Designer Vicky Yorke’s Wild at Heart concept was revealed as the winner of the Really Good/Soul Design competition on the first day of the Harrogate Home and Gift show.
David Hicks, founder of Really Good/Soul who initiated the competition to reward and inspire young talent summed up Vicky’s creation as “a fresh take on the current trend for animal prints.”
The plan is to translate the designs initially into a greeting card range which will launch at the start of next year under Really Good and then hopefully will be extended into gift products.
All entries were judged by a panel comprising Alan Harnik of US company Notes & Queries, WHS buyer Claire Castle, Jenny Cummins of Sydney-based McMillan Cards, Postmark’s founder Mark Janson-Smith and PG editor Jakki Brown.
“It feels amazing to have won the competition,” Vicky told PG Buzz, who receives £1,000 as part of her prize. “It was such a lovely surprise! All of the finalists are very strong designers and the other three design collections to make the shortlist were all unique and worthy potential winners, so I feel very lucky to have been chosen.”
Winning this competition builds on a very exciting and busy 12 months for Vicky. Autumn Fair saw the launch of a home and gift collection featuring her design Sand Dunes with Widdop and Co, which was followed by several melamine kitchenware collections produced under licence with Melamaster launched at Spring Fair.
“Worldwide I have launched new fabric collections with Camelot Fabrics and luggage is in development with Halina Designs (Planet Traveller), so there is lots going on!” adds Vicky.
Meanwhile as its stand at the current Harrogate Home and Gift exhibition testifies, there has been a lot of product development going on in Really Good and Soul’s quarters.
Among its debuts at the show (July 15-18) is Suck It, a range of individually gift-packaged reusable metal drinking straws (complete with cleaning brush). There are six designs in the collection with the pouches which feature messages such as ‘Totally Strawsome’, ‘Drinkie Poos’, ‘Happy Hour’, ‘Suck It’, ‘Good Times Club’ and ‘Thirst Aid Kit’.
Also new from Really Good is Nifties, a collection of individually gift-packaged felt mats. The 12 designs span from the sensible to the silly, with ‘phone mat’ and ‘coin mat’ being among the former and ‘headbanging mat’ and ‘elbow mat’ at the other end of the silly spectrum.
Meanwhile, from Soul is Tickle, which Lisa Shoesmith, general manager of the Really Good/Soul group states as its “first significant foray into the nursery and preschool sector.”
The collection includes ‘my first passport’ covers, milestone moments card box, my first visitors book, baby on board signs as well as melamine tableware.
