GREEN GRADS is founded and curated by multi-award-winning design journalist Barbara Chandler @sunnygran who has covered design for over 25 years at the London Evening Standard. Co-director and show producer is Michael Czerwinski (@tucktite).

Over the course of a long career, every summer Barbara has visited New Designers (the UK’s major platform for new graduates in Islington, north London) to report and take photographs. Because of the pandemic, this show was cancelled first in 2020, then in 2021. Despite excellent on-line coverage, for two years in a row, graduates had no central platform to show their work in person to the design industry, including manufacturers, shops, galleries, curators, and the media, and the public at large. So, as lockdown lifted in the summer of 2021, briefed by Sally Bent event director of New Designers, Barbara journeyed into England to find the graduates in their places of study, attending design/craft/art degree shows where running, or getting personal briefings. On her itinerary were Plymouth, Loughborough, Leicester, Manchester, Kingston, Brighton and Stoke. London visits included Central Saint Martins, the RCA, Brunel, and Morley College. Barbara also explored portfolios on the internet (including the New Designers website) and social media posts. She says: “I was seeking out in effect the lost classes of 20/21. I felt they should have some attention. And I found that the quality and scope of work was outstanding.”

Demonstrably, the graduates deserved a national platform. This was generously offered by Deborah Spencer, co-founder and director of the pioneering Planted design show, launched in September 2021 in King’s Cross, London N1C, with a focus on biophilia and sustainability.

And so GREEN GRADS was born as a stand-alone show within Planted over a single weekend in the King’s Cross Samsung Experience Space, London N1C. Around 35 graduates took part. After that, GREEN GRADS gained considerable speed. GREEN GRADS was invited by hosts Media 10 into GRAND DESIGNS LIVE at ExCel for nine days in May 2022 and again in 2023. A second show, similar to the launch show but with around 50 graduates was at Samsung in September 2022. Next came THE GREEN GRADS HUB AT HEAL’S which filled the entire third floor of The Manufactory (above Heal’s freshly revamped furnishing store) in September 2023. This was courtesy of the landlords General Projects and investors KKR.

GREEN GRADS took a cohort of 22 to the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair in Manchester in October 2022 and again in 2023. And GREEN GRADS have held a series of SALONS in Hackney for informal briefings, debate and networking. GREEN GRADS also showed a film on our project everyday in Salone Satellite at the 60th edition of the great international Salone del Mobile Milano in June 2022. And there was a SUMMER SOIREE for GREEN GRADS kindly hosted by the Cartoon Museum in the West End in August 2023.

At the beginning of 2025, GREEN GRADS presented a stand at the  Surface Design Show in Islington (hosted by the organisers); then we curated TALKING TEXTILES at Chelsea Harbour (hosted by Crucial Trading); then we presented a whole day of eco-activities at the invitation of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School for Girls in Islington (“please, please come back next year”); and soon after that organised a rota of GREEN GRADS with demos and workshops at the Decorative Fair (hosted by The House Directory). 2025 sees us enlist our fifth cohort. We asked current GREEN GRADS to seek out the talent as our official ECO-SCOUTS – and they came up with some crackers for our following shows.

In October 2025, GREEN GRADS IN THE NORTH is for the fourth time at the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair in Victoria Baths, Manchester (hosted by the GNCCF).. And then GREEN GRADS at YORKTON WORKSHOPS is in Hackney  (for a second time, hosted by Pearson Lloyd), November 15/16 2025. .

“We are the message and the movement,” says GREEN GRAD Navpreet Singh, winner of our Earth Award, 2022.