Honouring Design Innovation: Liang & Eimil Project Award of the Year 2025

A panel of esteemed judges, including Marie Soliman - Creative Director of Bergman Design House, Hamish Kilburn - Director at Kilburn Communications, Ola Aburumman - Design Specialist at Hilton, Thais Fontenelle - Senior Designer at Harrods, and Frank Eimil - Creative Director of Liang & Eimil, will evaluate the submissions and select the winners, ensuring that innovation, creativity, and craftsmanship are at the forefront of each award.

An Evening of Inspiration and Networking

The awards ceremony provides an opportunity to celebrate the most influential and inspiring projects in the industry. Guests enjoy an evening featuring:

- A showcase of nominated projects, demonstrating exceptional design vision.
- A prestigious red-carpet awards ceremony announcing this year’s winners.
- The opportunity to network with leading designers, architects, and industry professionals.
- A sophisticated setting with drinks and entertainment.

Submit Your Project to Win

Liang & Eimil invites you to submit your project incorporating their products for the opportunity to be recognised as a Liang & Eimil Project Award of the Year Winner. To enter, please submit images and a brief description of your project by 11th March 2025 Here.

Event Details

Date: 3rd April 2025
Time: 6 - 9PM
Location: Liang & Eimil Showroom, Unit 5, 4 Ravey Street, London EC2A 4QP

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If you’d like to become SBID Accredited, click here for more information.

Click here to discover the last year's SBID Awards winners!

Visit sbidawards.com for more information.

In this week's interview with 2021 SBID Awards Overall Winner, Angel O'Donnell, the practice's co-founders reflect on their journey in the interior design industry and discuss their approach to incorporating local influences and culture into their designs.

London-based interior design studio Angel O’Donnell has created award-winning interiors for private homes, luxury show apartments and vast, mixed-use developments around the world. The studio prides itself on not having a signature style. That way, they can create beautiful and ownable designs that are 100% tailored to each client’s wants and needs.

How important is it to enter the SBID Awards and receive industry recognition for your work?

Hugely important. Without question. We’ve said it before to our followers on Insta: the SBID is a lobbying titan and we’re thrilled to number among its members.

It’s a much loved and deeply respected organisation. How could it not be? In your own words you ‘represent, defend and promote professional interior designers in the UK and in 71 countries worldwide’. Affirmations don’t get much stronger than that.

And, yes, it’s lovely to be recognised by your peers and role models. The SBID always attracts a stellar judging panel packed with industry luminaries at the top of their game. So, naturally, when they give your work the thumbs-up, it’s seriously validating. And people do regard you differently afterwards, there’s no doubt about it. Clients love it, too, which is always a good thing when you’re pitching for increasingly bigger and splashier creative opportunities.

What do you think made The Dumont an overall award winner?

Tough question. We’re still pinching ourselves that our project received that honour. The competition, as always, was fantastically strong.

Our guess is that The Dumont has something for everyone. The design manages to blend a lot of elements: earthy pigments with calm neutrals, densely textured fabrics with smooth glass and metal finishes, kaleidoscopically bright art with delicate objet. On paper, it sounds like a heady mix. But in reality, these things come together like old buddies: happily and without friction.

The judges may have also appreciated just how much was bespoke. Everything from wool-bouclé swivel chairs and curved velvet sofas to plushly padded upholstered walls and a bronze-clad fireplace was designed in-house.

The artwork, too, was a major part of our design. We lavished our client’s home with specially commissioned acrylics, hand thrown ceramic bowls, delicate origami, metal sculptures – even an intricately beaded African ceremonial crown.

That said, there’s a playfulness to these pieces. Nothing takes itself too seriously. We always want our designs to feel relatable. Luxurious, yes, but also accessible. We think a lot of people can imagine themselves living in the rooms we design.

When working on a new residential project, how do you incorporate local influences, artistry and culture from the surrounding area into your design?

We’re always careful when we take inspiration from an area. We don’t want to get swept up in lots of stimuli, no matter how fabulous, as this would drown out a client’s needs and wants. We also don’t want to create anything pastiche-y or thematic. So, we tend to think abstractly about our surroundings. For instance, in The Dumont, our client wanted us to create an interior that could echo the vibrancy, artistry and culture of London. Dizzying as that brief was, it prompted us to fill mood boards with lots of colour and pattern. To collaborate with local craftspeople. And to think about artists from around the world to reflect the capital’s rich melting pot. It wasn’t a literal interpretation by any means, but it nailed the brief.

