The Poundshop to showcase northern product design
A pop-up shop will open in Manchester’s Northern Quarter this weekend, with the aim of helping talented designers to commercialise their ideas and create new products.
The Poundshop is coming to the Manchester’s Chinese Arts Centre to set up its first shop outside of the capital.
A design initiative founded in 2010 by London-based designers George Wu, Sara Melin and Sarah Gottlieb, it aims to encourage entrepreneurialism amongst designers by giving them a platform to sell their goods, with the strict brief that the product is to be sold at affordable price points of £1, £5 and £10.
Ms Wu, who hails from Manchester (pictured centre), said: “The Poundshop is the perfect testing ground for product experimentation. A lot of these designers have not created products before so they get the chance to commercialise their work and hopefully learn a lot during that process.
“There is a huge wave of activity around the notion of commercialising design talent at the moment – with websites like notonthehighstreet.com – but we wanted this to be more localised and not just online.
“We have had pop-ups of The Poundshop in London for three years but we wanted to grow the network of designers and increase the talent pool.”
The shop’s interior has been designed and installed by local agency Music.
“It is a trial run and we would really like to come back and do more in Manchester and the North West if this is successful,” added Ms Wu.
Designers who have shown their wares through The Poundshop in the past have since had their products listed in shops including deaprtment store Liberty of London, Magma Books and MOMA in New York.
Products are also available to buy online at thepoundshop.org and a new app will launch when the shop opens, allowing people to buy when passing the store, even when it is closed, using QR codes that will be posted on the shop’s window. Products will then be posted out to the customer.
Following Manchester, the Poundshop will be making its next appearance at Selfridges in London, for a month from the end of August.
“We are very excited about bringing designers to such a massive audience – this will be a full on retail experience, with thousands of shoppers a day seeing their work,” said Ms Wu.
The Poundshop will be open at the Chinese Arts Centre in Manchester’s Northern Quarter from June 8 to June 22, Tuesday to Saturday.
