Check out some inspiring new designers emerging right now…
What did your front room look like 10 years ago? Probably mainly Ikea with a dash of Habitat. Hopefully the past decade has seen it flourish, find a little individuality, even some panache. If it has, you have British design to thank for that. The years have been good to our interiors as more individual but affordable furniture shops have opened up, the trend for upcycling and restoration has brought new life to old wood and metal and the tyranny of the mid-price high-street brands has been broken.
If you want to see the truth of this, visit this year’s London Design Festival. There are more than 300 designers and brands taking part in the event, and interesting furniture will be found in venues from Shoreditch to Mayfair.
The LDF has a residency at the V&A, with the museum hosting displays, talks and events. Trafalgar Square will be home to the Be Open Sound Portal – an art installation which creates a unique acoustic environment. There’ll be discussion and debate at Central Saint Martins, featuring top names in design, such as Tom Dixon and Thomas Heatherwick.
And, of course, there’ll be plenty of chances to lust after furniture – and even buy some. The main exhibition spaces where the furniture designers show their wares are 100% Design, Decorex International, Tent London, Super Brands London and Designjunction.
To celebrate 10 years of LDF, we’ve picked out five names who we think are the stars of the future. Check them out. Go to LDF: your front room will thank you.
For full listings of the London Design festival (14-23 September), go to londondesignfestival.com
Hugh Leader-Williams
Having newly graduated (with a First) this summer, Hugh Leader-Williams has already proven that he has a keen commercial eye. His Spun furniture range was designed using accessible materials and with easy production in mind. The sturdy and useful stools and tables are made from ash with spun metal tops, which connect with magnets – they’re pleasing simple and easily folded flat for transportation and storage.
He has already won three awards at the New Designers exhibition 2012: the 100% Design Award, the Made.com Award (the furnishings website will sell his pieces from March 2013) and the BCFA Lugo Award.
“New Designers was really positive for me,” Leader-Williams explains. “I was able to talk with lots of interesting designers and retailers, which boosted my confidence. It has convinced me to accelerate my ambition to launch my own design studio. This has always been something I hoped to do one day, but now seems like as good a time as any.”
Catch his work and that of his four fellow members of the Anvil Collective – all graduates from the same 3D Design course at Loughborough University – at Tent London as well as on a stand at 100% New Designers and at Made.com.
Buy it Spun furniture costs from £300 and will be available Made.com
Exhibition Tent London, Old Truman Brewery, London E1 (20-23 September)
Contact anvilcollective.com and tentlondon.co.uk
Kirath Ghundoo
“For the past two years I’ve thought a lot about challenging how wallpapers repeat and match up,” says surface designer Kirath Ghundoo, who has just been nominated for her Mix ‘n’ Match 11 mismatched wallpaper series at this year’s Elle Decoration British Design Awards. “Each roll is mismatched on purpose and without repeats, but always works together.”
At this year’s 100% Design Ghundoo will be showing her new digital printed bespoke wallpapers inspired by her love of architecture and fashion – a selection of made-to-order patterned papers, which drop, cut and match without wastage.
With an MA in textiles from Huddersfield University and recently completed commercial projects, such as the interior of a bar in Darlington, Ghundoo has her sights set elsewhere. “My dream is to collaborate with Matthew Williamson,” she admits. “I have a passion for interiors, but what I do is applicable to any surface. I’d really love to do prints for him. I’m a huge fan.”
Buy it Bespoke wallpaper from £200 per 10m roll, plus the commission
Exhibition Emerging Brands at 100% Design, Earls Court, London SW5 (19-22 September)
Contact kirathghundoo.com
JiB Studio
“My initial inspiration for Credenza O came from the sporadic assortment of plants and pots at home,” explains London-based Korean designer Je-Uk Kim, founder of JiB Studio and creator of the Credenza O planter unit with beautiful vessels handcrafted by ceramicist Sun Kim. “It got me thinking about furniture with storage function behind the doors and also a surface for plants, books, objects.”
Having lived and worked in London for six years following studies in the US, Denmark and the Netherlands, Kim can’t decide where his clean aesthetic and logical approach to design came from. “Most of my formal architectural education and career has been based elsewhere, but my cultural background is Korean. Some have told me the Credenza looks Korean, others say Scandinavian or European.”
Up next is a live/work project for an artist in Kangwon-do, Korea, consisting of a house with a small gallery space, a café and a barn.
Buy it Credenza O costs from £4,200 (£6,200 with ceramics)
Exhibition Emerging Brands at 100% Design, Earls Court, London SW5 (19-22 September)
Contact jibds.com
Lauren Davies
Lauren Davies is food obsessed. So when the RCA design product student was offered the chance to participate in the American Hardwood Export Company’s project to create a chair for an exhibition at the festival, she quickly found a link to cooking.
“I noticed so many of the American hardwoods we were working with are connected to food production: maple, hickory, oak, cherry, walnut and so on,” she says, “So I explored the idea of using food preservation techniques, such as pickling, smoking on wood and food dyes to flavour the wood.”
The result is original and charming. Made with the help of Windsor chair specialists Sitting Form and furniture-makers Benchmark, the Leftovers chair looks great but also addresses wood sustainability and food wastage. “I’m excited by that dialogue and see that as a new direction for me. I’ve found my niche with this project. I’m thinking of applying these techniques to other surfaces, perhaps textiles.”
Buy it The Leftovers Chair is made to order
Exhibition Out of the Woods: Adventures of 12 Hardwood Chairs, V&A, London SW7 (14-23 September)
Contact pillowstream.com
Samuel Wilkinson
Best known for winning last year’s D&AD Black Pencil and London Design Museum Design of the Year 2011 for Plumen 001, a clever reworking of the energy-saving bulb, Samuel Wilkinson, a graduate of Ravensbourne College, deconstructs common objects to find intuitive functional solutions and give them a new look.
“I love the challenge of looking for a unique approach and hopefully I then create products that not only look good but function well,” he says. His new Mantis desk for furniture brand Case is just that: its main function is to hide away unsightly cables, and accommodate files and a laptop, which disappears into a drawer – and yet it remains a clean, elegant piece of furniture.
Expect to see the new baby version of Plumen 001 bulb, which launches this month, in various spots around the festival. Wilkinson has also donated two unique products for the Maggie’s charity auction at Designjunction, one of which is special laser-etched Mantis desk.
Buy it The Mantis desk, from £850, available from casefurniture.co.uk
Exhibition Designjunction at the Sorting Office, London WC1 (thedesignjunction.co.uk) 19-23 September
Contact samuelwilkinson.co.uk
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