More recently, we were tasked with creating a quintessentially British pied-à-terre in the heart of Chelsea. We set about defining what ‘quintessentially British’ means to us and concluded that it’s about craftsmanship and the assemblage of unique and creative pieces. With this interpretation in place, we worked on producing a series of lively and vivacious rooms, filled with expressive prints, rich hues and beautiful detailing.

The bedrooms were treated to handmade Savoir Beds. Other rooms featured sculptural lamps inspired by the late great Barbara Hepworth. Walls were filled with artwork by an exciting mix of British talent, including an original Damien Hirst giclée print on aluminium, and an explosive figurative oil on canvas by rising star, Jack Penny. There were also whimsical pieces, like a pale pink cuckoo clock and prints of early 19^th century botanical drawings of Japanese Sago Palms. It was like nothing we’d ever done before, and the result was fantastic.

Tell us a bit about your journey in the interior design industry. What have been the most rewarding takeaways since launching Angel O’Donnell?

We’ve been travelling very fast, on a vertiginously steep trajectory, for just over three years now. And what we’ve learned is just how much there is to learn. Always. We never stop. Every pitch, client, project, building, problem, solution, collaboration, challenge, creative block, creative breakthrough – it’s different every time. And yes, it can keep us awake at night – but the end result always makes it worthwhile.

We’ve grown stronger as a team – and we’ve grown our team. We’re now responsible for people’s livelihoods and creative fulfilment, which is daunting but also incredibly rewarding. There’s lots to be thankful for. Every project we win and every design we install gives us a buzz. We don’t take any of it for granted – especially those landmark moments when you’re pronounced overall winner at the SBID. That blew our minds. What a fantastic accolade. Even better that it coincided with our 3^rd year anniversary.

Now that you’ve won an SBID Award, what are the next steps? Is there anything new you are excited to be working on?

Our next steps will be to continue nurturing our team and looking after our clients. Beyond that, we’ll be working on two 2,500sq ft apartments in The Corniche, Albert Embankment. We’re super excited to see how this iconically curvaceous building will influence our designs. Also, we have what can only be described as a culturally epic project waiting in the wings. Frustratingly, we can’t reveal more than that right now. But as soon as we’re given the green light, you won’t be able to stop us from telling you all about it.

What advice can you give to young designers starting out in the design industry?

When we’ve interviewed young designers in the past, the ones that have stood out to us have had a strong sense of self. They’re still teachable – we should all be that – but they’re not daunted by others who have been in the profession a long time.

To have conviction in your decisions is a powerful thing. To stand by a design choice can often open people’s eyes to new ideas and encourage them to take leaps of faith. That’s when great things happen between creatives and clients.

Of course, everything’s a balance. There’s no point digging in your heels when the people you’re presenting to are shaking their heads in disbelief. Designs have to be bought. It’s a business like any other.

But be confident. Don’t be swayed by trends. And drink in as much design – from as many disciplines – as your senses can handle morning, noon and night. Interior design is a beautiful, forever burgeoning craft. It’ll never stop evolving. And neither should you.

If any aspiring designers reading this want to show us their work, please do. We’re always happy to meet new talent.

Questions answered by Richard Angel and Ed O’Donnell, Co-founders, Angel O’Donnell.

Click here to discover the last year's SBID Awards winners!

To enter, visit sbidawards.com for more information.

With a commitment to recognising excellence and championing the creative industries, the SBID International Design Awards presented its annual Fellow of the Year award to TV Dragon and retail entrepreneur, Theo Paphitis for his outstanding professional achievements. With a business empire that now spans retail, property, finance and consumer goods, he began his career from a low-income background with no formal qualifications due to his dyslexia.

Dr Vanessa Brady OBE, Founder & CEO of the Society of British and International Interior Design (SBID) explains: “The SBID Fellow of the Year is awarded to a successful public figure who has broken through personal and professional challenges, and in some cases prejudices, then progressed to become a household name in a specific field of business or the creative industries. Theo exemplifies the journey and struggles that many young designers and creatives are faced with. His personal and professional success is recognised in this award and acts as inspiration to the next generation of emerging talent to persevere through life’s challenges.”

