Block Design began in 2000, shortly after lead designer Tara Ashe graduated. Tara was keen to combine a passion for design with her engineering background, to create a range of functional, beautiful lifestyle products. For the team, each day in the studio is a collaborative hub of creativity, colour and innovation. Every product begins life in the studio, situated above their workshop. They work hard to ensure they deliver the highest quality design and finish.

Block Design's aim is to bring joy, infusing life with colour, distinctive design and products made to last.

Block Design

The Explorer - Tinned Goods

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Color Stack Glass Carafe

Float Incense Holder

Small Reversible Vase

Reversible Glass Vase

Mini Bubble Vase

The Degas Pen

The Monet Pen

The Hokusai Pen

The Van Gogh Pen

The Gauguin pen

Gradient Chess

Gradient Notebooks

Celebrate - Tinned Goods

High Brow - Tinned Goods

Catching Ideas - Tinned Goods

Clear View - Tinned Goods

Tee Time - Tinned Goods

Season's Greetings Candle - Tinned Goods

Waterproof Playing Cards

Tool Kit

Bamboo Socks - Edition 3

Bamboo Socks - Edition 2

Bamboo Socks - Edition 1

Pop To The Shop

Plant Buddy

Over Night

Nails On The Go

Hot Desk

Coffee Connoisseur’s Travel Set

Brain Tease

Blush Up

Big Night In

9 In 1 Tool Pen 

Our Monthly What's On is a curated round-up of the exhibitions, restaurant openings, residencies and gigs we're making plans for. From gallery shows and design fairs to new tables worth booking, cultural moments to catch, and the under-the-radar events you'll wish you'd heard about sooner.
Think of it as your cultural compass for the month ahead: a considered edit of art, food, music and design, chosen to inspire weekends well spent.
October is the month London stops pacing itself. Frieze lands mid-month and drags the entire art world with it, the film festival runs for twelve days either side, and the big autumn exhibitions open in a cluster in the first fortnight. Book the things that need booking now, and leave a weekend free for the ones that don't.

What's On In October

Some roads are infrastructure. Some are the reason you went. The 8 below are the second kind - routes where the driving is the point, and arriving somewhere is largely incidental. A few are famous. One or two require a ferry, a permit, or a tolerance for gravel. All of them reward going slowly.

The Best Road Trips in the World

A stationery shop is a good test of a city. These are small businesses with thin margins, kept alive by repeat custom and a particular sort of obsessiveness. The ones that last are usually run by someone who has strong feelings about laid paper and no interest at all in footfall. Here are 8 of the most beautiful.

8 of the World's Most Beautiful Stationery Shops

The last warm evenings of the year, and what to do with them. London in late August has a particular quality. The parks are worn thin from three months of use. The light turns amber around seven and the air cools by ten. Almost every outdoor programme in the city is now in its final fortnight, which lends the whole thing a useful urgency. You either go this week or you wait until next May.
Here are 9 ways to spend the evenings that are left, from a floating lido in the Docklands to a car park roof in Peckham.

9 Outdoor Dates for the End of Summer in London

Every August, the same thing happens. Someone in your group finally confirms dates, everywhere is booked up, and you're left refreshing flight searches at 11pm wondering if it's too late. It isn't. It just means being smarter about where you look - and, this time of year, smarter about where everyone else already booked. Short-haul enough to book this week and fly next, without landing somewhere that feels like everyone else's holiday too.

The Best Last-Minute European Summer Holiday Destinations, Without the Crowds

Mint has a habit of looking unfinished; silver is what finishes it. On its own, mint can feel undecided, hovering somewhere between pastel and green. Silver gives it something to play against. 
One comes from the garden, the other from the workshop, but side by side they lose that distance fast. Mint softens the shine, silver sharpens the green, and suddenly both colours make more sense together than they ever did apart.

Mint & Silver

England rewards those who go looking. No peak here rivals the Alps, but the variety more than makes up for it: chalk ridges, dramatic coastlines and gritstone edges with views far bigger than their height suggests. These routes capture the best of the country’s landscapes, from Chilterns beechwoods, to the wild Devon coast, to the Peak District’s most photographed hill. Bring proper boots, check the Devon tide times, and pack a flask.

The Best Hikes in England

The English pub garden is a specific kind of pleasure - part institution, part accident. Nobody designed most of them; they simply accumulated, a few benches at a time, until they became the reason you went. The 10 here are the ones the Glassette team keep going back to: a three-storey treehouse in north London, a stone terrace above the Channel where the beer arrives through a hatch, a Dales garden lit by gaslight, a lawn with a Victorian viaduct for a backdrop. Some do serious food, some do pasties and nothing else. All of them reward staying longer than you meant to.

