Since 1985, New Designers has held a distinguished place in the UK’s cultural and creative calendar. This landmark event is widely recognised as the largest and most influential graduate design showcase in the country. Now approaching its 40th year, New Designers 2025 promises to be more ambitious than ever before, bringing together over 3,000 exceptional graduates from top art and design schools across the United Kingdom. It is a rare and unmissable opportunity to experience the next wave of design excellence as it emerges into the professional world.
Each summer, the Business Design Centre in Islington, London, transforms into a pulsating hub of creative energy and innovation. Visitors are treated to an expansive and captivating display of final-year projects, spanning a multitude of disciplines. From ceramics and costume design to digital illustration, spatial design, fashion, animation, and beyond, the event presents the full spectrum of British design education at its finest.
New Designers is not just a celebratory exhibition—it is a launchpad. A place where ideas are born, careers are ignited, and connections are made that last a lifetime.
Where Innovation and Opportunity Converge
New Designers 2025 is not just a design showcase—it is a catalytic ecosystem where innovation, collaboration, and career-building seamlessly intersect. For thousands of graduating designers each year, this renowned event serves as a gateway into the wider world of design and creative industries. What distinguishes it from other exhibitions is its direct, unfiltered connection to the decision-makers and tastemakers shaping design’s commercial and cultural future.
Each exhibitor is given the platform to present their work not just as a static outcome, but as a journey—one filled with exploration, iterative development, and personal narrative. The event becomes a dynamic launchpad for these fresh talents, many of whom secure their first freelance contracts, studio positions, or licensing agreements within days of exhibiting.
The Business Design Centre’s architecture and energy are uniquely suited to foster serendipitous encounters and purposeful engagements. Walking its expansive halls, visitors don’t simply observe; they engage, question, and collaborate. Design becomes dialogical—an open conversation between the visionary and the viewer.
A Direct Portal Between Talent and Industry
In today’s competitive creative economy, visibility is currency. New Designers understands this deeply, offering graduates a rare opportunity to be seen, heard, and acknowledged by the people who can actively change the trajectory of their careers. From iconic brands seeking product design reinvention to boutique studios exploring new aesthetic languages, the audience is as diverse as the work being exhibited.
Major design consultancies attend with specific scouting goals in mind—looking for graduates who bring originality, relevance, and adaptability. Recruiters from luxury fashion labels, sustainable material innovators, furniture manufacturers, and digital experience agencies comb the exhibition floor, identifying individuals whose work aligns with their upcoming campaigns or collections.
Beyond traditional employment opportunities, the event fosters meaningful freelance connections. Many exhibitors begin long-term client relationships during this event, often working remotely post-graduation with companies across Europe, North America, and Asia. It's not uncommon to find graduates balancing design commissions, mentorship arrangements, and funded collaborations—all sparked from a single conversation at the exhibition.
Human-Centred Interaction at Its Core
Unlike conventional industry fairs where displays are guarded or mediated, New Designers thrives on openness. Each graduate stands with their work, ready to share their thought process, reveal their design journey, and engage with inquisitive visitors. This human-centric framework dissolves the barrier between creator and consumer, allowing nuanced understanding of the ideas, inspirations, and intentions behind each piece.
Visitors are encouraged to inquire, critique, and reflect, fostering an environment that is at once intellectually stimulating and emotionally connective. Whether it’s a textile collection inspired by personal history, a digital animation exploring mental health, or a piece of modular furniture built from waste composites, every project has a backstory that matters.
This interaction creates an educational ripple effect. Industry guests often leave with insights not only about design trends but about the societal and cultural shifts influencing the next generation. These conversations enrich both parties, offering designers feedback and encouragement while giving professionals a rare glimpse into emerging design philosophies.
Designed for Discovery and Collaboration
New Designers has a carefully curated layout that allows for both structured exploration and spontaneous discovery. Graduates are grouped not only by discipline but by school or collective, enabling a deeper sense of narrative cohesion. Yet the openness of the space ensures that every turn presents the potential for an unexpected encounter.
