Sophie Tolhurst – Design Week

Not just expensive tables in galleries: exploring the creative value of collectible design

Sophie Tolhurst — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 08:00:04 +0000

Across international fairs such as this week’s Design Miami, London’s PAD and Collect, or TEFAF Maastricht; gallerists present works of collectible design from artists all over the world, mixing vintage collectible works with contemporary, and established design names with emerging makers. In many ways, the world of galleries (and their wares’ often astronomical prices) can feel rather removed…

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Design Week’s most popular long reads of 2023

Sophie Tolhurst — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 15:19:08 +0000

A branding story was Design Week’s most popular long read of 2023, but not for its well-thought strategy and perfectly executed design details – but rather for the very lack of it when Twitter rebranded to X overnight. Launched with a flurry of Tweets from Elon Musk and a “good enough” logo, designers were quick to comment on the design and its glitchy implementation. To take the story further…

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Tracing the design legacy of Powell and Pressburger’s films

Sophie Tolhurst — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 19:39:31 +0000

Prospect Cottage – the distinctively black and yellow former home of pioneering filmmaker, artist and gardener Derek Jarman – has long been a site of pilgrimage for fans of his filmmaking, his art and his garden. This weekend (2-3 December), among its usual objects, are two strings of painted scenes for a film-adaption of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, stretched across the cottage’s conservatory.

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Things to do in December: our pick of the best design events this month

Sophie Tolhurst — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 10:43:39 +0000

You would assume the idea of women dressing women wouldn’t be so unusual, yet the majority of fashion houses have always been helmed by men – with recent headlines noting steps backward in diversity among the biggest brands’ creative directors. A new exhibition at the Met’s Costume Institute in New York instead focuses on the influential women-led fashion houses from the 20th century to the…

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What does the Autumn Statement 2023 mean for design?

Sophie Tolhurst — Fri, 24 Nov 2023 10:34:30 +0000

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt presented an Autumn Statement promising to focus on “long-term growth”, but design leaders say the Government is missing the potential of design to meet the challenges faced by the UK. In fact, design was given so little mention – the word only said in the context of how promised reforms will be “designed” – that industry leaders were quick to point out the oversight.

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Revisiting W.E.B. Du Bois’ 1920s magazine for Black children today

Sophie Tolhurst — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 16:46:07 +0000

Among the many achievements of civil rights activist and sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois is a now-little-known publication, The Brownies’ Book, the first ever magazine aimed at African American children and youth, filled with empowering stories of Black role models, information and advice. Published for just two years between January 1920 and December 1921, coinciding with the start of the Harlem…

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Hidden yet vital: celebrating design technicians

Sophie Tolhurst — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 17:13:19 +0000

“We help students make their projects, but they never see what we can do”, says Anna Wiggins, senior digital workshop technician at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU), about the new exhibition, Yes We Can. Bringing together the work of 21 technical staff from the university’s art and design, engineering, architecture and digital media departments, the exhibition is open until 6 December to both…

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How design helped OpenAI transition from niche to mainstream

Sophie Tolhurst — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 14:43:38 +0000

With AI still one of the biggest talking points of the present – recently crowned the “word of the year” by Collins Dictionary – many flock to try each new product, whether for a bit of fun or to more seriously assess how it might impact their day-to-day lives. But the products for which OpenAI is best known – Dall-E and ChatGPT – were not OpenAI’s original focus. When founded in 2015 – by…

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Designing out racism is “work for everyone”

Sophie Tolhurst — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 10:00:06 +0000

“Anti-racist work is work that is for everyone”, says Terresa Moses, one of two “veteran anti-racist design educators” alongside Lisa E. Mercer, who have co-authored the new book Racism Untaught: Revealing and Unlearning Racialized Design. Working from the understanding that many of the objects, brands, spaces and systems around us today have been built against a backdrop of ongoing racism and…

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Es Devlin on “30 years of engaging in audience, performance and ritual”

Sophie Tolhurst — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 17:10:29 +0000

“I think a map of one’s own practice, for an applied artist, is very helpful”, says set designer and artist Es Devlin. Particularly when that practice involves working with theatre, where stories are washed away “like writing in the sand each day” Devlin says, quoting the character of actor John Gielgud in the play The Motive and the Cue, which she recently worked on. Although there is some…

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