New Designers 2013

Yesterday afternoon I popped into the preview of New Designers, the annual exhibition in London showcasing emerging design talent. 

3,000 new graduates are selected to appear and share their wares with the public during the two-week period the show runs. It happens in two parts, and Part Two is the one I was interested to see, as it has a big interiors and illustration focus. It runs until 5 July at the Business Design Centre in Islington. Here are the designs that caught my eye.

Clever, adaptable shelving / storage system designed by Loughborough University graduate, Helen Robson, who specialises in sustainable design. 

Desk tidying stuff. Lovely. And yellow! These "friendly everyday objects" are designed by Clea Jentsch.

The products also come in green, and the pencil sharpener, above, is particularly pleasing.

Concrete and wood desk lamps, with a flash of electric blue wiring, by
Matthew Parrish.

The cleverest ideas are often the most simple. This is a beautifully made magnifying glass that props up on a shelf or mantlepiece, to magnify your favourite little objects. It's designed by Zak Stratfold. Love it.

These colourful drawings of the artist's hometown, Cambridge, are cheerful and endearing. That artist is  freelance illustrator and surface pattern designer Crista Wright. Her buildings drawings (she does lots of other styles too) remind me a bit of the beautiful Lydia Stanwix postcards of St Ives I featured a while back.

I loved product designer Henry Franks' sense of humour. These brass beauties above come with a little label telling you their name (Gordon).

This stress-busting desk ornament (if you like) also comes with a some explanatory notes: "Gordon is the personification of the English idiom 'gets my goat'. The saying originated because people with race horses used to keep a goat coralled with their horses to keep them calm. The horses would get agitated if someone took the goat away, so if someone 'gets your goat' you are left agitated. Don't worry, because Gordon is outrageously heavy so no one can 'get your goat'. So whilst at your desk, he will keep you calm, productive and happy." Brilliant.

Henry also designed this, which he calls Bog Standard. It came about as part of a project to see how humour could improve everyday objects. Loo roll positioning is a hot topic in my house right now.

Clerkenwell Design Week: last day

If you're in London, and skiving off this afternoon – or around before 9pm this evening in the Clerkenwell vicinity, you still have the chance to check out the CDW exhibitions before they close, tonight.

There are three major ones in different buildings. And if you only do two, I would recommend first, the one in the Farmiloe Building... but mainly for the building itself.

This former glassworks, all brickwork and unusual spaces – from the vast entrance with its arial exhibiting space to the windy corridors a wonderful little rooms with wood and glass panelled doors upstairs, makes for a beautiful and atmospheric backdrop for fresh, gleaming design. If you haven't checked it out before during London Design Festival, when it's also put to good use for Designers Block, it's really worth seeing just for the space itself – in fact, it's one of my favourite interiors in London. This image is from Industri UK, where you can take an online walkthrough tour of this wonderful place (it hires such buildings out for big events).

On show at the Farmiloe are lots of swish design stores and brands – the furniture may be out of range price-wise, but an exhibition environment turns it from a consumer experience to a cultural one, no? Exhibitors include some of my favourites, such as Theo and SCP, as well as the likes of Swedese (pictured above), Dyke and Dean, who have a temporary shop at the event, and Very Good and Proper, who have also designed the event's mobile version of the Canteen restaurant along with Transport for London. Check out the full list of brands on show here.

But if you have already been to the Farmiloe before (it's also been put to use by Designers Block during previous London Design Festivals), then try the exhibition inside a Victorian former prison: House of Detention, pictured above.

This is also where you'll find lots if up-and-coming rather than established designers showing their wares. Check out Irish designer, Donna Bates, aka I Do Cartwheels – her milkshed inspired lighting is brilliantly unusual. While recent graduate, Freyja Sewell's HUSH Chair (pictured below) is something we could all surely do with after long working week, or a big night out. For a full list of exhibitors, click here (once there, click on their logos and you'll get images and links to their individual sites. Be warned, you will lose several hours...).

The super Sofa.com Emerging Designer Award

I love it when big brands do good stuff. And the Emerging Designer Award hosted by Sofa.com, in which the winning student designer will bag £3,000 and see their design put into production, is very good indeed.

But who would you pick? These are my favourites. Today at least. There is lots of talent and 15 brilliant shortlisted entries in total.

Natalie Raines from Nottingham Trent University, was inspired by Swedish 1960s textiles to create this chirpy repeat pattern, which began as a drawing of a stem of grapes

Sophie Berry, from Bath Spa University, has entered this graphic interpretation of cutlery in clean, simple monochrome.

Harriet Popham, at Swansea Metropolitan University, drew on traditional blue and white Dutch porcelain for this intricate, striking design

Ruth Duggan, another Nottingham Trenter, studied moths around a light to create the original drawings for this digital print.

Yvonne Shore, is the second Swansea Metropolitan shortlister. I think the combination of wool, muted, sludgy colours and bold black lines, look fantastic mocked up on the sofa.

Louise Coleman, also at Nottingham Trent, has played with the theme of the Mad Hatter's tea party, combined with inspiration from the Norfolk countryside.






Although the winner will be picked by a judging panel next month, there is a People's Vote (with the chance to win £1,000 to spend at the store): voting is a marvellously simple button click, and you can see all the shortlisters here.