Having been a member of the British Contract Furnishing Association (BCFA) since 2003, Lugo Group Europe was invited to partner with the BCFA in sponsorship of the award for best furniture designer in this year’s prestigious New Designers Awards which was held at the Business Design Centre in Islington in July. New Designers 2012 celebrates 27 years as the foremost graduate design show, presenting the very best graduate designers from the class of 2012 with some 3,500 exhibitors from 200 of the UK’s design courses.
The prestigious New Designers Awards were presented by the Internationally acclaimed designer Jay Osgerby from the Barber Osgerby design studio which designed the Olympic torch. These 16 awards, supported by leading brands and organisations from across the creative industries, herald the arrival of especially talented designers and anticipate the start of successful careers.
As a leading manufacturer of hotel furniture, Lugo offered a month’s internship as a prize. During this time the winner would experience working in a commercial design studio alongside other product designers and to see first-hand the manufacturing process of the furniture in the factory.
Amongst stiff opposition, the award was presented to Hugh Leader-Williams a graduate of Loughborough University who designed a very simple family of stools and tables that could be very easily collapsed and stored within a confined footprint which was ideal for homes with limited storage space.
Lugo’s Group Managing Director, Lee Marvin was amongst the team of judges and commented “Rather than the overall clean aesthetic to the product, it was more the manner in which the components related to each other and were simply well engineered to collapse neatly and effortlessly that drew the judging panel’s attention to this particular design”.
Colin Watson, Managing Director for the BCFA went on to say “A simple concept that was well resolved, commercially viable and an original design”.
The awards themselves were followed by a series of focus meetings involving the judges, the BCFA and University Design Faculty Heads to brainstorm ideas on how the communication and co-operation between education and industry might be further improved and what role the BCFA and its membership might take in any such initiatives.