Each stand tells a story. One might display an experimental lighting installation that responds to biofeedback, while another showcases inclusive garments tailored for individuals with physical impairments. There's a sense of sincerity and purpose that underpins the diversity of expression on show.
Collaboration often begins here. Designers who might have never met at university find each other on the exhibition floor, realise shared goals, and begin co-developing projects together. Likewise, visiting professionals frequently connect with multiple graduates to initiate cross-disciplinary ventures—combining, for instance, animation with sound design, or material innovation with branding strategy.
This culture of cross-pollination sets the event apart. It isn’t limited by discipline or defined by competition. Instead, it cultivates a rare sense of community and shared elevation.
A Breeding Ground for Innovation-Focused Conversations
In a world increasingly shaped by automation, ecological urgency, and digital immersion, the role of the designer has never been more vital. New Designers 2025 places these emerging voices at the centre of global conversations around sustainability, accessibility, and ethical production. These aren’t just aesthetic pursuits; they’re responses to real-world challenges.
The event functions as a cultural barometer, revealing where design is headed and what values are guiding that trajectory. Visitors may encounter modular interiors designed for nomadic urban living, biodegradable packaging made from seaweed, AI-assisted typography tools, or wearable tech aimed at reducing social anxiety.
Such works spark immediate dialogue—between graduate and industry expert, between academic and policymaker, and between peers across different disciplines. This results in conversations that go beyond the work itself, delving into purpose, process, and the larger responsibilities of design in shaping society.
New Designers, in this sense, is not just about presenting work—it’s about proposing ideas that challenge norms, ignite discourse, and initiate change.
Fostering Long-Term Career Momentum
Beyond the exhibition week, the opportunities catalyzed at New Designers continue to resonate long into graduates’ careers. Many alumni credit the show as the turning point in their professional lives—where their work gained first exposure, their confidence solidified, and their networks began to expand.
Several award-winning creatives, founders of successful design startups, and leaders of innovation labs trace their journey back to New Designers. The event's ecosystem has repeatedly proven its ability to identify potential early and nurture it through meaningful connections and real-world applications.
This momentum is supported through various post-show programs, including collaborations with event sponsors, portfolio reviews with international agencies, and entry into award shortlists that garner press attention and financial backing. Exhibitors are also frequently invited to future showcases, trend forums, or trade shows based on their New Designers exposure.
Even those who don’t secure immediate contracts benefit from the invaluable experience of exhibiting in a high-pressure, professional setting. They refine their ability to speak about their work, respond to critique, and adapt their narrative for diverse audiences—skills that are crucial for long-term creative resilience.
Building a Culture of Inclusion and Accessibility
New Designers champions inclusivity not only in the work presented but also in the people who present it. The event encourages submissions from across the UK’s creative education spectrum—from world-renowned design colleges to regional universities and specialised arts academies. This diverse representation ensures that voices from all backgrounds, abilities, and cultural contexts are given equal visibility.
Graduates exhibiting often explore personal identity, mental health, neurodiversity, gender, race, and socioeconomic experience through their work. These projects resonate deeply with audiences, offering authentic windows into lived experience. Whether it’s an animation depicting bilingual childhood, a tactile navigation tool for visually impaired users, or a cultural archive embedded in textile motifs, the work speaks across boundaries.
By championing emerging designers who are not only inventive but intersectional in their thinking, the event pushes the industry to broaden its lens and question long-standing norms. New Designers doesn’t just reflect change—it accelerates it.
The venue itself is designed to be inclusive and welcoming to all. Ramps, captioning for talks, quiet spaces, and sensory-friendly installations ensure accessibility across visitor demographics. This commitment transforms the show from a conventional design fair into a radically open and equitable creative platform.
An Unparalleled Catalyst for Professional Growth
At its heart, New Designers is about momentum—about taking raw, passionate, imaginative work and launching it into the world with velocity. For industry professionals, it’s a golden opportunity to discover the individuals who will shape the next decade of product development, visual culture, sustainability innovation, and interactive design.
For exhibitors, it is the moment when all the hard work of education crystallises into recognition, dialogue, and possibility. It’s the first handshake, the first feature, the first contract, the first sale. It is where the dream of becoming a working designer becomes tangible.
