Design Museum Publishing

Edited by Justin McGuirk, Chief curator at the Design Museum and the Director of Future Observatory.

Contributors: Brian Dillon, Rachel Hajek, Julia Lovell, Tim Marlow, Justin McGuirk, Wang Shu, Eyal Weizman.

Published to accompany the exhibition Ai Weiwei: Making Sense, this is the first book to dive exclusively into Ai Weiwei’s approach to design and collecting, shedding light on the value we ascribe to everyday objects. It brings Ai’s vast collections together for the first time, from Neolithic stone tools to modern, mass-produced objects, creating a dialogue and tension between traditional craftsmanship and modern-day manufacturing. It features multiple recent artworks' imagery and essays by leading experts including Wang Shu, China’s most popular architect as well as an interview between British Israeli architect Eyal Weizman and Ai himself.

Year: 2023

Edited by Priya Khanchandani, head of curatorial and interpretation at the Design Museum.

Contributors: Abraham & Thakore, Anupama Kundoo, Pragya Agarwal, Aanchal Malhotra, Amit Aggarwal, Tara Mayer, Dal Chodha, Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Sonia Faleiro, NorBlack NorWhite, Phyllida Jay, Debika Ray, Priya Khanchandani, Asha Sarabhai, Sunil Khilnani, Amardeep Singh Dhillon, Himanshu Verma.

Published to accompany the exhibition The Offbeat Sari, this publication celebrates the design stories behind the sari and brings together essays and interviews with designers who are working at the forefront of Indian fashion – from couturiers like Sabyasachi Mukherjee and Amit Aggarwal, to craft pioneers like Abraham & Thakore. Placing the sari’s leading creators in dialogue with writers, experts and advocates, this book reflects on how creative ingenuity is expanding the possibilities of contemporary dress across India, revealing some of the radically offbeat ways in which the sari has become a site for renewed innovation over the past decade.

Year: 2023

Edited by Kathryn Johnson, Curator at the Design Museum.

Designed by Alexander Boxill Studio.

Published to accompany the exhibition Objects of Desire: Surrealism and Design 1924 – Today, this publication celebrates Surrealism’s enduring legacy featuring groundbreaking fashion by Mary Katrantzou and Dior, as well as British designs by Tim Walker, Jonathan Trayte and Vince Fraser. Alongside essays by leading experts Ghislaine Wood and Alyce Mahon are interviews with practitioners who are carrying the torch of Surrealism today including Viviane Sassen, Dunne & Raby and the Campana Brothers. The book concludes with a glimpse into some of the recent forms of art and resistance the movement has inspired such as Afro-Surrealism, as well as the connections between Surrealist thinking and artificial intelligence.

Year: 2022

Edited by Eleanor Watson, Curator at the Design Museum, and James Bird, Associate Editor at Mundial Magazine.

Designed by Shaz Madani Studio.

With over 200 photographs, this book dives into how design has been used to push the beautiful game to its technical and emotional limits. From the master planning of the new Tottenham Hotspur stadium and the innovative materials used in today’s boots to the graphic design of the Juventus team logo and the grassroots initiatives pushing back against the sport’s commercialisation, it provides a rare insight into the people and processes that have made football what it is today.

Accompanying a Design Museum exhibition of the same title, this book features informed and provocative contributions from figures across the world of football and design, from analyst Statman Dave and broadcaster Martin Tyler, to architect Jacques Herzog and VP of design at adidas Sam Handy. The diverse perspectives in this catalogue reveal the extraordinary richness of the sport’s design legacy and cast new light on its future.

Year: 2022

Edited by Justin McGuirk

Designed by SPIN and Chris Benfield.

We are living in the age of waste. Design has helped create our throwaway culture – can design help us leave it behind?

A new generation of designers is rethinking our relationship to everyday things. From fashion to packaging, electronics to construction, finding the lost value in our trash and imagining a future of organic materials could point the way out of the waste age.

