IDEAS Ltd to Sponsor Design Guild Mark 2024, call for entries

Design Guild Mark are pleased to announce that IDEAS Ltd will be sponsoring the ‘Furniture category’ for the 2024 Design Guild Mark Awards. Founded by Keith Lovelace in 2002, IDEAS is a leading authority in ergonomics and inclusive design for any commercial or public space including leisure, sports, hospitality, healthcare, and education. Keith has always had the philosophy that everything should come under the term ‘Good Design’, meaning that a product has been designed in such a way that it is desirable, inclusive, sustainable, robust, innovative, functional, attractive, and repairable, to name a few – values which are shared by the Design Guild Mark and form the criteria by which each submission is judged.

These shared ideals make for the perfect relationship and means that the Design Guild Mark can continue celebrating the outstanding and world-leading designs of British designers that were designed for, and are manufactured by, an industrial design process.

Since its inception in 2008, the Design Guild Mark has grown to become one of the most influential and coveted design programmes. Its 3 categories (Furniture, Lighting, and Interior Design Elements) are open to designers working in the UK and British designers working abroad. Each submission is subsequently judged in person, with the designer present, by a carefully curated panel of judges, all of whom are at the top of their respective fields and bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the evaluation process.

It is also unique in that it is not a competition with a ranking of entries, rather the award is given to all designs that the judges deem to be of the highest standards of originality, innovation, and quality.

The criteria to be met to establish if a design is deserving of a Mark includes:

• Innovation – does the design demonstrate new and original thinking and problem solving/is it different/does it do something better?
• Function – is the design fit for purpose/does it work well and intuitively/does it benefit the user and how?
• Form – is the design aesthetically appealing and its appearance appropriate/is it made well/does it incorporate innovative manufacturing materials and processes?
• Brand – does the design develop a brand’s position/does it provide a competitive advantage or edge in any way?
• Environment – does the design demonstrate a responsibility to progressing sustainable and circular practices/is the product designed and made for longevity of appeal and use?

Sponsorship of The Design Guild Mark Awards therefore provides a fantastic opportunity to interact with a focussed target audience of world leaders in the field of design, including designers, brands, and their associated followers.

The Design Guild Mark judging panels for 2024 will be:

Furniture    

• Daniel Aram – ARAM
• Joanna Biggs – Sherliker Biggs
• Elliott Koehler – JPA Design
• Lucy Kurrein – Lucy Kurrein
• Jeremy Myerson – Professor Emeritus, RCA
• Heather Naylor – B&B Italia
• Tom Pearce – Farrah & Pearce
• Luke Pearson – Pearson Lloyd
• Campbell Thompson – The Conran Shop

Interior Design Elements

• Linzi Coppick – Forme UK
• Daniel Hopwood – Hopwood Design Studios
• Clare Johnson – Professor Emeritus, RCA
• Natasha Marshall – Natasha Marshall Interiors Ltd
• Corinne Pringle – tp bennett
• Emma Sewell – Wallace Sewell
• Peter Thwaites – Rapture & Wright

Lighting Design

• Simon Alderson – twentytwentyone
• Gitta Gschwendtner – Gitta Gschwendtner
• Risa Sano – Mensten
• Simon Terry – Anglepoise
• John Tree – Jasper Morrison
• Sebastian Wrong – Established & Sons

Designers and companies have until 19^th January 2024 for the final deadline. The application form can be downloaded from the Design Guild Mark website: https://www.designguildmark.org.uk/apply-now

Image: a former Design Guild Mark winner, the Bisley Buddy