Attendees leave not only with contact lists and inspiration boards, but with a deeper understanding of where creativity is heading and who is driving that evolution. The experience extends beyond aesthetics—into impact, empathy, and intelligence.
New Designers 2025 is not simply a celebration of graduate work. It is a launch event for the future of British and global design. Whether you are a creative director in search of fresh perspective, an investor scouting innovation, or a young creative imagining your own path, this is where you come to see what’s next.
A Curated Universe of Design Disciplines
New Designers 2025 is meticulously structured to offer clarity, immersion, and a narrative flow through its two-week showcase. Each segment is tailored to reflect distinct dimensions of design practice, allowing visitors to journey through physical craftsmanship and material exploration in one phase, and technological innovation and conceptual agility in the next. This thoughtfully bifurcated format ensures that each creative sector receives due prominence, not as fragments of a larger whole, but as standalone universes connected by a shared ethos of imagination and purpose.
The result is a living, evolving archive of emerging British design. With more than 3,000 graduate participants, the event embodies the diversity, depth, and daring experimentation that characterise the UK’s design education ecosystem. From heritage crafts revived with modern relevance to interactive installations that forecast digital futures, every exhibit represents an individual voice, yet together they articulate the complex, multilayered language of contemporary creativity.
Week One: Materiality, Memory, and Meaning
Week One of New Designers, taking place from 29 June to 2 July, orbits around material-based practices and sensory storytelling. Here, visitors are enveloped in a world where touch, texture, and tradition reign supreme. It is a landscape alive with embroidered narratives, woven commentaries, sculptural provocations, and conceptual adornments. The disciplines represented—textiles, jewellery, fashion, ceramics, costume design, contemporary craft, and glass—are often perceived as rooted in tradition, yet what emerges is far from conventional.
Designers in this phase engage in alchemical thinking, transforming raw material into emotive, political, and deeply personal statements. A textile collection might not just be about surface patterning, but a chronicle of diasporic memory. A piece of jewellery becomes an heirloom of resilience, while a ceramic vessel might mirror coastal erosion or human fragility. These disciplines evoke a visceral response, grounded in human experience and the tactile language of making.
The craftsmanship on display is extraordinary, but what elevates the work is its intentionality. Graduates challenge material hierarchies, embrace regenerative resources, and blend analogue with digital tools. From e-textiles embedded with responsive sensors to upcycled glass sculptures formed in low-emission kilns, Week One showcases how physical design can function as both artifact and provocation.
Week Two: Innovation, Intuition, and Interaction
Week Two, unfolding from 6 to 9 July, pivots the focus to design’s potential as a tool for systems thinking, user-centered problem-solving, and speculative exploration. Here, the disciplines span industrial design, animation, digital art, illustration, furniture design, spatial architecture, product design, and motion graphics. These practices reveal how young designers are confronting global challenges through multidisciplinary approaches and transformative thinking.
Where Week One leans into sensory richness and cultural texture, Week Two explores cognition, behavior, and ecological systems. Furniture is no longer just ergonomic; it becomes modular, responsive, and made from biocomposite materials. Product design reflects humanitarian goals, with tools created for post-disaster recovery or for enhancing accessibility in public transport. Animation studios within the show highlight themes like neurodivergence, grief, and community cohesion with cinematic nuance.
Digital art installations blend code, narrative, and immersion. Visitors might encounter interactive surfaces that respond to touch with generative visuals, or spatial environments controlled through gesture-recognition interfaces. This is not just about high-tech spectacle, but about the integration of form and function, guided by ethical awareness and emotional depth.
In these exhibits, it becomes clear that contemporary design is not siloed. Boundaries blur between storytelling and interface, between physical product and intangible experience. This is where design begins to resemble language—adaptive, expressive, and alive.
Thematic Cross-Pollination: Threads That Unite
What makes New Designers 2025 distinct is not merely the division of time and space, but the way ideas organically converge across weeks and disciplines. While textile artists might draw upon augmented reality to animate fabric surfaces, product designers employ ceramic techniques for sustainable materiality. Illustration informs spatial navigation systems, and fashion shares territory with performance and sound.