This book showcases some of the visionary designers who are reinventing our relationship with waste, including Formafantasma, Stella McCartney, Lacaton & Vassal, Atelier Luma, Rotor, Fernando Laposse, Bethany Williams, Phoebe English and Natsai Audrey Chieza.

Year: 2021

Written by Deyan Sudjic

Designed by Studio Fernando Gutiérrez and Chris Benfield

Terence Conran offered a glimpse of a way of life that many of his fellow Britons were keen to share vicariously. From the founding of Habitat in the sixties to the establishment of the Design Museum in the eighties, his influence would eventually reach shops in Japan and Korea, France and the Netherlands, as well as restaurants in America and Sweden. But perhaps more than anyone, Terence shaped the culture of everyday life in Britain for more than four decades.

Written by Deyan Sudjic, this book is an account of Terence’s life and work. It explores seven themes, from his early influences to his own work as a designer, and from food to business, which convey a truly complex yet unique character. While Terence may have been a maker, a designer, a manufacturer, a retailer, a philanthropist and a restauranteur, he was above all a tastemaker – one who made a lasting impact on the making of modern Britain.

Deyan Sudjic is director emeritus of the Design Museum and professor of design and architectural studies at Lancaster University. His books include The Language of Cities (2017) and B is for Bauhaus (2014).

Year: 2021

Edited by Justin McGuirk
Designed by A Practice For Everyday Life  

Charlotte Perriand was one of the great designers of the twentieth century. Her furniture designs have become enduring classics, but she was much more than a furniture designer. For Perriand, architecture and furniture needed to be considered in unison to create the modern interior. She called this integrated approach ‘the art of living’. This extensive and beautifully illustrated book charts her long career from the 1920s to the end of the century. It captures a modernist pioneer and hugely influential designer but also reveals Perriand the person: dynamic, sporting, socially minded and collaborative. What was ‘the modern life’? In some senses Perriand helped define it – and certainly lived it.   

Contributors include Tim Marlow, Justin McGuirk, Tim Benton, Jacques Barsac, Penny Sparke, Glenn Adamson, Sébastian Cherruet and Jane Hall.

Year: 2021

Edited by Alex Powis
Designed by Chris Benfield (based on the exhibition design by Studio LP)  

Sneakers are the ultimate product. Initially designed for athletic performance, their cultural adoption has turned them into symbols of expression, status, identity and belonging. Inspired by the exhibition Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street, this book is built from hours of conversations and interviews with more than forty leading designers, creators and industry insiders, revealing the experiences and insights of those responsible for some of the most significant sneaker designs and innovations ever made.  

Contributors include: Tom Astrella, Franck Boistel, Jacques Chassaing, Marina Chedel, Ben Cottrell, Matthew Dainty, Peter Fogg, Ryan Forsyth, Joe Foster, Nic Galway, Romain Girard, Benjamin Grenet, Sam Handy, Asha Harper, Chris Hill, Stephanie Howard, Till Jagla, Sara Jaramillo, Muriel Jung, Jean Khalifé, Helen Kirkum, Jean-Philippe Lalonde, Chris Law, Tuan Le, Charlotte Lee, Steve McDonald, Carly McKenzie, Nicole McLaughlin, Peter Moore, Andrea Nieto, Samuel Pearce, Rian Pozzebon, Susi Proudman, David Raysse, Samuel Ross, Juliana Sagat, Kirsten Schambra, Chris Severn, Steven Smith, Alexander Taylor, Daniel Taylor.

Year: 2021

Edited by Emily King
Designed by John Morgan studio and Mark Cortes Favis  

Now in its thirteenth year, the Design Museum’s Beazley Designs of the Year award and exhibition showcase the most innovative, relevant and thought-provoking projects in contemporary design. From the first iPhone to Zaha Hadid’s final building, the nominations for the award have spanned the fields of architecture, digital, fashion, graphics, product and transport. Introduced by Tim Marlow and guest curator Emily King, this illustrated book brings together all the designs for 2020, nominated by an international group of design experts, practitioners and critics. It is a snapshot of the most exciting things happening in design today.

