28th June 2018

The view from the future: New Designers Week 1

- written by Anya

"New Designers is exciting because of the fresh new work, new minds and new perspectives,” says Luke Fuller, a University of Brighton Ceramics graduate, and winner of the Designer of the Year award. “Everyone here will have a huge impact on the future of the design industry.”

Since its first event over four decades ago, New Designers has been the UK’s go-to showcase for emerging graduate talent on the cusp of taking the creative sector by storm. Spread over two weeks – neatly split into Week 1 and Week 2 – New Designers brings together more than 3,000 of the UK’s most promising graduate designers and makers. Think of it as a hotbed of innovation and ambition; the crème de la crème of graduate creative heads.

The first half of the event kicked off yesterday and runs until Saturday 30 June. Officially opened by legendary fashion designer Orla Kiely, Week 1 features the work of graduates in the fields of Textiles & Fashion, Costume Design, Surface Pattern Design, Ceramics, Glass, Jewellery and Contemporary Design Crafts. “What a treat to come here to New Designers,” said Kiely opening the event yesterday. “These graduates can assure us that, through design, there will be innovation, beauty and joy in our future, while also clearly considering the wider concern of the environment and sustainability.”

Luke Fuller. Photography by Mark Cocksedge.

Orla Kiely officially opened New Designers Week 1. Photo by Mark Cocksedge.

While New Designers has long been a staple on the design calendar, of late its existence has held even greater importance. A damning report released by the Education Policy Institute in September 2017 showed that uptake of creative subjects in state schools has plummeted to its lowest level in a decade. Unsurprisingly, this is not down to lack of demand. A recent study of 1,200 schools – equating to about 40% of all UK secondary schools – found that 90% have been forced to cut back on resources (lesson time, staff or facilities) for teaching the arts. Against this backdrop, New Designers is a critical reminder of the value of cultivating design talent – to both our economy and our creative culture.

As I type, 1,500 creative minds set to shape the design world of tomorrow are gathered in London’s Business Design Centre to showcase and share their talent. With the standard so high, and the designs on display so wide-ranging, it is an impossible task to pick out our favourites. Instead, here are the trends that caught our eye.

Colour

New Designers 2018 is looking like the event’s most bold colourful edition yet, with a preponderance of pastel shades and pops of primary colour adding depth and dynamism to the exhibition as a whole. Clashing patterns and intriguing textural and material contrasts abound.

Diane Bresson (Central St Martins) has created a series of wallpapers featuring abstract shapes and psychedelic colours – a distinctive 1970s aesthetic.

Kitty Lambton (Gray’s School of Art RGU) has explored photography and collage to extract shapes and textures, using flock, foils and other sensory printing methods for her boldly patterned screen prints.

Cher Qie Yin (Central Saint Martins) presents a range of ceramics inspired by the playful pattern and strong colours of the Memphis movement.

Diane Bresson. Photography by Mark Cocksedge.

Kitty Lambton. Photography by Mark Cocksedge.

Cher Qie Yin. Photography by Mark Cocksedge.

Architecture

Many designers are looking to the forms and typologies of architecture for inspiration, translating its ideas into their own disciplines and materials.

Alice Percy Raine (Glasgow School of Art) has drawn on architectural structures toe shape her exploration of decorative and tactile surfaces and the relationship between the physical and the visual.

Ellie Eves (Glasgow School of Art) presents a collection of knitted textiles in soft merino and silicone yarns inspired by brutalism.

Natalie Bell (Nottingham Trent University) shows a series of colourful contemporary vessels in slipcase ceramics reminiscent of modern high-rises.

Alice Percy-Raine. Photo by Mark Cocksedge.

Travel

A number of exhibitors have channelled motifs and aesthetics from other cultures into their work or using narratives from personal travel experiences to inform their design.

Claudia Sabina Veneroni (Glasgow School of Art, T36) combines illustration and textile design to tell surrealist stories based on her travels in Hong Kong – a mixture of illustrative realism with graphic exaggeration created through digital print and embroidery.

Exhibiting as part of One Year In, fashion designer Ashminder Sihra has produced a garment influenced both by kinetic and optical illusion and the colourful beauty of the bridal dresses worn by women in Delhi.

One Year In glass artist Angie Packer showcases a series of decanters and tumblers featuring impressions created by metal objects inspired by the fretwork and stonework of the Venetian cityscape.

Claudia Sabina Veneroni. Photography by Mark Cocksedge.

Ashminder Sihra. Photography by Mark Cocksedge.

Sustainability & Waste

When surveyed before the event, 98% of New Designers’ graduate exhibitors agreed that sustainability and environmental impact were essential considerations for designers making new work today. These concerns are reflected in both the content and composition of many of the works on show at the event.

Sophie McKinney (Nottingham Trent, JC3) has created a family of hand-built ceramic coloured naturally using fruit rinds.

Megan Swancott (Hereford College of Arts, JC63) speculates on what the objects of the future might be made of with a collection of pieces comprising waste from her daily beauty routine, layering eye pencil shavings and acrylic nails to visually represent the cross section of the earth’s crust.

Emily Musgrave Wood (Rochester, University for the Creative Arts, JC30) shows a collection of contemporary jewellery made of discarded objects such as plastic forks and bottletops, found from two sites: Dover, where she was born, and Herne Bay, where she met her partner.

Megan Swancott. Photography by Mark Cocksedge.

The Business Design Centre in Islington

To make sure you don't miss Week 1 of New Designers order your ticket here.

Orla delighted for Majeda Clarke, the winner of the New Designers One Year In Development Award. Photo by Mark Cocksedge.