News

The London Stationery Show, in partnership with The Paper Library, is delighted to announce the launch of a new student stationery competition.

Backed by three of the stationery industry’s most well-known brands; Paperchase, Portico Designs and Caroline Gardner, each company has set a design brief and offered a work placement prize for a lucky design student this summer.

Aiming to encourage graphic design, illustration and surface pattern students to consider using their skills in the stationery industry, the London Stationery Show teamed up with The Paper Library, and its co-founder Debbie Wigglesworth for this initiative.

Design students across the UK will be asked to respond to the briefs set by the design teams at Portico Designs, Paperchase and Caroline Gardner and produce various products suitable for each brand.  They will need to include details such as recommended paper use and provide any artwork required.

Their work will be judged by Debbie Wigglesworth, design managers from the placement providers, Barbara Ridley, head of the School of Design at the Glasgow School of Art and Tim Willoughby, managing director of Ocean Media, which owns the London Stationery Show.

The Paper Library, which provides a paper resource at leading design universities around the UK, is launching an online placement board, starting with this competition, and is keen to link up more design students with commercial placement opportunities.  Debbie Wigglesworth and co-founder Mark Stansfield, along with ‘Paper Ambassadors’ from colleges across the country will be on hand at the London Stationery Show (based at the Press Centre) to answer questions from companies who are interested in finding out more.

In addition, the London Stationery Show will play host to a party of London-based design students on the afternoon of Wednesday 25 April who will look around the show, sit in on a presentation by trend forecasters Scarlet Opus on the consumer and design trends the stationery industry will be experiencing in 2019 and a short presentation by The Paper Library.

They will also get the chance to quiz the three placement companies design managers during a Q&A panel session.  Lucy Sturgess, creative manager at Portico Designs, Gemma Parris, pattern design manager at Paperchase and Nicola Breen, design director at Caroline Gardner have all volunteered to be asked about their day to day roles, the sort of designs they work on and the commercial pressures and timescales involved.

“We’re delighted to be able to help facilitate this type of competition and bring it to the notice of our exhibitors and visitors. It’s important that, as an industry, we can offer design students a clear route into our sector and we’re absolutely delighted that Portico Designs, Paperchase and Caroline Gardner all agreed to support this first competition. The Paper Library provides a fantastic route directly into the key design colleges and tutors and we look forward to tracking the results of this initiative and seeing it grow as more stationery design teams get involved!” said Vanessa Fortnam, the show’s marketing director.

Debbie Wigglesworth of The Paper Library said “We’re delighted with the support we’ve received from the industry to get our placement programme launched.  Our three stationery placement companies are dynamic and iconic.  They will be great examples to our students of the sort of careers they could have in this innovative industry. All three companies trendsetting portfolio’s and student briefs reinforce our mantra that paper plays an integral role within the design process”.

More details about the student briefs and how to enter can be found on The Paper Library website – www.thepaperlibrary.com. Entry details will be sent to tutors and universities across the UK.