Designers set to light up the shops

7:02pm Monday 17th November 2008

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A Skipton design company has teamed up with the prestigious St Martin’s College of Art and Design to ensure some of the country’s biggest shopping centres are dressed up to the nines this Christmas.

In a groundbreaking three-year exclusive sponsorship, LDJ Design & Display of Skipton, one of the UK’s leading retail decorations companies, has joined forces with Central St Martins to use the designers of tomorrow to decorate major malls.

Central St Martins – which includes amongst its alumni such famous names as Stella McCartney, Terence Conran, Peter Blake, Alexander McQueen, Lucian Freud, John Galliano, Pierce Brosnan, Mike Leigh, Gerald Scarfe, A A Gill, Hussein Chalayan, Simon Callow and Matthew Williamson – will be working with LDJ on a range of projects over the next three years aimed at improving the whole experience and look of Christmas within shopping centres.

The work of the up-and-coming designers will be gracing the new Westfield centre in Derby – built by the people behind Bradford’s new shopping centre on Broadway – and the Victoria Quarter in Leeds.

LDJ’s managing director, Caroline Gamester, herself a trained fashion designer who includes a stint working for Donna Karan in New York on her CV, said: “We always aim to stay one step ahead of our competition in bringing our clients new ideas and what better way to do this than by working with a group of the brightest young creative minds around. Central St Martins also have wonderful contacts with a whole range of cutting edge technology companies and research institutes.”

The particular course that LDJ have chosen to work with is the MA Creative Practise for Narrative Environments which pioneers collaborative practise among architects, designers, curators, writers and project managers.

Tricia Austin, the course director at Central St Martins, said: “We’re thrilled at the opportunity LDJ’s sponsorship gives our students to work together with them on real projects for real places.

“Our collaboration with LDJ gives us the ideal opportunity to unfold the story of Christmas and its memories of childhood, joy and celebration and the giving of gifts into a shopping centre environment with the aim of increasing the number of visitors to that centre by providing a truly memorable experience.”