Underlying this interdisciplinary symphony are shared themes. Environmental ethics surface again and again—whether through biodegradable materials, closed-loop processes, or climate storytelling. Many projects engage with social inclusion, designing for differently abled bodies, neurodiverse minds, and culturally specific needs. Emotional resilience and mental health are also recurring motifs, with pieces designed as tools for reflection, comfort, or healing.
This cohesion does not homogenise the work, but elevates its resonance. It reinforces that contemporary design is not just about aesthetics or function—it is an act of care, critique, and contribution. The common threads connecting these disciplines are not visual style or academic origin, but their willingness to respond sensitively to the world they inhabit.
Academic Excellence and Experimental Freedom
The work exhibited at New Designers is the culmination of intensive academic training paired with experimental freedom. Behind each piece is a context of mentorship, research, studio time, and critique, forming a scaffolding that allows risk-taking and refinement. Graduates emerge not only as practitioners but as thinkers—capable of defending, iterating, and evolving their concepts in response to feedback and failure.
Participating institutions range from renowned art colleges to newer, agile programs with distinct pedagogical visions. This breadth ensures a wide range of methodologies, aesthetics, and values are represented. Some schools may prioritise speculative design and future scenarios, while others lean into technical precision or community engagement. All are committed to nurturing designers who are both visionary and versatile.
New Designers functions as an external validation of these educational journeys. For many graduates, it marks the first time their work is seen outside of academic walls. It is both an arrival and a departure—the end of one chapter and the beginning of a far more unpredictable one.
Diversity of Voice, Depth of Vision
The richness of the exhibition lies not only in its output but in the people producing it. New Designers represents a generation that is ethnically, culturally, neurocognitively, and socioeconomically diverse. This plurality manifests not just in identity but in vision—in the stories being told, the questions being asked, and the futures being imagined.
Designers speak through materials, movement, metaphor, and module. A woven installation may recall migration paths. A sound-activated lamp may evoke childhood anxiety. A motion comic might tackle intergenerational trauma. These expressions, though highly individual, contribute to a shared cultural moment—one defined by multiplicity, empathy, and agency.
The event affirms that great design does not require uniformity. It flourishes in contradiction, nuance, and uncertainty. It invites audiences to slow down, listen, touch, and reimagine their relationships with the built world and the invisible systems beneath it.
Bridging Craft and Code: The Emerging Hybrid Practices
One of the most compelling aspects of New Designers 2025 is the emergence of hybrid practices—where analogue meets algorithm, and heritage techniques coexist with speculative technologies. Many graduates refuse to be boxed into one discipline, instead operating at the intersection of craft and computation, ecology and engineering.
Visitors might encounter a project that begins as a hand-thrown pot but ends as an augmented reality experience. Or a hand-drawn illustration that becomes a motion-sensitive mural in public space. These hybrid practices are not gimmicks—they are new languages forming in real time, responding to our increasingly complex, interconnected world.
This confluence is reflective of the broader shift within design culture, where boundaries are porous and collaboration is essential. Graduates are learning to think like artists, build like engineers, code like developers, and empathise like social workers. The result is a practice that is layered, reflexive, and responsive.
New Designers captures this evolution, not by separating disciplines, but by creating a porous space where they can influence one another. It is this permeability that makes the exhibition not only rich in content but radical in implication.
A Living Archive of Emerging British Design
Ultimately, New Designers 2025 stands as a living archive of British design in its most formative, expressive, and speculative state. It captures the zeitgeist of an era grappling with post-pandemic realities, ecological collapse, and digital saturation, yet still brimming with optimism, humour, and ingenuity.
Every object, animation, interface, garment, and installation is a proposal—sometimes quiet, sometimes bold, always sincere. It is a proposal for how we might live, communicate, remember, and adapt in the face of complexity. For industry professionals, the exhibition is a compass pointing to future talent and trends. For students and educators, it is both culmination and inspiration. For the general public, it offers access to the minds and hands shaping tomorrow.
