The Designer Makers

Ana Aceves:
Illustrator Ana Aceves grew up in Spain, before studying in Paris and then at Goldsmith's College, London and Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, graduating in Music. Always attracted to illustration and design, Ana started to work for advertising agencies as a graphic designer and art director. Since 2002, Ana has been working as a full-time artist.

Cressida Bell:
Cressida Bell is a British designer specialising in textiles and interiors.
From her London studio she produces a widerange of products including accessories for men and women and artefacts for the home. She also undertakes the production of many bespoke items from stationery and illustration to murals, carpets and furnishing fabrics.
Cressida Bell set up her company in 1984 on leaving the Royal College of Art. She previously studied in the fashion department of St Martin's School of Art in its 1980s heyday.
There is an undoubted influence from her well known Bloomsbury Group forebears (Quentin Bell was her father and Vanessa Bell her grandmother); but it is not an all-pervading one, and she has forged her own very individual style over the last 25 years.

Nick Bodimeade:
Nick Bodimeade lives near Lewes and his work is regularly shown in solo and group exhibitions in London and the South.
Nick is a painter of everyday life. His subjects in the past have included dogs, trucks, sheds, chairs, lorries and motorways. He has recently produced a series of small edition prints of a well-loved chair in his studio and his lurcher dog which will be on show.

Nora Boland:
Growing up in Morocco, Nora Boland's fascination with colourful textiles began at an early age. Nora recollects daily market trips, where she helped her mother to buy "flamboyant, silky fabrics for making kaftans". Having begun her career in interior design, Nora decided to pursue her passion for textiles and returned to university to study Textiles Design, graduating from the University for Creative Arts in Farnham in 2007.
In 2006, Nora was awarded the Colour Prize by The Dyers' Association, and in 2007, Nora's work was shortlisted for a prestigious Textprint Award. Nora currently produces hand-woven textiles which she crafts into scarves and wrist cuffs.

Amelia Coward:
Amelia Coward trained at Central St Martins as a textile designer, moving on to the Royal College of Art where she completed a Masters Degree in woven textiles with a focus on colour theory and dyeing methods. Amelia then spent several years working in the Italian commercial interior textile industry, designing fabric for the European market.
Becoming increasingly disillusioned by the mass production required for industry on this scale (Amelia cites a turning point being a visit to China, during which she witnessed 700 men on a production line making a sofa she had designed), Amelia took the decision to start up on her own. As Bombus, Amelia produces bespoke furniture and art accessories for the home using the technique of decoupage. Amelia's work is highly collectible and has featured extensively throughout the national press.

Lars Gregersen:
Danish born potter Lars P. Soendergaard Gregersen set up Soendergaard 1995. From his early years, Lars had a keen interest in ceramics, in 1981 he took up a four-year apprenticeship with the Danish studio pottery Brangstrup Stoneware, and after graduating Lars worked for several potteries in Denmark as a potter and designer. In 1993 Lars moved to London to work as a production manager in a company making ceramic tabletops. In 1995 he started his own business developing and selling his own designs. In 2000 Lars moved to rural Suffolk.
Lars works within the Scandinavian tradition of design and function. All designs are handthrown on the wheel in finest English porcelain, handles are hand pulled and all pots are fired by the craftsman himself. Soendergaard design has exhibited at Chelsea Crafts Fair and sells its products all over the world.
Most recently the Japanese company Y-Yacht placed a commission for tableware for their new flagship store in Tokyo. The current client list includes Designers Guild , Nicole Farhi Home Collection and David Mellor Design.

Shelley James:
Having completed an MA in printmaking at the University of the West of England, glassmaker Shelley James currently shares her time between Residencies at the University of the Creative Arts in Farnham and the Bristol Eye Hospital. In September 2009, she will begin an MPhil at the Royal College of Art in London to continue her research into the science and art of perception alongside commissions and consultancy work.
Shelley will show sculptural glass works of immense beauty and complexity, mirroring her fascination with the human eye.

Helen Minns:
Designer-maker Helen Minns' design philosophy embraces the imperfections and uniqueness of natural materials and craft based techniques. A love of drawing and mark-making combined with a modern aesthetic of clean lines and silhouettes makes her style truly unique. After training in textile design at Central St.Martins Helen has worked as a freelance textile designer, a lecturer in textiles and collaborated with fellow accessories designer Kate Sheridan to make printed leather fashion accessories. Helen has a studio in Depftord's Cockpit Arts from where she launched her company in June last year. Her products are now avilable fom Liberty and design
boutiques across the UK.
Helen will show cushions and lamp shades featuring her trademark hares and birds as well as a series of framed prints.

Sue Paraskeva:
Sue studied at Middlesex University and is now based on the Isle of Wight. She works with porcelain and uses a stick driven momentum wheel to create fine cylindrical forms. In the ceramic world this technique is used widely in Jingdezhen - the Chinese capital of Porcelain. The momentum wheel allows Sue to work silently and without electricity in tune with the spin of the wheel. Sue creates fine cylindrical porcelain vessels, inspired initially by industrial forms. These are refined during throwing and intuitive decorative marks are applied using wood ash slips, colouring oxides and inlayed clay.
In addition to these pieces she also produce a simple range of mixed porcelain tableware, in a speckled cream and a grey porcelain. She has shown at the 2006 Origins Exhibiton and regularly at the prestigious craft gallery Contemporary Applied Arts, London.

Tim Plunkett:
Tim Plunkett has developed his career as a turner and wood carver from a background in environmental science and involvement in opposing the destruction of ancient forests and cultures. He has a strong desire to earn a living using sustainable resources: all his wood is sourced locally, some from the National Trust. He turned professional in 1995 with the help of the Princes Trust and a few years later was invited onto the Register of Professional Turners held by the Worshipful Company of Turners, at the time, the youngest person to be accepted.
He is motivated by the desire to produce simple, beautiful and practical pieces, which show the unique character of each piece of wood and try to avoid any superfluous embellishment; pure, simple, elegant lines are what he is aiming for. He
primarily produces turned bowls and beautifully slim and elegant platters. These are stocked by Liberty of London.

Guilia Zaniol:
Giulia Zaniol is a printmaker artist currently based in London. She has recently become an ARE, Associate member of the Royal Society of Printmaker-Painters. She has won several awards since graduating from her MA at Camberwell College with her work being selected for the 2008 Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy and part of the V&A collection. In 2007 she won the Birgit Skiold prize at Originals 07 with her etching, My Grandma's Kitchen. She was also chosen by Allen Jones RA to win the prestigious Clifford Chance Purchase Prize 2006 given by international law firm, Clifford Chance, who have built an impressive collection of modern British printmaking.
A native of Venice, where her family printed for Canaletto, Giulia Zaniol's work reflects her personal narrative played against the changing face of this once great trading city, now a magnet for the tourist trail.