Edited by Jean-Yves Leloup, Gemma Curtin and Maria McLintock

Designed by Agnès Dahan Studio and Design Museum Publishing

At more than 120 bpm, electronic music sets the tempo on dancefloors around the globe. Accompanying the exhibition Electronic: From Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers, this book offers an insight into the visual culture of electronic music, and how technology, design, art and fashion have contributed to its power. With its roots in Detroit and Chicago in the early 1980s, electronic dance music was popularised across Europe through underground rave parties. Its impact on contemporary culture is still unfolding today. Containing interviews with early pioneers such as techno legend Jeff Mills, The Designers Republic’s Ian Anderson, and those pushing the political dimension of electronic music, such as ballroom dancer and DJ Kiddy Smile, Electronic bears witness to the shifting nature of the genre. Illustrated with over 300 images, some published here for the first time, Electronic features Jean-Michel Jarre’s virtual studio; work by pioneer Daphne Oram of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop; audiovisual performances by musicians like Bicep and the Chemical Brothers; fashion collections by Raf Simons and Charles Jeffrey of Loverboy; iconic photography by Jacob Khrist and Tina Paul; artwork by Christian Marclay; club graphics from Peter Saville and Mark Farrow; and iconic venues such as the Haçienda, Gatecrasher, Fabric, Berghain and the Warehouse Project. Reflecting the shifts in society over the past thirty years, electronic music has generated distinct visual languages as well as its own political and cultural ideals.

Edited by Justin McGuirk, Andrew Nahum and Eleanor Watson

Designed by Studio Julia

Getting humans to Mars has become one of the great challenges of our time. It will be an extraordinary technological feat, but also a feat of design. This is the first book dedicated to designing for the Red Planet. From life on a spacecraft to survival on Mars’ inhospitable surface, new forms of clothing, farming and architecture will be needed. This volume looks at the real work designers and architects are generating now – as well as more speculative proposals of what this future might look like. Some ask whether we should go to Mars at all, while others argue that the rigours of such a mission would force us to design a waste-free way of life.

Illustrated with more than 300 images and featuring original essays by leading thinkers in their field, Moving to Mars: Design for the Red Planet includes projects by NASA, SpaceX and the European Space Agency, as well as new work by designers and architects including HASSELL, Konstantin Grcic, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg and RÆBURN. It also includes an interview with the science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson, who addresses why speculative design is the ideal discipline for imagining the ‘material grammar' of a life on Mars.

Edited by Beatrice Galilee and Maria McLintock

Designed by John Morgan studio and Mark Cortes Favis

Now in its twelfth year, the Design Museum’s Beazley Designs of the Year award and exhibition showcase the most innovative, relevant and thought-provoking projects in contemporary design. From the first iPhone to Zaha Hadid’s final building, the nominations for the award have spanned the fields of architecture, digital, fashion, graphics, product and transport. Introduced by Deyan Sudjic and guest curator Beatrice Galilee, this illustrated book brings together all the nominated designs for 2019, along with the reasons for their selection by an international group of design experts, practitioners and critics. It is a snapshot of the most exciting things happening in design today.

Edited by Eszter Steierhoffer and Justin McGuirk

Designed by John Morgan studio

The ‘home of the future’ has long intrigued designers and popular culture alike. Whether it was the dream of the fully mechanised home or the notion that technology might liberate us from home altogether, the domestic realm was a site of endless invention and speculation. But what happened to those visions? Are today’s smart homes the future that architects and designers once predicted, or has our idea of home proved resistant to real change?

Home Futures: Living in Yesterday’s Tomorrow explores today’s home through the prism of yesterday’s imagination. Alongside original essays by leading voices in the field, this richly illustrated book features more than 200 colour images, organised in six thematic sections exploring privacy, the smart home, compact living, self-sufficiency, nomadic lifestyles and the idea of the home as an idyllic landscape. Ultimately this book proposes that we are already living in yesterday’s tomorrow, just not in the way anyone predicted.

