  
Over 140 young designers entered this year’s New Design Britain Awards for the chance to have their designs and products displayed at INTERIORS UK 2012 and win a placement with a leading industry supplier.
Last week, a panel of top industry judges gathered together to study the entrants’ work in detail and selected their favourite designers to go through to the final.
There are now 16 finalists across four categories – fabrics, furniture, surface coverings and furnishing accessories. The work of all the finalists will be exhibited at INTERIORS UK 2012.
The 16 finalists are:
FABRICS: Colleen Ellington, Joy Herman, Penny Seume, Laura Daley
FURNITURE: Greg Parsell, James Uren, Lucy Alice Porter, Liam Treanor
SURFACE COVERINGS: Rachel Hagger, Wendy Braithwaite, Yuri Menechelli, Ying Mu
FURNISHING ACCESSORIES: Liam Treanor, Lucy Alice Porter, Sophie Adamson, Roland Beaven
  
New Design Britain judges this year were as follows: Barbara Chandler, Design Journalist; Anna Rigby, Head of Home Accessories Buying at John Lewis; Chloe Macintosh, co-founder of Made.com; Claire Greenfield from Harlequin; Anthony from Worshipful Company of Furniture Manufacturers; Mark Hutchinson from Hutchinson Furniture; Rob Scarlett, Designer (and one of the first winners of the competition).
Many previous winners have gone on to secure great jobs, work placements and media publicity following the show. Henoc Maketo, winner of the fabrics category in January 2011, has been particularly successful:
“This award allowed me to get a placement at INTERIORS UK exhibitor Ercol Furniture Company where I experimented using my patterns on chairs. The work I did at Ercol was later exhibited at Tent London,” he says.
It’s not only the media exposure and industry work placements that stand students in good stead for the future. Even the process of exhibiting at INTERIORS UK is valuable in itself.
“The best part of my New Design Britain Award experience was the planning stage,” comments Maketo. “I learned how to prepare my products for an exhbition and how to present products at the show. It was a very useful process that prepared me well for my professional life.”
Another of last year’s winners, Elaine Ng Yan Ling, says: “Winning the competition extended my network enormously and has certainly brought more attention to my collection. Various trend companies and magazines featured my work after I exhibited at INTERIORS UK.”
This year, INTERIORS UK will also work with Sketch Creative Consultancy, which was founded by Kirsty Anne Powell to give students, graduates, establishing artists and designers the essential knowledge needed to start their creative careers. Sketch also offers vital business support for those who are thinking of setting up their own business and they will be hosting a seminar to offer advice to all the graduates and students who are involved with the competition as well as others who are visiting the show.
  
To keep up-to-date with what's going on in the interiors industry, don’t forget to register for the INTERIORS UK exhibition. For more news, subscribe to our news feed or read our previous news stories.
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