Barbara Chandler looks back at the graduate work of outstanding names in design

The photographer and journalist’s exhibition shows the exciting young future for design, writes Anya Cooklin-Lofting

Rising star: textile designer Jacob Monk in 2019 (Barbara Chandler)

London is an undeniable hub of design talent. Interior designers, manufacturers and buyers flock to immerse themselves in the city’s pool of expertise and innovation at several points throughout the year from London Design Week in March to the sprawling, city-wide network of events and exhibitions that comprise the London Design Festival in the autumn.

Most recently, though, was the 37th iteration of New Designers, the UK’s leading graduate design show that gathers 2,500 outstanding graduates from 200 flagship university design courses to showcase their work in the Victorian halls of the Business Design Centre in Islington, North London. This coalescence of new talent gives design industry employers a chance to seek out their latest hires and brings to public attention the galvanisation of the new crop of innovators to confront the issues we face today with fresh design solutions.

The New Designers events programme, which ran over June and early July, was abundantly furnished with design talks, award ceremonies and opportunities for young, talented designers to connect with mentors in their fields. Greeting visitors to the Business Design Centre was a photographic portraiture exhibition, New Designers: A Celebration, highlighting the work of graduate designers by the accomplished photographer, Barbara Chandler.

Known for her long-running pages on design in the London Evening Standard and having been immersed in the design industry for over 40 years, Chandler has maintained a close connection to New Designers and the talent it has consistently pioneered. Chandler’s trained eye for a story spotted many ingénues now gone global, noticeably furniture designer and eco-pioneer Sebastian Cox, and surface pattern designer Kit Miles.

Over the years, Chandler has faithfully recorded her visits to the fair each year on camera, meticulously documenting the legion of new designers that caught her attention, and to honour the 37th year of New Designers, she produced and curated an exhibition of 37 photo-portraits from her extensive archive. This selection was also supplemented by photographs from 2020 and 2021, years that the design event could not take place. In its absence, Chandler sought out exciting names in design at their places of study, honouring the period she refers to as “the lost years” for emerging designers. Chandler says, “I felt that in an exhibition planned for 2022, we could not possibly overlook these ‘lost years’ of excellent graduating potential.”

Each of the photo-portraits captures something quite fundamental about each of the designers: the textile designer, Jacob Monk, is seen interacting with his handwoven panels that respond to traditional ikat techniques, and the shadows cast over Shannon Bartlett-Smith’s face by her exquisite works of cut-paper speak to her craft skills, which she now employs at her own pottery studio in Cornwall. The tangible sense of joy in textile designer Nadia Boutarfa’s portrait begins with her beaming smile, and is echoed in her ebullient fabrics, which are the result of the digitisation of dyed fabrics, turning them into pattern repeats, while Lyndsey Caulfield, now a primary teacher in Scotland, is shot in a wash of electric colour, her shock of magenta hair bright against the gloaming hues of her fashion fabrics.

Shaping up: pattern designer Kit Miles, shot in 2012 (Barbara Chandler)

New ideas: fabric designer Nadia Boutarfa in 2013 (Barbara Chandler)

“My photo-portraits at New Designers are very special to me,” Chandler says. “I have been privileged since New Designers started 37 years ago to plug into this superb spread of excellence from our many, many excellent universities and art and craft colleges.” New Designers: A Celebration is dedicated to Peta Levi, the founder of New Designers and a close personal friend of Chandler’s, who was lost to cancer in 2008. “How I wish I could share with her this show at New Designers, which I dedicate to her memory,” says Chandler.

For more of Chandler’s work, prints can be purchased via her website. Unfailingly pioneering the work of talented young designers, she is also the founder and curator of Green Grads, a new platform for recent graduates of UK Universities with ideas to heal the planet. The next edition of Green Grads will be at the Samsung Experience Space, King’s Cross, N1C September 24/25