The designers, architects and artists featured in this book include:

• Absalon
• Ron Arad
• Archigram
• Archizoom Associati
• Atelier Van Lieshout
• Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec
• Andrea Branzi
• Joe Colombo
• Michael Craig-Martin
• Dunne & Raby
• Yona Friedman
• Buckminster Fuller
• Richard Hamilton
• Hans Hollein
• Haus-Rucker-Co
• Industrial Facility
• Jan Kaplický
• Frederick Kiesler
• Mark Leckey
• Linder
• Enzo Mari
• OpenStructures
• Gaetano Pesce
• Ugo la Pietra
• Alison and Peter Smithson
• SO–IL
• Ettore Sottsass
• Studio Makkink & Bey
• Superstudio
• Andrea Zittel

With original essays on the home and its future by:

• Deyan Sudjic
• Adam Greenfield
• Pier Vittorio Aureli, Martino Tattara and Marson Korbi of Dogma
• Sarah Kember
• Emilio Ambasz
• Jing Liu of SO–IL
• Justin McGuirk
• Eszter Steierhoffer

Edited by Aric Chen and Eleanor Watson

Now in its eleventh year, the Design Museum’s Beazley Designs of the Year award and exhibition showcase the most innovative, relevant and thought-provoking projects in contemporary design. From the first iPhone to Zaha Hadid’s final building, the nominations for the award have spanned the fields of architecture, digital, fashion, graphics, product and transport. Introduced by Deyan Sudjic and guest curator Aric Chen of M+ in Hong Kong, this illustrated book brings together all the nominated designs for 2018, along with the reasons for their selection by an international group of design experts, practitioners and critics. It is a snapshot of the most exciting things happening in design today.

Beautifully redesigned by leading graphic designer John Morgan, this year’s catalogue is the first entry in a new decade-long series of collectible books titled the Beazley Designs of the Year Catalogue Series.

Eighty-five nominees are featured in this book, including:

• OMA

• Gucci

• SpaceX

• Nike

• Erdem

• Nintendo

• Rihanna

• Sony

• nendo

• Burberry

• fuseproject

• Naoto Fukasawa

• Amateur Architecture Studio

• Formafantasma

• Jasper Morrison

• Forensic Architecture

• Telfar Clemens

• Thomas Heatherwick

Edited by Lucienne Roberts, David Shaw, Rebecca Wright and Margaret Cubbage

Hope to Nope: Graphics and politics 2008–18 shows how graphic design not only responds to political events, but can also challenge and even shape them. From the Great Recession of 2008, the BP oil spill and the terrorist attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, to the Brexit Referendum and the 2016 US presidential election that shocked the world, Hope to Nope explores the role of graphic design in one of the most politically turbulent decades in recent history.

As traditional media rubs shoulders with the hashtag and the meme, the influence and impact of graphic design has never been greater, or more international in its reach. North Korean propaganda, fake posts disseminated by Russian troll farms, a human billboard campaign against sexual harassment in China and anti-Zuma rallies from South Africa reflect how graphic design gives voice to political hopes and fears around the world.

Alongside interviews with celebrated graphic designer Milton Glaser and street artist Shepard Fairey, the international designers and artists featured in this book include:

• Gorilla

• Dread Scott

• Edel Rodriguez

• Templo

• ThoughtMatter

• Michael Bierut

• Sagmeister & Walsh

• Marwan Shahin

• Barnbrook

• Metahaven

Edited by Tom Wilson and Mark Cortes Favis
Designed by Studio Fernando Gutiérrez

Designs of our Time:10 Years of Designs of the Year was published to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the Designs of the Year exhibition at the Design Museum. Starting in 2008, the exhibition is an annual review of the most innovative, relevant and thought-provoking projects in contemporary design.

A total of 840 innovative and thought-provoking designs from across the world, selected by 205 nominators from across architecture, digital, fashion, graphics, product and transport.

