Telegraph poll splits two ways

COVERAGE for design shows in the national press is usually sketchy. British creativity can pass unnoticed or be splashed out of all proportion.

The Daily Telegraph obviously believes in a balanced view or it needs to fill its pages. On Saturday 3 August it featured last month’s New Designers exhibition at London’s Business Design Centre under the heading “Why do young designers persist with utter tosh?”

Jane Furnival asked why “so many of these exhibits are useless?” and wondered where were “the new ideas to add joy to everyday life? Designers seem frightened of turning their talents to real things”. She also quoted

Liberty’s crafts buyer who agreed the show was “a waste of money”.

Fair enough. But turn a few pages to the Arts section of the Telegraph’s same edition and we see another piece about the New Designers, slamming industry for its lack of interest in products which – according to Leslie Geddes-Brown – are brilliant.

Chosen adjectives include exciting, vivid, inventive, witty and more brilliants. In other words, it went down a treat.