We speak to Emerald Expositions’ Jill Campbell about this year’s art and design showcase.
Every year over 4,500 buyers, licensees, manufacturers and retailers converge on the Surtex show floor at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City to buy or licence the newest designs and patterns from around 200 exhibitors. It’s a chance to get first dibs on the best original art and design being created today.
“Licensed art and design is everywhere, from housewares to furnishings to apparel and more,” says Jill Campbell, vice president of marketing for Emerald Expositions. “Since the show began more than 30 years ago, it has become a premier global forum for the sale and licensing of art, where hundreds of artists with unique designs meet manufacturers seeking fresh trending designs for use on their finished products and goods.”
More than 200 artists from around the world will be exhibiting at Surtex and are split into three areas, making it easy for visitors to find their way around. The largest section by far, and the heart of Surtex is the art and brand licensing area, with artists, designers, agencies, brands exhibiting over 1,000 creative works available for licence.
For those looking for textile art, head to the Atelier section where textile design studios from around the world sell their most trend-forward surface designs to a multitude of product categories. Atelier is for a broad range of manufacturers – interior textiles, fashion fabrics, wall coverings, paper, and more – seeking the latest prints, patterns, repeats, documents, and design services for product development needs.
New in 2016 was the Design District for first-time exhibitors, and this is returning in 2017 featuring never-seen-before individual artist studios.
“Surtex presents a powerful business-to-business platform for artists looking to share their designs with a global audience of retailers and manufacturers,” says Jill.
“This type of exposure opens doors to licensing opportunities that may not have otherwise presented themselves. This world stage gives designers the opportunity to offer their designs to mass market product manufacturers, and retail private label, in many cases taking them from hobby artist to an active licensor of their designs.”
Trend Theatre
Daily presentations in the Trend Theatre will give valuable insight into the latest trends. Topics as diverse as designs that appeal to gen Z, to experts’ thoughts on home interior trends will be presented.
The nine 30-minute sessions are free to everyone attending Surtex.
Surtex runs from May 21-23 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, New York.
This feature originally appeared in the Summer 2017 edition of Art & Design Licensing Source Book. Click here to read the full publication.