Ranging from the scale of Zaha Hadid’s architecture to Harvard’s human organs-on-chips project, these are some of the designs that have defined our times: Alexander McQueen’s bridal dress for the Duchess of Cambridge, Google’s self-driving car, the London 2012 Olympic Torch, Pokémon Go, David Adjaye’s newly opened Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, and many more.

Edited by Andrew Nahum and Martin Derrick
Designed by Pentagram

Ferrari is an extraordinary, evolutionary company that emerged in the aftermath of World War II. Impelled by the fierce ambition of its founder, Enzo Ferrari, and the almost religious dedication of his team, Ferrari has since become one of the world’s most iconic car brands.

Published to commemorate the marque’s 70th anniversary, Ferrari: Under the Skin is an in-depth and revealing account of this fascinating success story. It includes essays by leading experts in the field, including Andrew Nahum, Martin Derrick, Peter Dron and Stephen Bayley. Drawing on rarely seen material, including personal ephemera, technical drawings, master models and striking product photography, this compelling exploration of Ferrari – the man, design, engineering, racing and clientele – is a must-have for Ferrari enthusiasts, car fans and anyone who wants to know more about one of the most famous brands in history.

Edited by Glenn Adamson and Eleanor Watson
Designed by Micha Weidmann Studio

The Beazley Designs of the Year awards and exhibition, now in its tenth year, is an annual review of the most innovative, relevant and thought-provoking projects in contemporary design. Introduced by Deyan Sudjic and guest curator Glenn Adamson, this illustrated catalogue brings together all the shortlisted projects, together with the reasons for their selection by an international cohort of design experts and practitioners. It is a snapshot of the most exciting things happening in design right now.

Edited by Justin McGuirk and Brendan McGetrick
Designed by Barnbrook

How did California come to have such a powerful influence on contemporary design? This book explores how the ideals of the 1960s counterculture morphed into the tech culture of Silicon Valley, and how ‘Designed in California’ became a global phenomenon. The central premise is that California has pioneered tools of personal liberation, from LSD to surfboards and iPhones. This ambitious survey brings together political posters and portable devices, but also looks beyond hardware to explore how user interface designers in the San Francisco Bay Area are shaping some of our most common daily experiences. By turns empowering, addictive and troubling, Californian products have affected our lives to such an extent that in some ways we are all now Californians.

Lavishly illustrated, California: Designing Freedom features essays by leading experts in the field, such as Barry M Katz and Louise Sandhaus, as well as interviews with key designers and thinkers, including Fred Turner, Kevin Kelly and April Greiman. It also features a rediscovered lecture by Steve Jobs, introduced by Apple’s chief design officer, Jonathan Ive.

Edited by Eszter Steierhoffer
Designed by STSQ

Marking the centenary of the Russian Revolution, Imagine Moscow: Architecture, Propaganda, Revolution explores Moscow as it was envisioned by a bold generation of architects in the 1920s and early 1930s. Featuring rarely seen material, this book – and the exhibition of the same title – portrays an idealistic vision of the Soviet capital that was never realized.

Focusing on six unbuilt architectural landmarks, the book explores how these schemes reflected changes in everyday life and society following the revolution. Large-scale architectural plans, models and drawings are placed alongside propaganda posters, textiles and porcelain, contextualizing the transformation of a city reborn as the new capital of the USSR and the international centre of socialism. The book also includes essays by Richard Anderson, Jean-Louis Cohen and Deyan Sudjic, which address a range of important themes in early Soviet architecture that remain relevant today.

Edited by Jeremy Myerson
Designed by LucienneRoberts+

Published to tie in with the NEW OLD exhibition at the Design Museum, this book explores the potential for new design to enhance the experience of later life in the future. From robotic clothing to driverless cars, this book looks at design for identity, community, home, working and mobility as our population ages rapidly.

In addition to a range of commissioned essays by knowledgeable experts in the field, the book features specially commissioned designs by Yves Béhar, Special Projects, Sam Hecht and Kim Colin of Future Facility, IDEO, Konstantin Grcic and PriestmanGood.

