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News
Wedgwood kick off the Olympic Countdown
The Wedgwood site in Stoke on
Trent kicked off their production line to prepare for the 2012 Olympics, following a visit from Lord Sebastian Coe. The former Olympian and chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games visited the Barlaston site to see some of the offi cial products being created to celebrate the prestigious games after WWRD secured the deal earlier this year. Lord Coe told Tableware
International: “Wedgwood has always been an obvious choice as a partner. After we won the 2012 games we drew up a list if the best British names that we wanted to work with, and it wont surprise you to know that Wedgwood was one. They have the experience in supporting the Games, before, they are well respected in the UK and abroad, and is the perfect choice for this project.” Lord Coe received a presentation from Chief Finance Offi cer Anthony Jones to mark the exciting relationship between the two parties. Chief fi nance offi cer Anthony Jones said: “From our perspective, this is a perfect marriage of the history of the Olympics and the history of our great brand. We set out to win this contract. We felt very strongly that we should win it, because these are the sorts of things we need to do to bring prosperity back to this region.”
WWRD will be producing more than 50 different products for the Olympics, including mugs, fi gurines, medallions and vases. Prices will range from a £4 mug, anything up to a £10’000 vase. Some will be sold later this year, and others at 2012 venues.It is understood the licensing deal with London 2012 could eventually be worth £10 million to WWRD.
Bringing porcelain to the youth: Augarten’s Design Competition a great success
Augarten have been
driving a campaign to get young people and street artists involved in the design of porcelain. ‘Augarten Burns’ is the name of the contest, in which Augarten invited young people to get involved and come up with their own designs for porcelain pieces. The campaign was published via
popular social networking platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, and received 120 designs in response. Entries were placed to a public vote and then a judging panel, with three chosen winners who got the chance to paint their pieces by hand in the manufactory.
The competition follows a push by Augarten over the last two years to involve young designers in the product development process. May sees the Viennese Porcelain Manufactory Augarten celebrate its 293rd anniversary. Even today, the company adheres to the credo ‘Manu Factum Est’ (Made by hand) and work without the use of machine-based manufacturing processes. By allowing young designers to get involved with the design process it has created modern and practical porcelain without compromising with tradition.
The idea behind the campaign came from Alexander Schönburg, who has already launched similar initiatives in Brazil. Confi dent that this approach would have a positive lasting effect on the manufactory’s image, Alexander Schönburg and the agency 4E7 were duly commissioned to organize and run the campaign. The website (
www.augartenbrennt.at) was set up as the main focus of the entire project. As it is still very rare in Austria for this type of promotion to be carried out via social networks, the company were particularly delighted by the overwhelming response received. Artists were able to download templates from the website and use these to create their own ‘virtual’ pieces of Augarten porcelain. Each participant had the opportunity to actively promote their creation via their own network, and to use Facebook, Twitter and similar sites to encourage as many fans and friends as possible to take part in the public vote. This process revealed the ten most popular entries which were then put against a panel of judges.
Exhibition celebrates 25 years of Emma Bridgewater
British pottery manufacturer Emma Bridgewater celebrates its 25th anniversary this summer with an exhibition and a special deal for consumers on damaged tableware.
The exhibition will be staged at the Potteries Museum in Stoke on Trent, where the company is based. The museum features the largest collection of pottery in the world, and will showcase Emma Bridgewater designs from the last quarter of a century. The exhibition runs from May 29 to September 26.
Emma Bridgewater is the largest company to produce all of its pottery by hand in Britain. Each piece is made by a team of 150 skilled workers at the Stoke factory, where over 5,000 pieces of pottery are produced a day and each item taking four days to make.
6 TABLEWARE INTERNATIONAL
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