Last week saw the House and Home office turn into a hive of activity as we galloped towards the final furlong in this year’s House and Home Crafts Council of Ireland Student Design Awards competition.
(Photos: Paul Sherwood)
With a record number of submissions this year, product drop-off took place at the Digital Hub last Tuesday and seven finalists who were lucky enough to make the grade came back the next day to meet our judging panel.
Karen Hesse, House and Home’s publisher, Dara Flynn, editor, Louise Allen, Education and Awareness Manager with the Crafts Council, Teresa Rafter, Head of homewears for Dunnes Stores, Jennie Flynn, owner of designist and ceramic designer Karen Morgan ably judged our shortlisted seven. You can find out more about our judges here.
We took delivery of submissions across furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass and lighting and judges remarked on the high standard this year. 2011’s theme was ‘Home Comforts – Where Craft Meets Design’ which gave students a fairly open brief to create a beautiful and functional product which we’d all like to have in our houses.
As always, judges were looking for excellence in design and usability, ease of manufacture and a decent price-point for the finished piece. With that in mind, here are the seven products that made it to the final stage.
The winner will be unveiled this Thursday at an event at Dublin’s Odeon bar - who do you think it’ll be? Have a look at our finalists and then take the poll to pick your favourite piece.
