London Design Week 2019

On the 11th - 14th of March I took a trip to London for Design Week 2019 with my peers Zoe Newson and Emma Payne. We had planned to visit for a research trip to inspire and influence our current and future projects. Each day was scheduled with a variety of different locations, stores and events to visit which I have documented in photos.

On Monday, Zoe and I met in Chelsea and then went straight to Liberty. We were excited to find out that Liberty was stocking House of Hackney and Rockett st George - both of which are companies we’re huge fans of.

We then visited Anthropologie on Regents Street to gain inspiration on trends and visual merchandising for our shared styling project. Anthropologie is known for its creative windows and displays so we were really keen to visit the store...

On Tuesday we spent the morning visiting Chelsea Harbour Design Centre and this was really exciting for me because I’d never been to a Trade Show before.

We spent the day visiting each showroom, ordering samples, networking and really gaining inspiration and influences for our work. This was great for our styling project as we were focusing on visual merchandising and 2019 trends, so this primary research could really help us. Also, I feel just as a designer in general, its great to familiarise yourself with new trends and products brands have to offer.

Top Companies we visited: Timorous Beasties, Cole and Son, Phillip Jefferies, GP & JBaker, Romo, Arte, Moooi...

We visited another Anthropologie on the Kings Road again for inspiration on displays and styling...

On Wednesday we visited Clerkenwell to go to showrooms Vitra and Allermuir, again this was really exciting to me because I’d never visited high-end showrooms before.

We were shown around the showroom and discussed all the displays and products in detail. It was really fascinating to see all of these products in real life, especially the iconic chairs which we spent a lot of our first year learning about.

It was amazing to see these significant products that Vitra are so famous for. I’ve researched and specified many of these products before, so it felt really exciting to be able to physically see and touch all of them - it’s a completely different experience to viewing them online.

We then visited Allemuir, another high-end showroom. We didn’t have to book for this and pretty much had the place to ourselves to look around and view their products.

We then made our way over to Islington to visit Abigail Aherns store...

After Islington, we took the tube to Shoreditch to visit House of Hackney. I was looking forward to this visit the most out of our whole trip. I love House of Hackney and have been such a fan their products over the past few years. They have had such a huge influence on my work and are continuing to do so now.

It was such an amazing experience to look at and touch all of their beautiful fabrics, wallpapers and products after gazing at them over Instagram for so long. I love their maximalist style and I think it’s really coming back into more mainstream trends.

We finished the day by visiting Harrods and viewing Gucci’s new high-end home-ware range.

On Thursday we revisited Chelsea Habour to go watch a talk hosted by ELLE Decoration.

Review

Our research trip to London Design week 2019 was very full-on but also fun-packed. We fully immersed ourselves in the design week and the creativity London had to offer.

We really spent every minute of our time visiting somewhere and made the most of every day covering a wide variety of visits throughout the week.

For me, it was very insightful because I had never been to a Trade Show (Chelsea Harbour) or a high-end Showroom (Vitra, Allermuir) and this is a really important thing to do as a young creative. To get to know the design hubs in cities, network, familiarise with yourself with brands/companies and immersing yourself in the latest trends are all key for development as a young designer.

What I found specifically nice was seeing so many products that I’ve seen online or specified in past projects in real life. Being able to hold, touch and feel products is a different experience than just staring at them over a screen. It gave me a whole new appreciation for products and companies I’ve been fans of for a while.

It was a very insightful trip and we gained lots of primary, first-hand research for our current projects. I gained a lot of content for my styling projects focusing on visual merchandising and 2019 trends which will really help influence and inspire my work.

As a designer and young creative, this trip has been really beneficial for me and has expanded my mind with more knowledge within the design industry: new companies, products, trends and networking - which can all only help me progress further in my practice.