At the age of 16 Theo started working as a filing clerk in a Lloyds of London brokerage before discovering his passion for retail at Watches of Switzerland. He later went on to carve his reputation in business and retail when he revived the fortunes of notable high street names such as Ryman, Partners the Stationers, Stationery Box, La Senza, Contessa Lingerie and more recently, Robert Dyas. Theo also bought Red Letter Days out of administration in 2005 with fellow TV Dragon, Peter Jones, and in the Spring of 2011, launched what has now become the multi-award winning, global lingerie brand, Boux Avenue.

In 2015 he launched Theo Paphitis Retail Group which encompasses Ryman Stationery, Robert Dyas, Boux Avenue and London Graphic Centre. The combined group comprises over 300 stores and 4,000 employees, serving millions of customers a year!

Theo Paphitis said: "Winning any award is wonderful, but to be recognised for the SBID Fellow of the Year award, amongst so many well-known design individuals, was beyond that. Retail is such a visual medium, whether it is the product, the brand or the store windows and inspiration can come in so many forms. My award is for all of those design specialists who have inspired me and so many of my retail colleagues over the years, helping us to put design front and centre in our businesses."

If you’d like to become SBID Accredited, click here for more information.

With a commitment to recognising professional excellence across interior design and championing the growth of the creative industries, the SBID International Design Awards bestowed its annual accolade for Master of Design to Kit Kemp MBE - renowned interior designer, Founder and Creative Director of Firmdale Hotels & Kit Kemp Design Studio for her significant contributions in raising the profile of the profession.

Over the years Kit Kemp has carved herself an internationally-acclaimed reputation, not only for her unique approach to hotel interiors, but also as a successful textiles, fragrance and homewares designer, author and a highly-respected champion of British art, craft and sculpture.

The Kit Kemp Design Studio is celebrated for its individual and original approach to hotel and residential design, with colourful and detailed storytelling which celebrates craft and captures the imagination. As the creative force behind Firmdale Hotels since 1985, the brand now has ten properties, with eight hotels in London including the Ham Yard Hotel, Soho Hotel, Covent Garden Hotel, Charlotte Street Hotel, Haymarket Hotel, Number Sixteen Hotel, Dorset Square Hotel and Knightsbridge Hotel, as well as two in New York, The Whitby Hotel and Crosby Street Hotel.

Dr Vanessa Brady OBE, Founder & CEO of the Society of British and International Interior Design (SBID) comments, "We wanted to present Kit with this exclusive accolade to acknowledge her work as trailblazer in interior design. Bringing colour and pattern back into the forefront, Kit Kemp has forged a trend in the brave path she has trodden which serves as great inspiration to the professional community - not only for interior designers, but product manufacturers too!"

The SBID Awards strives to empower design industry talent to exhibit their creative work and celebrate their achievements on its global stage, as a testament to the incredible outcomes that can be accomplished through the power of good design and quality craftsmanship.

Click here to explore the full line-up of this year’s SBID Awards winners across Interior Design, Product Design and Fit Out.

If you’d like to become SBID Accredited, click here for more information.

Click here to discover the last year's SBID Awards winners!

To enter, visit sbidawards.com to find out more.

Regarded as one the most prestigious accolades for interior design, the highly anticipated winners of this year’s SBID Awards have been revealed! For the first time in 10 years, the category winners of the SBID International Design Awards were announced publicly online, alongside the inaugural SBID Product Design Awards winners in a joint celebration of interior design excellence. Championing the exceptional designers of interiors and the innovative products that go in them!

Scroll down to discover this year's incredible SBID award-winning interior products from around the world, showcasing the industry's best in the interior design sector.

SBID Product Design Awards Winners 2020:

Click here to discover the 2020 SBID Award winners for interior design!

Visit sbidawards.com to find out more.

Regarded as one the most prestigious accolades for interior design, the highly anticipated winners of this year’s SBID Awards have been revealed! For the first time in 10 years, the category winners of the SBID International Design Awards were announced publicly online, alongside the inaugural SBID Product Design Awards winners in a joint celebration of interior design excellence. Championing the exceptional designers of interiors and the innovative products that go in them!

Scroll down to discover this year's incredible SBID award-winning interior projects from around the world, showcasing the industry's best in the interior design sector.

SBID International Design Awards Winners 2020:

Click here to discover the 2020 SBID Award winners for product design!

Visit sbidawards.com to find out more.