Northumbria designers recognised at UK’s biggest graduate showcase

Innovative designers and makers from Northumbria University have won a string of awards and recognition on shortlists for their final year projects in furniture and product design at the New Designers event.

The annual London show celebrates the best emerging talent in the UK, featuring over 2,500 design graduates from more than 100 university courses. Exhibits cover ceramics, glass, metalwork, textiles, crafts and jewellery, with awards supported by international brands and businesses handed out to those handpicked by a panel of judges. The event also provides the chance to network, meet with potential employers and explore graduate opportunities for those involved.

Twenty-five of Northumbria’s final-year students made the trip to the capital for the event just before their graduation ceremonies.

Elora Foley, who studied on the Furniture and Product Design BA (Hons) programme at Northumbria, received the John Lewis Award for Design Innovation and the prestigious Ocee & Four Design Award for her Terrace Café Chair. Inspired by European café culture, the lightweight stackable chair is designed for the circular economy and is 96% recyclable. Easily refurbished for a longer product lifespan, the chair has been developed alongside a range of complementary furniture pieces. It aims to reinterpret the classic Parisian café chair using powder-coated steel and a solid ash seat.

The judges described the chair as "beautifully proportioned and thoughtfully resolved, ready to sit alongside today's leading minimalist furniture designs”. Elora now has access to a three-month Studio Ocee placement, a £1,000 prize and the opportunity to meet the John Lewis design team to look forward to.

Elora described discovering she had won not one, but two awards as a “surreal experience”. She said: “In each case, I was overwhelmed with shock and joy when I heard I had won, followed by an incredible sense of pride. Knowing that companies and professionals within the design community loved my chairs as much as I do was an incredible feeling.”

Elora said: "I'm so happy to have spent so much time developing this project. I love the product, and it's wonderful to have the thinking behind the design recognised."

Reflecting on her time at Northumbria, Elora praised the support she received from staff on the course, describing studying at the University as “the best decision I have ever made”. She also credited the University’s backing of student participation in New Designers as a turning point, calling it “the single most important experience I had during university”, one that gave her the confidence and industry connections to help launch her career.

Elora is now preparing to begin her placement with Ocee & Four, where she hopes to build on her passion for circular design in the contract furniture market. She said: “This placement is an incredible opportunity. I cannot wait to learn more about the company and gain first-hand experience of the realities of the design industry.”

Oliver Hordon, who studied on the Product Design BA (Hons) programme, formerly known as Design for Industry at Northumbria, featured on the New Designers shortlist an impressive three times. His product, Normal, captured the imagination of representatives from the international design agency PriestmanGoode, London-based design consultancy Native, and KeyShot 3D visualisation software company.

Normal is a two-part system for capturing and replaying lived experience. A field recorder gathers image and audio data from an environment, while a playback device transforms it into a slower, controllable visual and audio output. Oliver says the project challenges the constant recording of memory by reintroducing intention into the act of capture. It encourages the user to question what is worth holding, while asking how technology can operate quietly within an experience without pulling away from the moment.

Oliver was unsure what he wanted to do after school and decided to apply for a foundation year in Design. He said: “Without it I may never have discovered Design for Industry. It was the perfect starting point to understand the different disciplines and find where my interests truly lay.”

“Exhibiting my final major project, Normal, at the New Designers graduate show marked the end of an incredible five years at Northumbria University. It was an amazing experience, not only to receive recognition, but to meet so many talented people from across the industry, see the breadth of work on display, and speak with people whose work I admire.

“None of it would have been possible without the teaching staff and technicians at Northumbria University, especially Anthony Forsyth, Ian Hewitt, Johnny Hayes and Rose Wong. They have given me far more than just an education, and I couldn't be more grateful. It’s always the people that make a place, and that’s what I’ll remember most about my time at Northumbria.”

Reflecting on the recognition from brands he had long admired, Oliver said: “It felt like a real full-circle moment, especially with KeyShot. It was a piece of software I'd used throughout my degree, starting out with some pretty questionable renders, so to receive recognition from them at New Designers felt surreal. Beyond that, it was just great to have the opportunity to talk them through my project and have some genuinely interesting conversations.”

Oliver is now looking at opportunities with some of the studios and companies that recognised his work at New Designers. He is hoping to move into consultancy work and relocate to London.

Other success stories from Northumbria’s class of 2026 include Harvey Young, Jamie Scott and Lauren Byrne who were all recently featured in an article by The Times on the rising stars of design.

Harvey’s product, Shift, is a scent diffuser for people who work from home that uses smell to help signal the switch at the end of the work day into rest mode. Jamie’s final project, Sōma, is a collection of three sensory objects aimed at supporting self-regulation in adults with ADHD which is among a number of projects also featured in the global design publication, Dezeen.

Lauren Byrne featured twice on the New Designers shortlist with her VERA wristband. The device uses haptic feedback to provide tactile sensations in response to emotional or conversational cues, aimed at supporting people living with age-related hearing loss. Using the principles of sensory substitution, the wristband helps to restore the emotional depth of conversation which is often lost due to hearing loss or distorted by hearing aids, reducing mental strain and reliance on lip reading.

The innovative device also earned Lauren a place as one of 10 finalists in this year’s Design Truth Student Awards.

Professor Ambrose Field, Head of the School of Design, Arts and Creative Industries at Northumbria University, said: “Design touches every aspect of our future as humans. It's wonderful to see our graduates taking on design challenges that enable social transformation and creating new economic opportunities themselves. These are impressive achievements, continuing the legacy of highly successful graduates from DACI, The School of Design, Arts and Creative Industries at Northumbria.”

Discover more about studying on one of the Design, Arts and Creative Industries programmes at Northumbria.

More information on all Northumbria projects exhibited at New Designers is available on the event website. Click here to view work from 3D/Furniture and Product Design and click here to view work from Design for Industry.