AmericasMart Atlanta

Press Release

Students of Savannah College of Art & Design Find Pathway to Success at AMERICASMART-ATLANTA

May 9, 2006

ATLANTA, May 9, 2006—AMERICASMART-ATLANTA will be home to the work of several aspiring designers whose original creations will debut at the July Atlanta International Gift & Home Furnishings Market, July 11—19. “Working Class Studio,” a division of Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), will showcase student designs in home accessories, tabletop, stationary and giftware at Market in hopes of appealing to and attracting retailers from across the nation.

These graduate and senior students were chosen to participate in SCAD’s business initiative called “Working Class Studio” where they learn from concept, to product development to retail. Their designs will be a part of HIGH DESIGN—a temporary juried collection of fashion-forward non-traditional gift and home décor products housed on floor 10 of AMERICASMART 1. SCAD out sources all of the manufacturing and holds inventory of these products too.

“Each academic quarter we hand-pick a team of extremely talented student interns to work as an interdisciplinary design team,” says Andrea Messina, creative director, Working Class Studio. “We guide the students through the development of our product line and they’re involved in the entire process from conception through order fulfillment. AMERICASMART is a world-renowned market center offering a local location for international exposure, thereby creating a pathway to success for these students,” continues Messina.

“AMERICASMART is the primary source for retailers from across the nation and the world,” says Jo Ann Miller Marshall, senior vice president of Tradeshows at AMERICASMART. “We’re dedicated to helping these retailers build and maintain lasting relationships. This commitment and our facilities will enable the SCAD students to not only display their original designs, but also have an opportunity to experience results and sell their products.”

The SCAD students’ designs will be a part of the nation’s largest single gift, home furnishings and area rug product collection at AMERICASMART. Their products will be displayed with others housed among 31,000 individual lines, 2,000 permanent showrooms and more than 4,400 temporary booths.

For more information on AMERICASMART-ATLANTA and its annual markets, please call 1-800-ATL-MART or visit AmericasMart.com.

AMERICASMART-ATLANTA is the largest wholesale marketplace of its kind in the world, and is a leading international market source for a wide variety of consumer goods. It hosts 23 wholesale markets and six Market Wednesdays that annually attract more than 548,000 attendees from every U.S. state and 80 countries.

Retailers attending its markets identify AMERICASMART as the gift/home furnishings/area rug wholesale marketplace most important to their business—as compared to all competing U.S. wholesale markets—in independent research conducted by Moore & Symons, Inc.

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