London hosts first Designers Saturday for 20 years

This weekend London will host the first Designers Saturday event for more than 20 years, with a specially commissioned poster by furniture and product design group Pearson Lloyd.


The prestigious event will see the world’s largest office furniture design groups – including Herman Miller, Bisley and Knoll – opening their London showrooms to the design community.


The Designers Saturday poster has been a regular feature of the event since it first started in 1981. Each year a leading designer creates a unique artwork to mark the event, many of which are now collectors’ items.


Pearson Lloyd may not specialise in graphic design, but the consultancy’s co-founder and director Luke Pearson believes that its ‘pluralist’ approach and international reputation within the contract furniture industry, gives it strong enough credentials to design the Designers Saturday poster.


Pearson describes its poster design as a ‘sign of the times’ and claims it provides a unique insight into how far our lives have changed since the last Designers Saturday event in 1988, based on a combination of ‘location, commerce, global positioning and economy’.


‘The last time London held a Designers Saturday we would have used an A to Z to navigate the city; today all we have to do is plug a postcode into a computer and use GPS navigation systems,’ Pearson explains, adding, ‘Our poster is an expression of these changing times.’


Pearson describes the poster as ‘elusive’, to reflect the way so much vital information is now carried invisibly through the digital ether.


He says, ‘When you look at the poster you don’t see anything there, but when you look closer you see that it’s all there.’


The creative team at Pearson Lloyd follows in the footsteps of iconic designers such as Patrick Hues, surrealist painter and printmaker, and influential graphic designer Alan Fletcher, who both designed posters for the event during the early 1980s.


For more information, visit www.designerssaturday.co.uk.

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