Student IKEA designs
Wednesday 6 October 2010
A stunning series of fashion images using kitchen utensils from IKEA Southampton’s cooking and eating range took first prize at Southampton Solent University’s art and design challenge sponsored by the store.
Building on the success of last year’s project for the company, students were set a new challenge based on IKEA’s current theme of ‘Honest kitchens for real life’. Following a brief, students had six weeks to produce images and presentation boards illustrating their design concepts.
Second-year BA (Hons) Fashion with Photography students, Kimberly Langstone and Lauren Glenis, won first prize with their cutting edge kitchenware-inspired fashion images. Following the brief, they selected and creatively arranged a selection of utensils – from straws to serviettes, tablemats to tongs - to produce wearable clothing and accessories for a fashion shoot.
Second place went to BA (Hons) Product Design with Marketing student, Daniel Chierighini, for his ‘social island’. The Product Design brief challenged students to come up with a design solution to fit IKEA’s theme of ‘eating, dining and living’- anything from a new consumer product, a range of cooking utensils or a new work surface incorporating a cooking facility, food preparation or eating area.
BA (Hons) Illustration student, Katie Allen, was awarded third place for her ‘Midnight Snack’ print collection.
The project was judged by a panel from IKEA - Mark Sokol, Said Benjama and Hannah Pringle. The three winners will receive IKEA gift cards.
Hannah Pringle, Local Communications Specialist at IKEA said: “The images were great fun to judge and showed great imagination from all the participants. The quality of work impressed us all.”
A selection of images and designs from the project are on display at the University’s concourse gallery at East Park Terrace until October 13 and will go on display at IKEA Southampton later in the year.
Mark Jones, Academic Leader External Development for the University’s School of Design, said: “This is one of a number of initiatives we have set up to give our students the opportunity to engage with industry and to introduce employers to the high level of creative work being produced by our students.”
The exhibition’s final stop will be the Shanghai University of Engineering Science (SUES) in China. The two universities have signed an agreement to explore a range of joint projects - including research and exchange programmes. Students from SUES - who attended a summer school in design, fashion and lifestyle at Solent University – also took part in the IKEA challenge.
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