Edited by Justin McGuirk
Designed by OK-RM

Fear and Love: Reactions to a Complex World is the official catalogue that accompanies the opening exhibition of the new Design Museum. It is essentially a book about what design means today. We know that design shapes the world around us, but Fear and Love goes further, arguing that it is implicated in some of the defining issues of our time. In this book, eleven designers from around the world – including OMA, Hussein Chalayan, Kenya Hara and Neri Oxman – explore a spectrum of contemporary themes. The result is a diverse portrait of the world that includes sentient robots, networked sexuality, slow fashion and settled nomads. These are explored through the eyes of the designers themselves and through a series of essays by renowned writers and thinkers. The result captures the emotionally charged mood of the present and suggests that design is a way of looking at the world, and a way to change it.

Edited by Alex Newson, Eleanor Suggett and Deyan Sudjic
Designed by Villalba Lawson

Designer Maker User is the official catalogue for the Design Museum’s new permanent collection display. It also serves as an accessible introduction to contemporary design, providing non-specialists and enthusiasts with an appreciation of the objects and spaces that shape everyday life. As well as showcasing the individual roles within the industry, this book demonstrates where the three roles merge, giving readers fresh insight into the sometimes complex, but always fascinating, world of design. Comprehensive and engaging, the book features design landmarks from the Helvetica typeface to the Boeing 747; a timeline of influential characters and events; key texts from Adolf Loos to Victor Papanek; and new insights from designers such as Marc Newson and Paul Smith to the question ‘What is Good Design?’

By Tom Wilson
Designed by Villalba Lawson

The definitive and essential guide, The Story of the Design Museum charts the history of London’s world-class Design Museum from the 1980s to the present day – from twenty-five years of groundbreaking exhibitions at its former home in Shad Thames to the future in its spectacular new home in a landmark 1960s architectural icon in Kensington. Contributions from founder Sir Terence Conran, director Deyan Sudjic, designer John Pawson and photographer Hélène Binet capture the pioneering creative spirit of the world’s leading museum of contemporary design and architecture.

Edited by Mark Cortes Favis and Deyan Sudjic
Designed by Penguin

The Design Museum in a Box is a collection of 100 carefully curated postcards that illustrate every aspect of design, from typography to fashion, and from furniture to digital. The Design Museum’s collections, which include work from the most innovative designers from around the world from the early days of mass production to the present day, are the starting point for this selection. Along with the museum’s posters and exhibitions over the past four decades, designed by everybody from Ettore Sottsass to Zaha Hadid, they show the unique part that design has to play in shaping a changing world.

By Paul Smith and Deyan Sudjic
Edited by Mark Cortes Favis, Ianthe Fry, Roz Morrison and Jonathan Towle
Designed by Micha Weidmann Studio

Following the success of Hello, My Name Is Paul Smith, which opened at the Design Museum in November 2013, the exhibition toured in Japan (Kyoto, Tokyo and Nagoya) in 2016. Hello Japan is the official catalogue that was produced to accompany the touring exhibition, and is written in Japanese and rich in beautiful imagery. The catalogue was specially commissioned for a Japanese audience, and celebrates not only Paul Smith’s story, his collections and collaborations, but also the inspirations and obsessions that have helped to transform a small bed-room-sized shop into an innovative global forum for culture and style.

The Design Museum Fifty series is a thoughtful, stylish overview of the most fascinating topics in design. A collaboration between the Design Museum and Octopus Publishing Group, each book gathers together the fifty most important, iconic and innovative designs to tell the story of a certain key field of design. Covering topics as diverse as dresses, cars, bicycles, typefaces and shoes – as well as a new series looking at the design icons of London, New York, Paris and Berlin – the books offer an accessible entry point to a range of design topics. Each entry is accompanied by carefully curated imagery, making the books a smart, compact review of some of the most enduring areas of the design world.