More than a showcase, it is a space of invitation—a place where design speaks and people listen. It affirms that design is not a luxury or afterthought, but a primary lens through which we understand ourselves, others, and the systems we inhabit.
New Designers 2025 is not just curated—it is cultivated, cultivated through years of education, hours of making, moments of breakthrough, and a relentless belief in the power of creation.
Creative Highlights That Tell Powerful Stories
Amidst the thousands of compelling works on display, several standouts exemplify the emotional and intellectual depth characteristic of today’s young creatives.
Jenny Chan’s haunting figurative sculptures express a personal response to the emotional challenges of lockdown isolation. Through texture and posture, her creations evoke the complexity of solitude and quiet resilience.
Lily Jacobs, a designer working in mixed media, brings together history and handcraft in an evocative series dedicated to the Jurassic Coast. Her process-led practice incorporates geological themes and tactile storytelling, bridging the ancient with the contemporary.
Nicola Martin transforms natural landscapes into otherworldly ceramic pieces, using aerial views of coastal environments as inspiration. Her work captures the transient beauty of nature while invoking a sense of stillness and wonder.
Giles Fearon explores mental clarity and presence through glasswork, creating sculptural pieces that invite introspection and meditative engagement. His approach is both philosophical and technical, bringing mindfulness into material form.
Kristiina Ploom takes a sustainable approach to jewellery, using recycled metals and environmentally conscious processes. Her sculptural pieces celebrate form while advocating for ethical production and mindful consumption.
Yeoju Lee brings traditional embroidery techniques into the modern realm, using needlework to explore themes of heritage, memory, and identity. Her work is poetic, precise, and deeply resonant.
MESEME Studio focuses on ecological design principles through intuitively made lighting and functional decor. Their aesthetic is clean and contemporary, with strong attention to material honesty and sustainable manufacturing.
Porter and Trundle display extraordinary craftsmanship in their furniture designs, using rich color palettes and bold forms to challenge conventional perceptions of domestic objects.
Huw Edwards, a product designer with a process-driven ethos, creates objects that prioritise usability and efficiency without sacrificing visual appeal.
Each of these creatives offers a unique lens on the world, delivering work that is both technically proficient and emotionally resonant.
An Essential Experience for Future Designers
If you’re considering studying design, attending New Designers 2025 is a transformative step. This event allows prospective students and curious individuals to get a realistic and inspiring look into what design education can offer. By observing final projects, speaking with graduates, and interacting with academic representatives from a wide array of universities, visitors gain practical insight into course structures, skill development, and potential career pathways.
It’s a chance to ask questions, explore options, and see what resonates personally. Whether you’re drawn to digital creativity, hands-on making, fashion innovation, or problem-solving through design thinking, this event provides a panoramic view of possibilities.
The sheer range of work on display helps demystify the design journey. From concept sketches to polished prototypes, the exhibition shows the full arc of the creative process, empowering attendees to visualise their own path forward.
ND Educates: Connecting Creativity With Career Growth
New Designers 2025 features ND Educates, an indispensable series of talks, workshops, and mentoring sessions created to support graduates in their transition to professional life. This programming is not only practical—it’s deeply strategic, offering insights that are often absent from traditional curricula.
Workshops include topics such as pricing your work, managing intellectual property, building a freelance career, applying for residencies, writing effective grant proposals, and navigating self-employment as a designer. The sessions are led by seasoned practitioners, business consultants, and recruiters who bring real-world expertise to the table.
The event also includes live portfolio reviews, giving graduates the opportunity to receive personalised feedback from respected industry professionals. These reviews are often the starting point for job offers, collaborative projects, and creative commissions.
By integrating professional development into the heart of the exhibition, ND Educates affirms that talent must be nurtured not only creatively but commercially.
Celebrating Creative Excellence With Prestigious Awards
New Designers wouldn’t be complete without its renowned Awards Programme. Designed to celebrate outstanding achievement, originality, and innovation, the awards are given across a range of categories and disciplines. Sponsoring brands such as The Conran Shop, John Lewis, Habitat, and Hallmark hand-pick award winners based on excellence in design, material intelligence, concept development, and societal relevance.
