Tuesday, 11 June 2013

The Design Week Awards 2013


Last week I headed down to London for the Design Week Awards.  I found out a few months ago that I'd been nominated for the Rising Star Award and I have to say, I was jumping around the flat that afternoon. 
The Rising Star Award seeks out the industry's hottest new designers and judges them on both their work and accomplishments in their careers, so it was an absolutely huge honour to be chosen by the judges.

The awards evening was fantastic, and I'll admit I was a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of industry hot-shots in the place (especially considering I didn't know a soul there when I arrived!).  Meeting the other Rising Star nominees Lydia Leith, Will Southward and Robin Howie; the guys from Magpie studio as well as the team from Studio Recruitment (who were sponsoring the award) was brilliant.  Unfortunately I didn't get to meet the winner Bethan Laura Wood as she couldn't be at the event, but huge congratulations to her!

The evening was hosted by Radio DJ Lauren Laverne, and I was a little taken by surprise to see my photograph shown on two giant screens when the Rising Star Award nominees were being announced.  In fact, I can safely say that I've never seen my face quite so big.  
Extravagant dinners were eaten, cocktails were sipped and fairground rides were ridden.  I even managed to win a pen on a fairground game, not bad eh?

The evening went by so quickly that I didn't get the chance to speak to quite as many people as I would like, it's a tricky thing to approach groups of people deep in industry conversation (it certainly felt like I was the only person who arrived on their own!).  If you were at the awards and I didn't get the chance to shyly say hello it would be great to hear from you.

Hopefully my nomination at the awards will lead on to some great new projects. I'm back at work now, the new book's finished and really looking forward to the next few months of my career. Speak soon!