News: Finnish furniture brand Artek has acquired the production facilities that were used by its co-founder Modernist architect Alvar Aalto to develop his signature bent wood furniture. More
News: online design retailer Fab has changed its strategy yet again, ending its relationship with external designers and brands across Europe and instead focusing on selling its own custom-designed furniture. More
Interview: Bradford Shellhammer, founder and chief design officer of Fab, explains why the company dropped the "flash sales" model to become both a manufacturer and online retailer of design. In an interview with Dezeen he discusses how Fab is disrupting the industry, how it can help designers and how it "absolutely" wants to open physical stores. More
News: Swiss design brand Vitra has acquired Artek, the Finnish furniture company co-founded by Modernist architect Alvar Aalto in 1935. More
News: leading Italian furniture brand Driade has been rescued from bankruptcy by a private finance company. More
News: Italian furniture brand Kartell has announced that it will launch 50 flagship stores across China in the next five years. More
News: the new president of Milan's Salone Internazionale del Mobile has revealed plans to rebrand the fair, replace its "terrible" website and tackle hotel overpricing and transport chaos that are damaging its image (+ interview). More
News: the deliberate copying of a design is set to become a criminal offence in the UK, in line with the law on breaching copyright and trademarks. More
News: the way design is sold to the public is "stuck" in the past and hasn't changed since the seventies, according to the founder of a brand that aims to sell high-quality furniture online (+ interview). More
News: Bahrain-based investment bank Investcorp has agreed to pay $140m to buy luxury design brand Georg Jensen, the Danish luxury brand famous for its silverware and jewellery, from Danish private equity group Axcel. More
News: a tool that lets businesses measure and predict the financial outcomes of investing in design is being developed by a research team in Finland, whose project leader says designers should talk numbers rather than aesthetics to appeal to prospective clients. More
News: online design retailer Fab.com is closing its UK site and relocating up to 35 staff from London to Berlin as part of a move to create a single European e-commerce site based in Germany. More
News: Berlin design fair Qubique has been postponed until 2013, the organisers have announced. More
Dezeen Wire: Dutch architecture and design publishers NAi Publishers and 010 are to merge and will be known as nai010 publishers from 1 July . More details on the NAi website.
Related: last month venerable Swiss architectural publisher Birkhäuser went into administration.
Dezeen Wire: Swiss architecture and design publisher Birkhäuser has gone into administration just over two years after being bought out by Spanish publisher ACTAR.
All business is currently on hold until a new buyer can be found for the company, which was first founded by Emil Birkhäuser back in 1879.