A total of 35 awards will be presented during the event, with prizes ranging from professional placements and cash awards to mentorships and product launch opportunities. Winners often find themselves featured in national press, invited to industry panels, and recruited into high-profile design teams.
These accolades carry weight and prestige. They highlight creatives who are not only talented but also strategically prepared to contribute to and shape the future of global design.
One Year In: Spotlight on Emerging Entrepreneurs
One of the most compelling features of New Designers is One Year In, a section dedicated to showcasing design entrepreneurs who are one year beyond graduation. These rising talents have already begun making their mark with innovative practices, socially responsible ventures, and sustainable business models.
Curated by design expert and trend forecaster Sally Angharad, One Year In provides a deep dive into the independent design scene, revealing how young professionals are navigating the complexities of post-university life. This year’s featured work tackles themes such as mental wellness, inclusive design, climate responsibility, artisanal revival, and adaptive technologies.
Visitors can expect to see limited-edition collections, ethically made goods, experimental materials, and boundary-pushing applications of design thinking. One Year In is an inspiring look at how vision, resilience, and entrepreneurial spirit come together to create meaningful impact in the real world.
Event Information and Visitor Details
New Designers 2025 will take place at the Business Design Centre, located in the vibrant heart of Islington, London. The venue is easily accessible via public transport and surrounded by cafés, galleries, and creative shops that complement the experience.
The event runs from 29 June to 9 July 2025 and is split into two weeks:
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Week One: 29 June – 2 July (textiles, fashion, jewellery, glass, ceramics, costume, and craft)
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Week Two: 6 – 9 July (furniture, industrial design, illustration, animation, digital art, spatial design, and product design)
Tickets are available in multiple formats, including single-day entry, week passes, group access for schools, and family bundles. Early registration is encouraged, as the event frequently sells out due to high demand from both the public and industry professionals.
Be Part of the Future of Design
New Designers 2025 is more than a design exhibition—it is a celebration of what is possible when creativity, dedication, and opportunity converge. It invites everyone, from students and teachers to brands and collectors, to engage with the brightest new voices shaping the visual and functional world around us.
Whether you are looking to hire, to learn, or to be inspired, this is your invitation to discover the future of design before it reaches the mainstream. It is where the next generation of innovators takes its first professional steps, and where the design industry rediscovers its own future, year after year.
Final Thoughts:
New Designers 2025 is not merely an exhibition—it is a living, breathing embodiment of what design can achieve when imagination, curiosity, and commitment collide. It is a space where early-career creators are given the chance to take bold steps, to be seen, heard, and appreciated not as students, but as professional contributors to a global industry. The energy within the Business Design Centre during these weeks is unmistakable: it’s charged with ideas that haven’t yet reached the market, concepts that challenge conventional wisdom, and designs that reflect the social, environmental, and emotional landscapes of our time.
This event does more than showcase finished work—it tells the stories of the people behind the creations. It reflects the resilience, ingenuity, and vision of a generation that has lived through global uncertainty, climate challenges, and rapid technological shifts. The result is a cohort of designers who are not only skilled, but deeply thoughtful, adaptive, and mission-driven.
Attending New Designers offers a rare chance to look directly into the future of design. For educators, it’s a window into the impact of curriculum and pedagogy. For recruiters, it’s a talent pool rich with untapped potential. For fellow creatives, it’s a wellspring of inspiration. And for students or those considering a transition into design, it’s a compass pointing toward what is possible.
What makes New Designers so impactful is its authenticity. Nothing is filtered, pre-packaged, or overly polished. It is raw creativity, shaped by education but fuelled by personal stories, cultural heritage, emotional truths, and urgent concerns about the planet and humanity. It is a mirror of where we are, and a map of where we are going.
Whether you're looking to invest in new talent, explore emerging trends, commission innovative work, or simply experience something creatively profound, New Designers 2025 is an unmissable cultural moment. Step into this immersive celebration of future-thinking design and leave with a renewed belief in the transformative power of human creativity.
This isn’t just where designers graduate—it’s where the future begins.
