After the corporate finesse of 100% Design, Tent London marked a welcome contrast. The event had a distinct East London vibe – shabby chic in location, but innovative and cool in content.

Earlier in the year mydeco and Tent London launched a competition to give three lucky design graduates the chance to pitch their final projects to Sir Terence Conran and Philippe Starck. And it was at Tent London that we got to see the ten short-listed contenders exhibiting their wares at the ‘Talent Zone.’

Although my opinion may be somewhat biased, I think that the ten graduates provided some of the most interesting and conceptual products of the whole event.

I first chatted to Omri Barzeev, who’s responsible for designing the Zaza chair. The felt chair has real character, almost a comical personality, with its conical shape and sturdy legs. Its design plays upon the relationship between soft and hard materials and the physical boundaries of these materials. The tactile chair was extremely comfortable and surprisingly flexible; it was made all the more charming by its modest creator.

Image credit: Omri Barzeev

I was then drawn to speak to Nicole Mueller about her maison sauvage range. Mueller used video footage of people interacting at a table as the basis of her designs. She traced the movements and connections made between the people in her video, and worked with the individual shapes and lines that they created.  The neon lines that are distinctive in Mueller’s work were inspired by her regular use of highlighter pens. Mueller’s products are aimed to reflect the nature of the ‘present day patchwork family.’ They can work together, but also separately as independent pieces.

Image credit: maison sauvage

The Korean designer Jaebeom Jeong is a promising talent who adheres to the ‘form follows function’ concept.  For his grid chair, Jeong used a scaffolding structure to draw attention to the internal mechanics and formation of a chair. Sometimes the simplest ideas are the most effective.

Image credit: Jaebeom Jeong

The last designer to really catch my eye was Hannes Grebin. The affable German, wanted to distort the classic idea of furniture by using abstract and asymmetrical shapes. After looking at his ‘old and ugly couch’ Grebin wanted to see if he could reshape its geometry and turn it into something better and modern. From this start-point, Grebin has experimented with other types of homeware; his restructured objcets really push the boundaries of what we can acceptably call ‘furniture.’

Image credit: Hannes Grebin

It was great to talk with these original and motivated designers, and I look forward to seeing if the designers I picked out make it to the final three.