This is another in my occasional series on the Signature pieces by different designers. I’ve already talked about Baron Grayson’s hammock and Szabo Horn’s grandfather clock, and Lilith Heart’s palm trees in these articles. These are beautiful pieces and, in some ways, they’ve become the signature pieces for their designers – items that are so lovely and memorable that they appear throughout SL – sometimes in unexpected places.
The signature piece I’m going to talk about today is a little different because it’s a type that’s relatively common in Second Life – and yet this designer does it so very well that it has made an great impression wherever she deploys them – and this is Sofia Standish’s vases and planters from her store Sofia’s Furniture on Serafina.
The vase you can see here is one of the first pieces I acquired from Sofia- you’ll find it in the meditation corner of my office, and also on the Prim Perfect banner (which you’ll see at the top of this page). This elegant tall vase is one of two main designs that Sofia uses, and I first discovered them when I was attempting to furnish my first home, the castle that I’ve written about in the Banana Palm Saga (links at the bottom of this page).
I had three large floors and only 200 prims to furnish the whole thing – so I was aiming for some comfortable chairs and then some beautiful, eye-catching pieces that would serve to draw the eye without exploding the prim limit. And Sofia’s vases, in a range of beautiful and interesting textures, did exactly that.
She is still producing more of these lovely vases, either in this large form or in a slightly smaller format. A couple of recent designs include a medieval one that combines the imagery and colour of stained glass windows, or the lovely piece to the left, which can be seen enlarged here on Flickr. I love the contrasts between the blue and the gold here – especially that way that it seems to be lit from within so that it almost glows with light. I’m delighted that she can still bring something fresh and new to the concept!
As well as these tall, elegant jars, Sofia has long produced a range of planters. Sometimes these come in matching forms – Sofia utilises textures cunningly so that she sometimes produces an entire range of furniture following a single theme – so you can have bedroom, living room suite, planters and cases all harmonising.
At other times she picks up elements to create a harmonious whole. This was what she did when, back in June, she was designer of the month and created that really splendid cabin on the three sim-long cruise liner, the Galaxy. The planter, shown here on the right, was originally part of the bedroom set; the Captain of the Galaxy no sooner saw it than he wanted to know where he could buy one (actually, he wanted his own cabin bedroom just the same). And Bill Stirling, the designer and creator of the Galaxy was similarly impressed; he commissioned Sofia to supply planters throughout the ship, so that now you can see them from the lobby of the ship to the gorgeous health club!
Even here (or in the larger photo of Flickr) you can see the texture of this planter which perhaps goes some way to explaining why it’s such an immediately popular piece. Like many of Sofia’s other pieces (such as the Egyptian vase with its carved hieroglyphs, or the mosaic on other vases and planters), this has a tactile feel. The green looks like a burnished metal – and there’s a temptation to slide your fingertips over its smooth polished finish. Perhaps it is this ability to convey a very special sense of reality that makes these so popular, and elevates Sofia’s vases and planters to being signature pieces.
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Prim Perfect 
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