29 March 2024, 10:23
By Furniture News Jun 17, 2019

Sainsbury's and Argos return to New Designers

For the third and second consecutive years, respectively, Sainsbury’s Home and Argos Home are sponsoring the New Designers exhibition, taking place from 26th June to 6th July,

Sainsbury’s Home will support the first week of New Designers, which takes a focus on design disciplines including ceramics and glass, contemporary design craft, textiles and fashion, while Argos Home will sponsor the second week, which covers furniture, product and industrial design, spatial design and interiors.

This year, a winning graduate from each week will be awarded the Sainsbury’s/Argos Young Designer of the Year accolade, which comprises a £500 cash prize and personal mentoring from the design studios for Sainsbury’s Home and Argos Home. The Sainsbury’s Home and Argos Home judging team will be joined by British interior stylist and designer Sophie Robinson in week one to judge and decide on a shortlist of graduates.

The two winners will also be invited to join 10 other shortlisted graduates chosen by the design teams to interview for the chance to be granted one of two opportunities for a year-long paid work placement with the design and buying teams to help develop the next homeware collections for 2020, once again demonstrating the brands’ commitment to discovering new design talent in the UK.

Since Sainsbury’s Home began sponsoring New Designers in 2017, year-long placements have been offered to five recent graduates, three of which have since become permanent members of the design studio.

As part of this year’s exhibition, Sainsbury’s Home and Argos Home will display works focused on generation rent and creating design solutions for small space living. Joe Parker, one of the award-winning graduates from 2017, will also launch the Loft Living collection he has designed for Argos Home, which will be available from July.

Andrew Tanner, design manager at Sainsbury’s Home and Argos Home, who started his career at New Designers in 1997, says: “The designers who have joined the studio are all Millennials and part of generation rent, something that is very close to our customer base. We challenged the award winners to develop a collection that would not only demonstrate how people live their lives today but also provide solutions and attract new audiences to our product ranges based around small space living and Millennial design values.”

Sainsbury’s Home and Argos Home will also host talks within the New Designers schedule, led by key members of the design team. The Craft Mindset talk will explore how craft influences mass production, enabling the creation of product ranges and award-winning design – it will take place on 27th June at 13.00 and 4th July at 13.15.

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