Design Britain by Andy Vaughan - from Cabinet Maker Magazine
Design Britain is an initiative launched in 2006 which champions British furniture design and manufacture. I have worked in the Interiors market for 11 years and seen all the changes that globalisation has brought to this market, the demise of British manufacturers, the endless migration of our young design talent to Italy and other countries, whilst the remaining UK companies struggle to find decent new designers to re-invigorate their product offerings.
This all came to head 3 years ago whilst I was launching Collection, the modern furniture halls at Interiors Birmingham. In the process of researching the market it became evident that British Designers were leaving University with not a great deal of direction. They were not encouraged by the government to work in the UK and only allowed grants if they exhibited abroad at ICFF in New York or Saloni de Mobili in Milan. Of course once there the more talented, and commercially minded, were scooped up by American and Italian manufacturers and lost to our shores for the foreseeable future. On the other side I was meeting my colleagues from the still existing UK companies who more and more were finding it hard to entice/find talented UK designers to work for them.
Proud to be British Another very evident fact was that the remaining manufacturers were finding it tough to attract new business. This was because often their price point was higher than their international competitors and they weren’t utilising and promoting the fact they had unique British designs and their quality and service was much better than their global counterparts. They just simply were not celebrating and fighting for their unique selling point, i.e. being British. Mixed in to this was the increasingly obvious fact that the industry had lost a lot of the pride and fight that had made it great over the past years! Yet, ironically, whilst the industry was feeling worthless all of the Furniture show inward missions from Russia, Bulgaria, and Ukraine and so on were all asking me, at the event in January, to direct them towards the British designers/manufacturers. Furthermore every time I would meet a retailer in Cairo, Milan, Dubai, Copenhagen, India, Valencia, USA, etc they would all express a strong interest in buying British.
It became obvious to me that as the main industry event, where the majority of the industry gathered, looked at trends, sourced new ideas and products, and attended the main industry awards ceremony that we had a responsibility to try and relight this pride and help our British companies and designers to be successful and shout about British interior designs and products. Hence in 06 Design Britain was launched. This took the form of a trail around the show highlighting, in a free booklet, all the British designers and manufacturers which was handed out to visitors.
Michael Sodeau, a renowned British Designer, joined forces with me and curated a Design Britain Feature at the 06 event which highlighted how cutting edge, but still commercial, British Design could be, and this and the trail really celebrated just how much good British manufacture was still around.
The initiative carried on into 07 with the trail and an even more impressive Design Britain Feature at Interiors Birmingham from which the feedback has been fantastic.
Stage two for 08 is to now continue the onsite DB initiatives but now I want to take this out into the wider industry with the Design Britain debate. This will take two forms; a pre Interiors Birmingham debate on the Cabinet Maker and IDFX websites and in their magazines cumulating in to an onsite Speakers corner debate at Interiors Birmingham, where 5 -10 Iconic British design pieces (not just interiors products but different British designs) will be championed, debated and voted for to find the overall British Iconic design to date according to the Interiors Birmingham audience.
We have a lot to celebrate and I hope our initiative will help to raise awareness and re-invigorate our sense of pride in just how great a design nation we are. First Published Cabinet Maker Magazine
