Wayne Hemingway is the Chair Person of the judging panel and overall judge of the Young Northern Designer award. His route into the world of fashion was quite unorthodox. A graduate in Geography and Town Planning, he one day decided to empty his wardrobe and that of his childhood sweetheart, now wife, Gerardine and set up a stall with the contents on Camden Market. With this came the realisation that money could be made from fashion.
Wayne and Gerardine built Red or Dead into a successful label and won the prestigious British Fashion Council’s Streetstyle Designer of the Year Award for an unprecedented 3 consecutive years.
In 1999 Wayne and Gerardine sold Red or Dead and set up HemingwayDesign which specialises in affordable and social design. Recent work has included housing projects such as The Staiths South Bank on Tyneside and The Birchin in Manchester’s Northern Quarter; other projects have included a range of wall coverings for Graham and Brown, a tile range for British Ceramic Tiles and product design for clients such as Sky Plus, Wanadoo and Royal Mail.
In addition to the work of HemingwayDesign Wayne is the Chairman of Building for Life, a CABE (Commission for Architecture and The Built Environment) funded organisation that promotes excellence in the quality of design of new housing. He was awarded an MBE in June 2006; he’s a Professor of the Built Environment at Northumbria University and a Doctor of Design at Wolverhampton. He also writes for architectural and housing publications, judges a range of international design competitions and is a well-known TV design commentator.
Wayne says, “This will be the fifth year of the Northern Design Competition, a competition that received over 2,500 entries last year. Last year was my second year as a judge and as well as being heartened by the overall standard, the awards “do” itself attitude was enjoyable. The competition celebrates the best young design talent in the North and this year sees the second year of the Young Northern Designer category which allows even more young people to enter.”
