Craft Focus - Jun/Jul (Issue 67)

Taking place over two days in April, this year’s London Stationery Show hit its visitor target and attracted buyers from all the industry’s key sectors The eighth London Stationery Show opened its doors at the Business Design Centre on the 24 th and 25 th April this year. The event attracted some 2,000 visitors, and featured the industry’s biggest national stationery suppliers, as well as a host of talented independent designers. Buyers came from garden centres, bookshops, gift shops, department stores, educational establishments and craft retailers to view the latest paper and writing trends, while organiser Ocean Media Group welcomed a growing number of licensors, licensing agents and high street retailers including Asos, Next, Monsoon Accessorize and Amara Living. “We’re delighted that the show continues to go from strength to strength,” says Event Manager Hazel Fieldwick. “We want our event to be the place to find writing and paper products, whatever your starting point of interest may be, so it’s great to see such a mix of visitors attending.” Highlights this year included the seventh Stationery Awards. The high profile judging panel picked out products from two of the show’s LaunchPad winners, while regular exhibitors Lime Stationery & Art and Abrams & Chronicle each collected multiple prizes. A new award for good design was introduced this year, with Back Pocket’s range of notebooks picking up the coveted title. Setting the trends The new award was introduced to celebrate the show’s efforts in attracting more design- led brands to exhibit. As part of this initiative, the event also included trend tours and a trend hub area. Curated by forecasting specialist, Scarlet Opus, the new features proved popular, with some companies booking private tours for their own marketing teams. “For retailers and suppliers who want to plan beyond the next season, understanding how trend forecasting works and marrying the information to what they know about current customers – or indeed the customers they’d like to have – is of real commercial benefit,” explains Vanessa Fortnum, the show’s Marketing Director. “It allows retailers and suppliers to focus on what they need to maximise future sales. This is an area we’ll definitely be developing further next year.” Another new feature was the Student red letter days show review craft focus 31