Five Design Crafts students at De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) are nervously preparing to pitch their ideas to supermarket giant, Sainsbury’s, to win a sought-after work placement.
Left to right: Alice Funge, Beth Wrigglesworth, Alex Bellamy, Sarah Shepherd and Sarah Jane Charlton
Second year students were presented with a brief last semester, to design either home accessories, or objects for a table-top or bedroom. They embraced the challenge and impressed the team at Sainsbury’s.
Five students have been shortlisted to pitch their ideas to Sainsbury’s homeware design team at their Coventry headquarters today, and one or more will be offered a work placement.
Alice Funge, Sarah Jane Carlton, Beth Wrigglesworth, Alex Bellamy and Sarah Shepherd, will present their design boards to the team, outlining their research and explaining what makes their product special.
Alex Bellamy
Alex is pitching a range of chic home furnishing designs with a minimalist vibe, inspired by floral line drawing and designed to mix and match.
She said: “I’m really excited about presenting my ideas in front of the team today and I’ll be very happy if I win a placement.
“It will be a great experience, especially because working as part of a design team is something I can see myself doing when I leave DMU.”
Sarah Jane Charlton
Sarah Jane Charlton also designed a range of home furnishing fabrics she chose to experiment with different textiles such as knitted and silk fabric, as well as unusual tie-dyeing techniques like the Japanese shibori method.
She hopes that if she wins a placement it will provide an ‘eye-opening look into the industry’.
Beth Wrigglesworth
For Beth, the process has been an exploration of replicating the qualities of textile onto metal. Her design is a copper lamp base, with etching to mirror the look and feel of a tree bark.
As well as experiencing a different side of the industry, Beth thinks that if she wins a placement it will be a good opportunity to improve her computer-aided design (CAD) software skills.
Alice has designed a pattern made up of drawings of objects typically associated with camping.
She said: “I wanted my design to be as versatile as possible and the idea is that the pattern can be printed directly onto homeware or onto fabric and made into tents, rucksacks and other camping equipment.”
Alice Funge
With a soft wintery colour pallet in mind, Sarah Shepherd is pitching stackable ceramic cups in a dusky pink with metallic accents.
Sarah said: “I wanted to incorporate a geometric element to my cups as well, so the base is shaped like a six-point star which is also visible from the inside.
I’ve designed them in a way that they can hopefully be developed into a bigger range of crockery.”
Sarah Shepherd
Senior Design Crafts lecturer, Jane Prosser, said: “It’s fantastic that our students have the opportunity to work with a widely-recognised brand, providing useful professional context for them.
“The university’s long-standing relationship with Sainsbury’s has resulted in many fruitful work placements for students, which in the past have also led to job offers and graduates’ designs developed and sold.”
All second year Design Crafts students are exhibiting and selling their final pieces in glass, metal, ceramics and textiles. The exhibition takes place at DMU’s Trinity House and is open to the public between 14-17 May from 10am-4pm, excluding Sunday 15 May.
Posted on Thursday 12 May 2016