Royal
Designers

I am curious about design & innovation including digital technologies, human and AI partnerships, creativity, data-driven design processes to customise products and improving user experiences and cohost D.coded a podcast focusing on design, innovation and entreprenurship.

A design leader, strategist and creative director of industrial design studio Morrama

Katie is a ceramicist, who uses local industrial waste in place of virgin materials in her work. She is also a creative producer on artist-led community projects which explore local environmental themes.

A socially engaged practice spanning participatory design, collective learning and publishing, working to trouble societal structures, reframe knowledge hierarchies and create spaces for dialogue, exchange and civic participation. Co-founder of The Alternative School of Economics, which uses creative collaboration to think about economics through lived experience.

I am a materials scientist, who probably should have been an ecologist, who ventured into co-design and place-based, participatory community work

I am very curious about how we read the physical world, and I love to make things that have new behaviors.

Kate Blee was born in London, and studied at Edinburgh College of Art between 1980 and 1984. She lives and works in London. Her paintings onto textiles are internationally known through exhibitions, installations and commissions. Her designs have been translated into rugs and tapestries, screen print, and weave fabrics and wallpaper. She has been Lead Artist for public buildings both for installations, colour work and art-commissioning. She is a passionate materialist and colourist, working in clay and timber, as well as onto paper and cloth. Her work has a close relationship and reference to domestic life and site specificity. It is robust, tactile and active; and challenges the idea that the art-work and the viewer should be separated. In 2015 she was awarded Royal Designer for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts. She is currently the Welcome Space artist for the new 3Ts hospital in Brighton now in construction, and developing a new body of studio work in clay, cloth and on paper.

Freya is a Director at Mitre & Mondays, a London-based design studio and workshop, designing and manufacturing spatial projects that help connect people to the material world around them.

Designer and engineer, interested in the interaction between people, machines and AI systems, and exploring what it means for future societies; I'm also into jewellery-making.

Royal Designers Faculty Manager, design archivist and artist-ceramicist

As someone who is interested in art, design, film, photography, film, sculpture, installations, plants, gardens, my concern is how these different discplines, rub up against each other.

Dinah Casson set up her design practice in 1970 and her partnership with Roger Mann in 1984. Since 1992, Casson Mann has focused most of its work on the design of museums and exhibitions. They have designed permanent galleries for the V&A (including the British Galleries), Imperial War Museum, Natural History Museum, Science Museum, and National Maritime Museum, amongst others. The consultancy has also worked in Russia, the US and extensively in France, including La Cite du Vin in Bordeaux and Le Centre International de l’Art Parietal at Lascaux. Its work has won numerous awards. Dinah has been involved in design education all her working life - as a visiting tutor, lecturer, and external examiner and was course leader of Architecture and Interior Design at the RCA (1993 – 1995). She is currently on the board of the Royal Society of Arts and is a trustee of the Supreme Court Arts Trust. She was a trustee of Towner Eastbourne (2014 – 2024). With her partner Roger Mann, she was elected to the Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry in 2006, of which she was Master from 2011-2013. She is a member of the RDI Summer Sessions panel. In 2018, she was awarded the CBE for services to design and was included in the Design Week inaugural Hall of Fame in 2015. She retired from Casson Mann in 2017 and wrote ‘Closed on Mondays – Behind the Scenes at the Museum’, published by Lund Humphries in 2020.

Multidisciplinary, always curious, looking for new threads and ideas.

Stan is a recent graduate of the RCA, who’s work is concerned with the agency of designers in the face of climate breakdown

With a background in theatre, education and fashion design studios, I am interested in how storytelling, participation and systems thinking can help people reshape the public services they depend on.

Paul Coomey designs personalised picture books with an emphasis on the shared reading experience. He's curious about how delight in making might translate into delight in reading, about unexpected interactions and about different kinds of harmony in creative workflows.

Dame Jo da Silva has earned global recognition as an engineer who has applied her knowledge and design expertise to improve safety, promote inclusivity, and enhance resilience of communities, cities, and infrastructure globally.

