Poundshop!

You might have read about Poundshop before – this brilliant design initiative, where new and established talent create bespoke items to be sold at £1, £5, and £10 in a temporary shop – has been going since 2010.

And there are just two days left of Poundshop 7, at the Chinese Art Centre, Manchester  – as it ends on 22 June. There's also an online version of the shop if you're not local. I think it's great.

Poundshop's founders – George Wu, Sarah Gottlieb (no longer involved in the project) and Sara Melin – met at the Royal College of Art. "The idea was born during a discussion about love for design shops, but as the recession just hit, not having the capital to set one up ourselves," they explain on the website. "A friend who works for Croydon council, suggested we set up one in Croydon as there are many disused shops, and thought we should set up a poundshop. What started as a joke, turned into a real exhibition as we set ourselves the challenge to create the first design poundshop."

The aim of the project, which has since partnered with The Shoreditch Trust, Somerset House and The Architecture Foundation among many more, is to spread design to a wider audience by making it accessible. And on the designer side, many of those who take part are new to selling products – and so Poundshop provides a platform with low overheads and minimal risk to try out something new. All the products for sale are created specially for Poundshop events – the next of which will be at Selfridges.

Designers involved this time include: Custhom, whose wonderful digital embroidery I've featured here before; Yorkshire-based surface designer, Laura Slater; Marmaduke Marmalade, aka Maybelle Peters whose character-driven stationery and card designs you may have come across at Not on the High Street; there's Elle, Living Etc and Vogue feted Mr PS, whose spectacular Egg, Bacon, Sausage tea-towels I've written about here before too as well as geometric embroiderer, Ness Donnelly and monster lover, Rachel Edwards.



Assemble/ Configure tea-towel, £10

Gift wrap, £1
Motivational monster stickers, £1

Hand-stitched embroidered cards, £1

Poundshop runs until 22 Jun (opening times, 10-5pm) at the Chinese Arts Centre, Market Buildings, 13 Thomas Street, Manchester M4 1EU