New Designers
I swapped my camera for a sketch book and jeans for a suit last week as I travelled down to the city of London to exhibit my work at this year’s New Designers exhibition.
Based at the Business design hall, at the centre of a bustling Islington high street; this annual 4 day event showcases the best up and coming design talent projects, of recent graduates from the UK’s top design universities and colleges.
The exhibition was fantastic, truly a great opportunity to display and explain my Distil. Whisky Guide project to potential employers from across the country. On average 18,000 people visit the show every year and so it was not to be missed!
The grand Victorian style hall holds hundreds of different projects displaying the best in Product design; everything from a medical trolley to a ceramic 3D Printer.
I was part of Dundee Universities Social Digital stand which comprised of both Product and Digital interaction design students from Duncan of Jordanstone’s College of art and design. I believe our stall looked fantastic, truly a great advert for the University with its glowing yellow retaining wall and Plumen feature bulbs it attracted thousands of employers, prospective students and academics across the 4 day event. The area felt warm, welcoming & relaxed and yet from an aesthetic point of view very professional and finished to a high standard, as commented on by many of the visitors.
I found the 4 days to be extremely tiring; with up to 12 hour days in 35 degree heat the event required a lot of stamina. Although it was truly worth it! My product fit the exhibition very well and I found it a delight to describe my product and show how the whisky guide worked in an ideal surrounding. It was refreshing to finally hear some praise, from experts in the industry.
Along with my fellow graduates I received a lot of both career advice and indeed opportunities! Something I will now look to follow up and hope it may lead to the first step on the ladder.
One the highlights of the week was witnessing fellow class mate; Lauren Atwell win and collect the prestigious New Designers Cyber Duck Associate Prize. A fantastic achievement for both herself and DJCAD, I wish her future a true success.
The event went by very quickly and it feels strange that the Distil whisky guide project is complete; 11 months of extremely hard work, blood sweat and tears in the end all came down to a upper second class hons (2.1) BSc, 3 business cards from industry received, 1 job offer and 1 job interview and 1 hell of a student loan repayment. I can’t wait to see what my future holds, but I do believe design will continue to be an extremely large part of it…