Jo is currently Global Director, Sustainable Development at Arup leading business transformation in response to the climate, biodiversity and equity crises, and an Arup Fellow. She founded Arup International Development to direct Arup’s expertise and creativity to improving human development outcomes in the global south. She has led the planning, design and implementation of buildings, infrastructure, and urban regeneration projects globally, and worked extensively in crisis and disaster contexts for non-governmental, UN agencies and multi-laterals.  

She has an honorary doctorate in humanitarian engineering from Coventry University, and was awarded the Gold Medal by the Institution of Structural Engineers in 2017. She was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire this year in recognition of her contribution to international development.

After a decade in publishing, Mike Dempsey formed the highly successful design consultancy Carroll, Dempsey & Thirkell (CDT) in 1979, which he ran for twenty-seven years. In 2007, he left to set up Studio Dempsey. Mike’s awards include the New York Art Director’s Club Silver Cube, the CSD Minerva Award, ten D&AD Silvers, the coveted Gold award; and in 2012 he received a special D&AD, Black Pencil for one of the most awarded designers in their fifty-year history. He is a member of Alliance Graphic International, a past President of D&AD, a Past Master of The Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry, and in 1994 he was made a Royal Designer for Industry. He lives and works in London and Dorset. 

Lizete is a sustainability and Design leader who connects creativity, materiality, and business strategy to shape preferable, desirable futures. 

I'm a creative technologist and a Founding Partner of Made by ON, a studio built on the belief that design and technology are not separate disciplines.

Landscape architect grounded in geopoetics, an interdisciplinary movement that explores the relationship between people and the Earth through geography, poetry, philosophy, and creative expression.

Johanna is a Landscape Architect, Founding Partner of J&L Gibbons established in 1986 and Founding Director of social enterprise Landscape Learn. She studied at Edinburgh College of Art. She is a Fellow of the Landscape Institute and the RSA, and a Research Partner of Urban Mind with Kings College London with an international profile as design panellist, juror and speaker. Jo was awarded Royal Designer for Industry for her ‘pioneering and influential work combining design with activism, education and professional practice’. She is respected for routinely and seamlessly incorporating ecology, organismal biology, urban planning, conservation, community organising, the arts, and pedagogy, being driven by a keen awareness of climate change, biodiversity loss, and social need. Her many award-winning, collaborative and innovative designs span over four decades of practice, mostly within the cultural and public realm sector. They range from urban regeneration, heritage and estate planning to artist collaboration and the landscapes of cathedrals and museums, including the Natural History Museum London, Inger Munch Pier Oslo, Horniman Museum and Gardens, St Albans Cathedral and The British Library.

www.jlg-london.com

Sustainability & Social Inclusion Lead for rural access NGO based in East Africa, chartered civil engineer, does her best thinking outdoors and loves to discuss regenerative nature- and people-positive ideas. 

Born in London to Spanish parents, Fernando Gutiérrez studied at the London College of Printing from 1980–86, graduating with a degree in Graphic Design. Fernando has worked with high-profile organisations across Europe, including El Pais Newspaper, Matador Arts Magazine, the Tate Modern; the V&A and the Design Museum. In 1993 he co-founded Grafica with Pablo Martín. Fernando left Grafica in 2000 to become a partner at the international design consultancy Pentagram, where he stayed for six years, before establishing Studio Fernando Gutiérrez. He is a regular on judging panels for international design and photography awards. Fernando is a member of the advisory board for the Goldsmiths Press and member of the editorial board of Eye Magazine (The International review of Graphic Design). 

I’m Alice, a potter and educator with a background in healthcare, based in West Yorkshire. 

I look to encourage long-term thinking and explore how we might become good ancestors, that care for the planet and each other; whether this is by designing better public services or creating artworks and experiences centred on deep listening, adventure play, nature and mycelial networks.

An Edinburgh-based structural engineer who enjoys working across different types of projects, from new buildings to historic structures, with an interest in design, sustainability and the different perspectives that come from working collaboratively across disciplines.

