Design
The Design team promotes British design through a range of activities and events including touring exhibitions, workshops, seminars, and conferences overseas led by British designers and study programmes in the UK for overseas visitors. Our programme reflects the wide range of disciplines practised to a world class standard by British designers and includes graphic design, fashion, architecture, city planning and the built environment, interior design, digital media, industrial and product design, furniture and design education.
For biographical information and interviews on dozens of British designers go to the Design in Britain microsite, a collaboration between the British Council and the Design Museum.
Read about our cross-disciplinary projects such as the
International Young Design Entrepreneur award; and the
Import Export exhibition which explores global influences on design.
The Design department works in fashion because, being popular, prolifically illustrated in all kinds of media, and deeply associated with human emotions, it communicates its messages rapidly and vividly to a wide public.
The UK is a creative hot house for the design of furniture, lighting and furnishings. Design education is particularly strong in these areas, and there is a wealth of talent in this field.
London is now home to hundreds of small graphics teams, groups of designers who are characterised by their stylistic eclecticism, their lack of insularity and their umbilical connection to contemporary popular culture.
The UK’s manufacturing economy may no longer provide its industrial designers with quite the opportunities it once did. But British designers still feature prominently among the leading product specialists on the world stage.
From textiles to jewellery, glass to ceramics, crafts and applied arts have played a complex role in the social, cultural and artistic history of Britain.
Visit our Design in Britain website which we share with the Design Museum and read from a selection of lively interviews and biographies of Britain's famous and up-and-coming designers.
