced off the back of a seven day stay in Mexico earlier this year. While the London work takes the form of furniture pieces based around marquetry, the Central American influences manifest themselves in a series of glass lights and chandeliers, delicately coloured and intricately assembled to explore light in a very nuanced way.

Just down the road from Bethan’s show, Lost Soles is a pop-up gallery and theatre project inspired by the @adandonedshoes Twitter feed. Taking these randomly scattered footwear as the starting point, various artists from the world of graphics, fashion and illustration have reimagined their own pair of shoes and writers have created short plays based around the Twitter feed. This is the kind of show LDF thrives on and is sure to attract both design obsessives and foot fetishists alike.

Back in east London and at the Baxter and Bailey creative agency in Hoxton Square Sequential City looks at how various graphic novelists have used London as inspiration. From co-opting the famous landmarks to basing characters on people spotted on the Tube, this small show reminds us just how much creative potential this city of ours boasts, and importantly the curators have placed beautiful original panels next to the finished books so they can be contextualised.