P L A N T P O T

 After the huge success of the  P L A N T  P O T  exhibition upstairs at SMUG during London Design Festival 2015,  P L A N T  P O T  is back for 2016! And this year your own design could be featured. 8 established designers and friends of SMUG will each produce a one-off pot for this year's show, leaving 4 spots available for new up-and-coming designers to be showcased. Below I'll talk you through all of the brilliant pots and wonderful designers I included last year. Keep reading to the bottom for info on how to enter the competition and submit your pot for this year's exhibition. Winners will not only be featured in the exhibition, which will be seen by tonnes of visitors to SMUG during London Design Festival (the exhibition will also be shared across the social media platforms and websites of SMUG, the Islington Design District and the Festival itself among others) winners will also be invited to the IDD launch party at SMUG to kick off this year's Festival. More on that later. P L A N T  P O T  2 0 1 5  was such a pleasure to curate from start to finish. Once I'd decided on the plant pot theme I essentially cherry picked my favourite designers to work with and asked each of them to come up with a special one-off plant pot design for the show. Most of them had never produced a plant pot before so it was a really open, creative and fun project. The brief I shared was for each person to come up with a water tight design using the materials, colours and general style that was reflected in their work. I planted up each pot with a cactus or succulent, styled according to the look and feel of the pot, and even included my own humble addition to pull the whole thing together and make up the number of 12 pots. The results were great and wonderfully, the show was really well received by the public and press. I want to take this opportunity to say again a big and special thanks to all of the designers who worked on this with me. Such beautiful one-off pots were made for the show and group shots of the exhibition itself have ended up being the most photographed, shared and regrammed images in SMUG's social media history. So thanks again to all who were involved. byshop  //  Metal Square Tube Pot with cork bottom in byshop's signature turquoiseEleanor Bolton  //  Woven Chord Plant Pot in Cream and RedLizzie Evans  //  Paint Splattered effect on traditional terracotta pot with saucerEsme Winter  //  Origami Pot commissioned by Esme Winter and made by Origami EstRuby Taylor  //  Bananas Clay Pot made and illustrated by Ruby TaylorHilary Grant  //  Mini Lambswool Scarf by Hilary Grant fashioned around earthenware potDonna Wilson  //  Stripy Pot with Face by Donna WilsonRosie Moss  //  Hand Screened Fabric Pot made by Rosie using her classic Hands designThe Pattern Guild  //  Fabric Pot made by The Pattern Guild using their classic Cubes designOne We Made Earlier  //  Triangular Pot made by OneWeMadeEarlier using resinLenneke Wispelwey  //  The SMUG Bowl by Lenneke Wispelwey, launched for LDFLydia Shirreff  //  Paper Cut Collage Pot made as a sleeve to existing ceramic square pot   H O W  T O  S U B M I T T  Y O U R  P O T  D E S I G N  F O R  P L A N T  P O T  2 0 1 6  :To update the brief a little this year and keep things fresh, I've decided on a pattern theme. To enter your patterned and water tight plant pot design please submit an image of your one-off original pot on Instagram, twitter or Facebook tagging @ifeelsmug (on Insta and twitter) or linking to the SMUG page via Facebook before July 31th using the hashtag #SMUGPLANTPOT. Please include materials and dimensions in the description of your post.I'll consider all submissions and announce the chosen 4 at the beginning of August. The 4 winners pots will be exhibited in the  P L A N T  P O T  2 0 1 6  show upstairs at SMUG during London Design Festival in September and will be available for sale from SMUG during that time.I am looking for beautiful designs both simple and elaborate in style. I'll be wanting to curate a group of diverse pots so it might be worth thinking about using unusual materials, colours, shapes and finishes but do stay true to your own style. The shelf that the pots sit on is 12cm deep so please take that into account too. I'm so looking forward to seeing your designs. Good luck and speak soon!