For many young designers, the ‘Talents’ programme is an important rung on the career ladder, if not the decisive kick start for their careers. The ‘Talents 10+1’ special show at this year’s Tendence spotlights eleven former ‘Talents’ and their success stories.

They include designer Sebastian Herkner who exhibited at the ‘Talents’ area of Tendence for the first time in 2008. His ‘nan 16’ luminaire attracted the attention of Switzerland’s nanoo manufacturing company, who included it into their collection a year later. “I can only advise people to take advantage of such platforms to obtain feedback about their own designs and to make contact with potential manufacturers”, says Herkner. Today, his clients include not only nanoo but also a variety of renowned companies, such as De Vorm, ClassiCon and Foundry Collection. The designer’s latest product is the ‘coat armchair’, which has been available from Moroso since April.

The products of industrial designer Mark Braun were also discovered at Tendence when he presented his ‘Join’ series of dishes at the 2006 ‘Talents’ special show. A few months later, the dishes went into production at ASA Selection. Five years and innumerable design prizes later, the Berlin-based designer is showing not only his first works but also products that are due to go into production later this year, e.g., ‘TS 283 Fortune’ – a set of three glasses and a carafe for J. & L. Lobmeyr.

Other former ‘Talents’ also include Carsten Schelling, Sven Rudolph and Ralf Webermann of DING3000 in Hanover, who presented the ‘Billy Wilder’ shelving system at Tendence 2005. Designed to fit into the classic Ikea Billy bookcase, ‘Billy Wilder’ stands for a relaxed interpretation of the notion of ‘order’. The wild shelf growth simply makes Ikea’s Billy ‘wilder’. After the fair, ‘Billy Wilder’ was made and marketed by thedesign3000.de online shop. It was followed by S-XL Cake, a cake mould made of silicone, which was designed for Konstantin Slawinski and produces cakes with different sized pieces thanks to built-in compartments. It was chosen for the DesignPlus Award in 2008. Recently, the designer trio received a Red Dot Award for their ‘Beater’ whisk, which is made by Normann Copenhagen. “We are motivated by the romantic notion that a designer creates products that improve the world. Our whisk is simple and sculptural in terms of form and function – and we made it as small as possible without entering into any design compromises.”

Monica Singer and Marie Rahm of POLKA from Vienna also took advantage of the ‘Talents’ platform to present their idea for bringing together classic pieces of furniture and tattoos. Today, POLKA is one of Austria’s most successful design studios and the designers’ products are made and marketed by companies such as Authentics, Laufen, Lobmeyr and Wittmann.

Sybille Fleckenstein, Jens Pohlmann and Thilo Schwer of speziell® design studio took part in the 2004 edition of ‘Talents’ and presented products with innovative surfaces, e.g., rings with a flocked inside and a flocked sideboard with drawers running on flocked tracks. At that time, the three young designers were the first to show how flocking techniques, i.e., coating articles with textile fibres, could be used to produce decorative and purposeful supplementary benefits. At Tendence, their ideas aroused the interest of Asian manufacturer Studio Domo and this initial contact has developed into a long-running working relationship. Altogether, the designers have created seven products for the Taiwanese company, most recently, in early 2012, the trolley ‘Ally’. Naturally, they also regularly create products for other renowned customers including Siematic, Rolf Benz, Kahla, Sedus Stoll and Anthologie Quartett.