And the Winners Are…
Ilse Crawford, the winner of the London Design Medal (image: Marsy Hild Thorsdottir).
Let’s be honest, we probably shouldn’t put too much stock in design’s various award ceremonies: all choices are subjective; worthy winners often go unrecognised; and comparing different types of designer in a widely expanded field is often less like pitting apples against oranges, and more like pitting apples against the fuel consumption of the Peugeot 208, or oranges against the warm nostalgia that crept into Richard Burton’s voice whenever he was asked to speak about Welsh coal mining – where do you even begin?
Still, they’re fun though, right? Everyone likes an award ceremony and it’s always nice to receive the acclaim of your peers, particularly when you’re just starting out in your career or else drawing towards the close of a long innings at the wicket. That’s why the annual London Design Medals programme is always interesting to take a look at: it recognises practitioners from across different areas of the discipline, as well as those at radically different stages of their careers. And the class of 2021, which was announced today, seems a strong one.
The headline award, the London Design Medal itself, has gone to Ilse Crawford – a veritable legend of the London design scene. From her early work as founding editor of Elle Decoration, Crawford founded her own practice, Studioilse, in 2003 (less a case of poacher turned gamekeeper, and more poacher turned partridge?) through which she has proven herself a designer of intelligence, taste and considerable social conscious. Noteworthy within Crawford’s design is a consideration for human wellbeing, as well as an interest in promoting sustainability across her formidable work within interior design, product and furniture.
Crawford’s body of work, then, is second to none, but it is particularly pleasing to see her recognised given her contribution to education. The founder of Design Academy Eindhoven’s Man and Wellbeing BA, Crawford stepped down from the school after 21 years of service in 2019: a tenure that has seen her shape the careers of numerous young designers. In terms of the London Design Medal’s criterium of recognising a figure “who has distinguished themselves within the industry and demonstrated consistent design excellence”, she is difficult to argue with.
In a similar vein, it is hard to begrudge Michael Wolff, co-founder of the international design agency Wolff Olins, his receipt of the Lifetime Achievement Medal. Having founded the agency with Wally Olins in 1965, Wolff struck a positive note in his acceptance of the award by giving short shrift to the trope of the designer as a lone genius – a damaging motif that individual awards all too often propagate. “Few of us got to where we are alone and so I owe this award to all of those who’ve supported me,” Wolff noted. “Without my partners, my many colleagues, as well as some of my clients, many of whom also had the qualities, talents and abilities I lacked, this award could not have found me.”
Mac Collins, the winner of the Emerging Design Medal: (image: George Howard Rees-Jones).
It is in the Emerging Design Medal where the programme can have the greatest impact, however, shining a light onto designers at the start of their careers, when recognition is often infrequent (particularly in a time when normal working models have been disrupted by Covid). The selection of Mac Collins, a talented designer and maker of furniture and objects, is to be applauded. “My thanks go to all those involved in the decision-making process, and to those who have supported and mentored me over the past couple of years,” Collins said. “I intend to push my practice further forward, and this award is a hugely motivating and inspiring force.”
In recent years, the Emerging Design Medal has often gone to practitioners working at design’s frontiers – those creating new forms of practice or exploring emerging technologies. Julian Melchiorri, Marjan van Aubel, Roland Lamb and Alexandra Dasiy Ginsberg, are among the laureates. By contrast, Collins marks the second year in a row that the award has gone to a designer who made their name in the traditional design heartlands of furniture: the 2020 award was given to Yinka Ilori.
Both Ilori and Collins, however, have forged fresh ground in furniture design, positioning the discipline as a medium suited to narrative exploration and storytelling. Collins’s work, for instance, often explores aspects of his own identity, Caribbean heritage, and reflections on the African Diaspora. Sociopolitical dimensions aside, however, Collins’s designs also stand proud as works of sculptural design: his Iklwa collection for Benchmark is a thing of beauty. Clearly, great things lay ahead.
And as for the Design Innovation Medal, which has gone to Eyal Weizman of Forensic Architecture, Disegno is genuinely shocked that he hasn’t won it before. With Forensic having been nominated for the Turner Prize in 2018 for its work in utilising design and architecture as investigative tools in the struggle for social justice, the London Design Medals programme is surely late to the party in acknowledging Weizman’s contribution to the field? Still, better late than never!
Disegno is a leading design magazine devoted to design and its impact on the world. The quarterly journal of long-form writing on design, architecture and fashion.
Story source: London Design Medals