"ShelfOfShame" is a fun website created by the founders of L+B, Anthony and Hilly. It features tats, ugly and amusing travel souvenirs, that are of no lasting value, that have been collected by the staff at L+B and their friends and relatives.  The "ShelfOfShame" was actually a physical shelf in their office but in their endeavor to share it with other people, Ant and Hilly came up with the website.

If you think that you can come up with a cheesier, tackier or more amusing tat then you can share it with the folks at "ShelfOfShame". But beware, according to them - "tat hunting is addictive and we can’t be held responsible if you completely ruin your reputation as a style icon".

We had a chance to interview Ant and Hilly and get their perspective on the collection of tats.The website has a very interesting interface, with the user having to scroll horizontally through the tats, the reason behind which is explained in the interview. Catch the interview below:



Anthony and Hilly, tell us something about yourselves.

We're designers, believe it or not! Met at Norwich School of Art - ooh, quite a while ago - both studying graphic design, before setting up our company Lawrence+Beavan (www.landb.co.uk). We were print designers originally, adding online media in the 90s. We've always worked to a very wide remit and as well as regular branding, brochures, websites etc, we've designed everything from campaigning billboards to the interiors of buildings and traveling exhibitions, we’ve invented characters, and recently produced the graphics for our first app. L+B pretty much pioneered professional design and advertising for animal charities here in the UK – their publications were typically knocked out by printers until then.

Who You Calling Chicken?

How did you come up with the concept of a website to showcase ugly souvenirs from your travels?. Do you have a story to share with us?

The Shelf of Shame was a real shelf in our staff room at our old Soho studio. In the late 90s, Anthony returned from a trip to Paris with a large Eiffel Tower on a small globe, which he thought perfectly summed up the French idea of their place in the world (!) and that started an L+B tradition of searching for fabulous tourist tat when we went on holiday. Staff, friends and relatives all joined in and we’ve ended up with quite a collection. However when we moved to an open plan studio in 2003, we thought maybe it didn't quite fit the image of a design consultancy (though why we thought it was more discreet online I don't know!), so The Shelf was stashed away in a cupboard.

We had the idea of putting it online a few years ago and bought www.shelfofshame.com but never had time to do anything about it. Last autumn, however, we wanted to experiment with a WordPress-based website, and also decided to feature Moose Willis (a souvenir from Finland) on our studio Christmas card, so we had to get the website finished to explain who he was!

Moose Willis

We are curious to know the origin of the term “tat”. Can you explain this to our readers?

I actually don't know - "tourist tat" is a popular term for holiday souvenirs, and generally implies the tackier variety! Wikipedia defines it as a “British colloquial term for cheap, low quality items of no lasting monetary or resale value, with limited aesthetic appeal”. Well, really!

Follow That Cathedral

Caught By The Balkans

The Eyeful Tower

What criteria do you follow in collecting and listing your tat?

Our ideal tat needs to have unmistakeable clues to its origins - doesn't need to include the name of the place (though that's always a bonus) but something that shows where it's from. We love silly or funny - or even utterly bizarre (like the Barcelona taxi/snowglobe/Sagrada Familia combo) and pointless is great, hence our category of "faux thermometers" which are painted on, so clearly have no purpose whatsoever. Some of the tat has great charm (Moose Willis is a case in point and there's a growing fanclub who feel he is too cute for The Shelf). We don't mind smutty (clearly if you look at the Leaning Tower of Pisa) but we draw the line at overt or offensive.

We constantly marvel at how this stuff gets to be designed - who thinks it up, who approves it, and what other ideas were rejected as less good!!


Since when are you accepting “tat” as user submissions? How can a user contribute a “tat”?

We welcome submissions - via our Twitter @shelfofshame or Facebook pages - indeed one early submission via Twitter is now in the Facebook Poll for the next Tat of the Month!


Your website has a very interesting user interface, the horizontal scrolling to view the “tat”. How did you come up with this design?. What do you plan to do when the number of “tat” grows significantly, now that you are accepting “tat” submissions?

The Shelf simply had to scroll sideways to display the collection - we wanted people to have an authentic shelf experience where everything was displayed in a row, albeit a virtual one. It's also a bit reminiscent of a long-running UK Saturday night family TV programme called The Generation Game where contestants had to recall items they'd seen passing them on a conveyor belt, and The Shelf has a hint of that retro nostalgia about it. We'll keep adding, and will feature the best new piece as Tat of the Month, but we'll probably have to retire some pieces if The Shelf gets too heavy as a download. We will also feature new pieces on our Facebook page.




























What are your favorite “tats” and where are they from?. Which tat do you find to be the most sarcastic?

Oh gosh, there are so many. We do have a soft spot for snowglobes and there is a particularly good one from Dubai with the world's tallest building in a yellow plastic "lava lamp", or there's the flamingo toothpick holder, the nodding head Silvio Berlusconi, the ashtray in shaped like a hand of bananas... we love them all!














































































What are your future plans for the ShelfofShame?

Onwards and upwards - we are totally amazed at the amount of interest from all around the world. Seems that many, many people have a great affection for tourist tat! In the past couple of weeks we've been featured in mainstream newspaper websites in the UK, Italy, Iceland and Denmark, and interviewed by BBC radio! We had absolutely no idea it was going to be so popular - and we are totally thrilled that so many people are sharing in the fun!


Other than working on the ShelfofShame what other interesting projects are you guys working on?

We have always created self-generated projects alongside our regular studio work and currently are working on some designs for glasses cases - but The Shelf is the only thing currently that's just for fun! When we started our studio we created a series of button badges and a record label in our spare time to raise money for animal charities (memorably, Meat Is Murder was one of our original slogans, later borrowed by The Smiths!). In our normal day to day life we design for a wide range of clients from charities to schools to logistics companies, covering printed materials, websites, enews etc. Recently we designed all the graphics for an HQ building in Los Angeles.


What is the one most inspirational quote that you would like to share with our readers?

I think it’s fair to say that "beauty really is in the eye of the beholder" in our case! “Humour is a universal language” also resonates. And of course our slogan for The Shelf is “Abandon taste all ye who enter here”.


Thank you Ant and Hilly for taking the time for this interview, we hope that the world continues to sell and buy horrendous souvenirs. We wish you the very best!


ShelfOfShame.com