Its inaugural staging in 2005 marked the city’s first curated design market, reflecting a growing public interest in design practice and paving the way for other, similar, events such as the locally staged Hope Street and Finders Keepers markets.
What began as an annual event in 2005, grew into twice and thrice-yearly occurrences, with the Christmas market and the August market, coinciding with Sydney Design festival, drawing the biggest crowds. Young Blood brings together designers working in various fields from fashion and jewellery to home wares, lighting and graphic design. With a focus on innovative, ‘smart’ design, the market stands apart from other events of its kind in a number of areas, not least its national call for entries.
The Powerhouse’s Sydney Design Program Manager Jane Latief says, ‘The great point of difference that we have – and it’s testament to the fact that people see the museum as a respected institution – is that we get applications from interstate. Latief goes on to note that past Young Bloods have attracted applicants from Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia – with enquiries coming from as far away as New Zealand. Locating Young Blood as a national survey of new design is an important part of the market’s future, and the Powerhouse hopes to continue to broaden their net to include more interstate stallholders.
Inclusion in the Young Blood market is currently based on a general call for entries, which are assessed by a four-person panel. Selection criterion is focussed on the quality and diversity of proposed products, and is geared towards featuring products and designs that are innovative and have yet to gain exposure in the market. Taking events such as the Melbourne Design Market and the internationally run Designboom Mart as its model, Young Blood is not restrictive in its inclusion of new and established practitioners. And despite the market’s name, youth it is not a requirement of participation, a fact that Latief is quick to point out.
It’s not about how old you are, it’s about where you are situated in terms of exposure,’ she says. ‘You can be a young person starting out, you can be an independent designer who works in a very niche way, or you can be a mid-career designer who’s developed a prototype and wants to test the market – this is the perfect place to do it.’
Indeed, diversity is key to the success of the Young Blood market, and its organisers take pains to ensure that, unlike other regularly occurring markets, a large percentage of the exhibitors at Young Blood have not been featured at the market before. Latief says that the ideal situation would see a regular turnover of stallholders, ensuring that visitors are ‘presented with new products and designers’ every time.
Young Blood offers stallholders a unique forum to display and sell their work, to gain media and industry exposure, and to speak directly to the public and other designers about their practice. Past markets have proven lucrative for many stall holders, with a notable few going on to market success with their products.
Huw Jones of The Curator Company showed his Photo Curator – a system for wall-mounting photographs – at Young Blood in 2008, and has since upgraded manufacturing of the product, which has been featured at trade shows in Melbourne and New York and has garnered interest from Asian and American importers. Jones says participating in Young Blood was a ‘great way to get noticed after designing in relative solitude.’
‘The experience of launching at Young Blood gave me the kick start I needed,’ Jones says. ‘It has provided me with the exposure and momentum that has given me the ability to travel throughout Australia and, in the very near future, the USA and Europe. As well as providing me with the knowledge and feedback I need to further my designs.’
Among past stallholders at Young Blood are Jewellery and Object Design students from Design Centre Enmore, for whom participating in the market is part of their course requirements. The students apply for, plan and run their market stall, marketing and selling the work of graduate students, with the hope of raising funds for their end-of-year exhibition. Jane Latief sees the Design Centre’s involvement as ‘giving young designers a real taste of what it’s like to be out there in the market place,’ and looks forward to perhaps engaging with other institutions for future markets.
For the first time, the August 2009 market was relocated to a position inside the Powerhouse Museum, a move that was intended to foreground the extent of the museum’s dedication to design practice, something that a large percentage of the general public may have not realised. Despite teething problems regarding space and crowd management, the move marked a new phase for Young Blood, which Jane Latief promises, will continue to evolve in the coming years to fulfil its mission of ‘fostering young design.’
If you’d like to participate in or attend a future Young Blood: Designers Market, sign up for the Powerhouse Museum’s design enewsletter to receive updates and notification of the call for entries.