Poundland’s stylish new bags for life designed by University students

The School of Creative Arts and Design students won a prestigious competition to re-design Summer 2014 and 2015 reusable bags for the international shopping chain.

Charlotte Ellery, a final-year fashion/textiles student and Christy Guan, a final-year Graphic Design student generated two original designs.

The winning students will be credited on the designs, with a conservative estimate of thousands of bags printed. In addition, they will work with Poundland’s in-house design team, seeing their ideas through to production and gaining valuable experience of working with the industry.

The eye-catching bags have a summer theme –one in red and blue, with a very British feel, by Charlotte (which will also be used in other colour ways) and Christy’s other yellow, with seaside motifs.

Sharon Watts, Subject Leader for Fashion/Textiles said: “The initial plan was to produce one design but the client was so pleased with the quality of the submissions that they decided to use two.

“It is so important for students to undertake live industry focused projects, it gives a real sense of deadlines, market and client issues and sharpens students’ problem solving skills. The fashion and textiles students really rose to the challenge in designing bags for Poundland and produced some exciting dynamic designs that were very fit for purpose.”

There were also two runners up Sarah Collins from Graphics and Naomi Hague from Fashion and Textiles.

John Clementson, Course Leader for Visual Communications, said: “The students’ engagement with this competition has been fabulous; there were some really strong designs for the client to choose from. I would like to congratulate all who took part for producing a number of high quality, artwork.”

Pavan Riyat-Ward, Poundland Marketing Controller, said “At Poundland we like to ensure the design of our reusable bags is new and exciting for our customers. This year we decided to work with the local talent at the University of Wolverhampton and invite them to submit designs for our new reusable bags, with a summer theme. We were so impressed with the quality of the submissions that we have decided to progress with two designs.

“We’d like to thank all the students who got involved with the project – the high calibre of designs made for a very challenging selection process.”

Charlotte’s design will be launched in June and Christy’s used next year.The design is also being used for the Dealz stores in the Republic of Ireland.

ENDS

For more information please contact Emma Pugh in the Media and Communications Office on 01902 322736.

Date issued: Tuesday 1 April 2014