The way to enterprise development is through professional practice

The mentees of the 2022 design START had the opportunity to gain valuable experience in the second phase of the Hungarian Fashion & Design Agency’s mentoring programme that launched for the fourth time this year. The emerging design brands spent two weeks of internship at a domestic manufacturer with a long tradition, or an acknowledged local designer of their choice exploring new areas, methods, and materials. After the successfully concluded internships, the designers can continue their journey of product and enterprise development, equipped with new knowledge and practices, that support the design START programme’s main goal to help the brands gain more visibility both domestically and internationally.

The Hungarian Fashion & Design Agency organised the design START mentoring programme for the fourth time to support emerging designers with practical and theoretical knowledge. The programme seeks particularly those talents who want to stabilise their business in the Hungarian market, while it aims to help them reach their international goals through the valuable experience they gain during the programme. The participating designers dive into the areas of business development not only on professional presentations held by renowned speakers, but also during the two-week internship, and an international study trip in the third phase of design START.

During the summer, the representatives of 6 emerging Hungarian brands had the opportunity to peek into the daily lives of Hungarian manufacturers and designers. Over the course of the two-week internship, the participants gained practical advice and professional knowledge that they can use later in their own businesses. Based on the designers’ feedback, the shared knowledge and joint reflection on business and product relating topics were especially inspiring, while new ideas were born and new directions for the future were outlined.

Anett Sáfrán, the founder of the brand Anett Safran, creates consumer products and decoration pieces of porcelain that put tactility, i.e., the sense of touch and experience in the focus. During her internship at Organic Porcelain Manufaktúra Kft., she wanted to deepen her knowledge about product development. The company, which is well-versed in customised development, small-scale production, and in manufacturing prototypes, helped her explore how to get a new product off the ground.

Balázs Botos Design’s main profile is the designing and manufacturing of porcelain jewellery and home accessories. The designer wanted to have a taste of an entirely different technique this time, for which he chose Paper Up! The manufacturer, which focuses on sustainability and recycles paper waste, gave him the chance to try out new techniques, colours, shapes, patterns and materials.

Norna’s designers, Alexandra Takács and Petra Pinezits create pieces of furniture that can be organic parts of nature thanks to their world of forms and use of colours but can also become a determining piece of any interior. They picked Árkossy Bútor Kft. as the place of their internship, where they got to know the process and potential of small-scale furniture production.

The brand Kata Font Home offers basic interior design products following minimalist principles. Kata Font, the founder of the brand selected Hannabi for her internship, due to the important aspect of their products intersecting on many points, including form and philosophy. In their collaboration, she deepened her knowledge of brand building, communication, marketing and sales processes.

The designer duo of itthon. design studio, Adrienn Király and Bálint Szalai create small-scale home accessories made of natural materials based on traditional Vojdovina craftmanship. Their long-standing wish was fulfilled by spending their internship at LumoConcept Kft. and gaining insight into production using artisanal methods.

Zsanett Kalácska, the creator of Vivoid, makes acoustic wall coverings, wall carpets, panels and design elements using modular textile structures. During her internship, she wanted to get closer to product development, acoustic solutions, space elements and furniture, which is why she chose Europa Design. The focus of their collaboration was the development of a product line.

The first two phases of the eight-month design START programme concluded with the internships. The participants had the chance to learn the most important details about business development from industry experts with outstanding careers during the workshops in the first phase. And as a second step, throughout the two-week internships, they gained experience in the areas most important to them and got solutions to their current questions and problems.

In the last phase of the training, between the 24^th and 27^th of October, the mentees of the design START programme are participating in a study trip at the largest annual design event in Northern Europe, the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, where they can see the creations and design concepts of over 2600 designers. The professional trip is a great opportunity for the brands to get an inside view of the international design scene, expand their professional knowledge, gain inspiration for their own work, meet prominent representatives of the industry and even build new contacts.

You can read the interviews with the representatives of the Hungarian design brands participating in the design START programme about their internships below.