Lucy James Q&A

We spoke to the woman in the know to get her thoughts on everything from being a part of a young Dezeen, the ever-changing London design scene and what we should be seeing during this year’s LDF.

I’ve always loved design. I studied Contemporary Furniture Design at Buckinghamshire Chilterns – a fantastic course that has now sadly closed because of a lack of funding. The dedication and enthusiasm of the lecturers really inspired me. 

Tell us a little about your career to date.

At the end of my course, I quite quickly realised that my passion really lay in finding new design talents and writing about them. This lead the way to an internship at Icon magazine, then edited by Marcus Fairs. I then went on to work with Marcus on Pecha Kucha and for a short period, was the very first employee of Dezeen.  After this I was fortunate enough to start working with two of my favourite designers, Edward Barber & Jay Osgerby in my first role in PR. After several years, I moved just up the road to SCP where I now work as PR & Marketing Manager.  I love working for such a dynamic company. Having our own upholstery factory means that there is a lot more interaction between the designers and us. It’s quite a luxury to be able to build relationships with both the people who design and the people who make our products. 

I spent last weekend driving around Somerset in a VW California campervan. It’s possibly the most clever use of space I have ever seen. 

The resurgence of the British manufacturing industry. I think there is less of a gap between the designer and the maker now. Many designers are now either self-producing or choosing to work with UK based manufacturers rather than looking overseas. This has generated a revival of regions in the UK that have a history and expertise in a particular craft - for example, Stoke-on-Trent. 

Through SCP, I have been organising the Shoreditch Design Triangle for the past six years. It started life as ten local companies joining forces to host a series of design-led events that ran at the same time as 100% Design. It has grown year-on-year and now we have over sixty events taking place in Shoreditch alone. This year there are seven official design districts in The London Design Festival–areas of London where there is an emerging and/or growing design community. It’s amazing that these areas were once considered the fringe events of the festival and have now become the go-to locations for festivalgoers.

The South East Makers Club is a new design district that I set up in my spare time with founder of Simple Shape, Helen Osgerby, Art Director at South East London Journal, Benji Roebuck and Zetteler’s very own Jodi Moss. What an absolute dream team! I’m super passionate about this, having lived in the South East for the past six years.  I love discovering all of these talents who are literally on my doorstep. 

The South East Makers Club takes place on the final weekend of The London Design Festival 24th-25th September. There‘s loads of exciting events going on over the course of the weekend: Helen is presenting a Simple Shape exhibition with ceramicists Jono Smart and Luke Eastop, A selection of Cockpit Arts makers are opening up their studios, Sebastian Cox and Yeshen Venema have an exhibition near Deptford Bridge, Lewisham Art House will host a series of talks by the likes of Jay Osgerby and Max Fraser, Eleanor Prichard and Tord Boontje, there will be a SE Makers Market at the Bussey Building, Real to Reel is showing at the Curzon Goldsmiths and Vanguard Court will be opening their doors to the public. Oh yes, and we have a Designer Pub quiz at THE NINES on Sunday night hosted by Tom O’Dell. I could go on…but I’ll leave the rest as a surprise.  

Well, with sixty-four events taking place, its certainly worth setting aside a day to wander around the area (Tuesday 20th is late night opening) I suggest starting at the Ace Hotel Shoreditch which is the festival hub and checking out their show with Modern Design Review - Ready Made Go 2. After this come visit us at SCP. We have six shows this year including a Piet Hien Eek exhibition and talk, a show of Mexican crafts, the latest designs from the SCP 2016 collection and new designs by Roll & Hill, Hannah Waldron and Donna Wilson (A pouffe totem pole-not to be missed). 

Then head down Calvert Avenue. There is a host of great shops on this road who never disappoint during the design festival. My favourite stores are Luna & Curious, O’Dell’s and Charlene Mullen.

Another great Shoreditch design hub not to be missed is Redchurch Street. Be sure to stop by Prin London & Studio Furthermore at the 1.1 Gallery, Reiko Kaneko at Elementary and Sonos Studio’s music and design programme. 

Below 1: Shoreditch Design Triangle (Luna & Curious), 2: VW campervan, 3: Simple Shape. Image courtesy of Jono Smart, 4: South East Makers Club, 5: Ready Made Go - Modern Design Review x Ace Hotel. Photography Peter Guenzel, 6: Piet Hein Eek and SCP Forever.