New Designers 2022: The Ones to Watch

New Designers 2022 made an impressive return to London’s Business Design Centre, showcasing the work of 2,500 of the UK’s best graduate designers and emerging talent. The show is split into two weeks, each focusing on different industries.

New Designers 2022 showed talent across graduates in Textiles & Fashion, Costume Design, Jewellery & Precious Metalwork, Ceramics & Glass and Contemporary Design Crafts in week one, while week two showed talent across graduates in Furniture, Product, Industrial & Spatial Design, Graphic Design, Illustration & Animation and Motion & Digital Arts.

Accessible Design

As good design looks to be inclusive to all, problem-solving designers across the show have developed products and services that are more accessible for people with disabilities. They recognise the limitations of traditional products on the market and are using critical thinking and research of the industry, working alongside disabled communities to address their needs.

Benjamin Rudge

Benjamin Rudge’s ‘CLICK BODY CARE’ was designed with accessibility in mind. In the production of body care products, a lot of companies cut corners and decided to choose price over ease of use for all users. CLICK has multiple features derived from first person feedback to help to normalise accessibility additions in this market sector. The main features include raised braille and directional information for blind users, autism/dyslexia friendly colour scheme, and easy open lids for people who suffer from arthritis.

Sense & Tactility

In response to a substantial digital immersion of the last few years, consumers and designers alike crave real, physical objects. As a result, New Designs saw a focus on heavily tactile design that explores the meaning of ‘feel’, as well as exploring other senses like scent and sound.

Loxi Xu

Loxi Xu’s hyper-tactile scent training kit is designed to help people suffering from loss of smell and to help rediscover their sensations via cross-modal perception. The visual and tactile information echoing the scent contained in each object creates multi-sensory interactions that enhance the experience of smell training.

Community Spirit

Designers across the show explored the importance of community, and how design is used as a tool to forge connections and bring people together. A need for multi-generational interaction echoed our 2024 Macro report, while furniture and spatial designers explored how products and spaces can encourage togetherness.

Jessica Carlisle

Jessica Carlisle’s illustrated textiles explored the community of her local East London allotments, as well as travels to the community gardens of Copenhagen. Her six layer, pigment print design onto to cotton linen depicts the beautiful city of Copenhagen and represents the co-existence of people living and working there.

As part of Trend Bible’s goal to uncover and champion innovations and our commitment to supporting next-gen talent, our in-house researchers are spotlighting recent graduates with radar-worthy work. Sign up to our free Your TrendBible membership for more New Designers 2022 highlights.