Our Favourite Pub Gardens

The best campsites tend to be the ones that don't try too hard. A field with a view, a farm shop that sells eggs, a walk to the beach that takes less than ten minutes. The 10 on this list have been chosen for their settings - dunes on the west coast of Scotland, a valley below Kinder Scout, the most southerly point in Britain, and for having resisted the urge to become holiday parks. Book early where you can. The good ones know exactly what they have.

10 Best Campsites in the UK

Gifting is one of those things everyone wants to do well and almost no one has time to think about properly. The Glassette Gift List is here to do the thinking for you - one considered edit a month, built around the moments that actually matter.
No endless scrolling. No panic buying. Just the right things, for the right people, at the right time.

June Glassette Gift List

There's a reason we spend so much time rearranging, repainting and quietly obsessing over the right shade of green for a single wall. Home is personal - more personal, probably, than most of us admit. This month, we've been thinking about that: about the objects that make a space feel inhabited rather than staged, and about the particular satisfaction of a room that couldn't belong to anyone else.
Our pride homeware edit is built around that idea. Pieces with colour and character, chosen for the people who know exactly what they want and aren't especially interested in playing it safe. Mustard Made, who are donating 10% of sales to LGBTQ+ rights organisation Outright International throughout June, sit at the heart of it, alongside a handful of other finds that feel considered, a bit daring, and genuinely built to last.
No novelty product here. Just good things, for homes with a point of view.

Pride Homeware Edit

Your invitation sets the tone before a single guest arrives. At Glassette, we believe the details matter - the texture under your fingertips, the ink on the page, the moment someone pulls an invitation from an envelope and feels something. Whether you're drawn to the delicate or the bold, the handcrafted or the graphic, here are five beautiful approaches to making your invitations truly unforgettable.

Creative Ideas For Invitations

Pull up a stool at Three Sheets and you'll quickly understand why it's lasted a decade. Max Venning opened the Dalston bar in a matter of weeks - keys on a Wednesday, doors open by Friday - and what started as a makeshift cocktail station and a coat of paint has quietly grown into one of the most respected names in London hospitality.
Now with a second site in Soho and a Dirty Martini that's become something close to legendary, Max reflects on what it actually takes to build a bar people keep coming back to, why regulars are everything, and the drink he'd happily order for the rest of his life.

London's Best Dirty Martini

Saturday nights look a little different at Glassette HQ lately. The group chats still exist, the wine still gets opened - but somewhere along the way, a board got laid out, and nobody really wanted to leave. Games night, it turns out, is the social ritual that actually delivers: present, competitive, and significantly cheaper than another round.
This edit pulls together the ones worth owning - beautiful enough to display, good enough to play.

Trending Now: Board Games

A pairing that shouldn't work as well as it does, cherry and turquoise operate on pure contrast. Saturated warmth against electric cool, the richness of a deep red-toned cherry meeting the clarity of an almost Mediterranean turquoise.
Cherry anchors the combination, bringing depth, drama, and a sense of the deeply considered. Turquoise cuts through it with energy and lightness, stopping the whole thing from taking itself too seriously. Together they create something that feels simultaneously bold and balanced, the kind of colour story that looks instinctive but is anything but.

Cherry & Turquoise

Because if you’re going to finally sort your life out (subscriptions, savings, that one email you’ve been avoiding since October) you may as well do it properly. Think candles, good food, a table full of friends, and just enough peer pressure to actually press “cancel subscription”. Here's how to host one.

Admin Night Hosting

Our weekly Nice Things Edit is a curated Monday round-up of what we’re loving right now. From our favourite pieces on Glassette to a recipe, a watch, a read, a place to visit, a restaurant, and a gift worth bookmarking.
Each week, every member of the Glassette team shares their current favourites, whether that’s new arrivals, pieces we’ve spotted trending, or timeless finds we can’t stop thinking about. Think of it as a weekly dose of joy, discovery, and design inspiration, handpicked by the Glassette team.

Nice Things This Week

May Glassette Gift List

Thoughtful gifts for new arrivals - beautiful, practical, and designed to be loved for years. From a Cushy Puff pregnancy pillow to support the days before birth, to a children’s print by Yaya Studios or Surprise Radish for the nursery.

Baby Shower Gifting

Looking for an evening ritual without wine that still feels indulgent? This Glassette guide explores what to replace wine with instead, from warm drinks and alcohol-free aperitifs to calming objects and sensory cues that help you properly wind down. Practical, design-led ideas for creating a grown-up evening ritual without deprivation.