I help architects and artists turn their sketches into things that actually stand up, with a close eye for detail — and especially enjoy it when timber's involved.

Hello. I'm an artist and producer based in suburban London, often assembling work from archives of my photography, writing and correspondence; I'm also co-lead of a charity that awards £1,000 grants to artists of colour. 

I’m a designer and researcher with a background in architecture, and a lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. My work explores the growing entanglements of ecologies and machines in the context of the climate crisis, working with scientific tools, simulation engines, digital fabrication, and film to produce fragments from alternate or expanded worlds. 

Andre Kong is a London-based architect and public realm artist whose work combines spatial storytelling, material narrative and community engagement to shape distinctive places and experiences.

I am fascinated by the intersection of storytelling, archaeology, and gardens.

A fire safety engineering designer deeply motivated to shape a safe and equitable built environment 

I'm normally happy to dabble in various sorts of creative activity, from micro to macro. 

Founder of livingwell, an artist and materials researcher working with natural colour, exploring kinship with the more-than-human world, curious about how materials carry their own agencies and temporalities, and how working slowly reshapes our understanding of sustainability as an embodied practice of care.

Robin Levien is a designer specialising in products for the home. He studied Ceramics at the Central School of Art and Design and the Royal College of Art, graduating with a master’s degree in 1976, before joining the design partnership Queensberry Hunt. He later became a senior partner in what became Queensberry Hunt Levien. In 1999 he set up his current practice Studio Levien with his partner Patricia Stainton. His Trend porcelain tableware for Rosenthal Thomas has been a top seller for nearly forty years. Robin has worked closely with Ideal Standard since the early 1980’s. One in seven homes in the UK now has one of his designs in the bathroom. Robin was made a Royal Designer for Industry in 1995 and served as Master of the Faculty between 2009 and 2011. Functional, Affordable and Beautiful are Robin’s guiding principles. He is a perfectionist trying to master the art of imperfection.

Tom Lloyd is an industrial designer and founding partner (with Luke Pearson RDI) of the London design studio Pearson Lloyd. Through design, Pearson Lloyd transform the way in which people use and experience public spaces and services, and delivers products that are relevant, efficient and beautiful. The studio offers design services and strategic thinking in environments that have demanding spatial, ergonomic and social needs, such as transport, workplace, healthcare and cities. Working with a range of international clients, Pearson Lloyd prides itself on developing long-term relationships with clients including consumer brands, manufacturers and the public sector. Key clients include Lufthansa, The City of Bath, InterContinental Hotels, The Department of Health, Bene, TAKT and Joseph Joseph. Tom trained in Furniture Design at Trent Polytechnic, (BA Hons 1991, 1stClass) before completing a master’s degree MA (RCA Distinction) in Industrial Design at the Royal College of Art in 1993. In 1993 he joined Pentagram in London working with Daniel Weil, before founding Pearson Lloyd with Luke in 1997. Tom was awarded the distinction of Royal Designer for Industry by The Royal Society of Arts in 2008.

I’m a designer, education organiser, and strategic thinker exploring how to reconnect material making with systems thinking to create intentional change within complex futures.

I help design policies and services for the UK government; but I'm more interested in exploring how civil and public service needs to evolve.

Lucy is a Cambridge-based designer, her work explores the exchanges between design and local, generational and ecological knowledge. 

I use participatory and experiential approaches to design across scales, from complex systems and services to individual moments, tools and interventions.

Sir Alan George Moses is a former Lord Justice of Appeal, a Court of Appeal Judge and the former chairman of Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO).

I'm a designer and I enjoy making things that improve how people go about their everyday lives.

Graeme Reid is a spatial designer and researcher based in London. He designs objects, spaces and systems to better understand why things are made, and how the materials and processes we take for granted might be done differently.

I’m a curious human that loves chasing ideas, connecting unexpected dots and transforming discoveries across design, systems, materiality and technology into exciting possibilities. 

Designer and facilitator who helps organisations navigate complexity through regenerative principles, systems mapping, and experiential learning formats. 

A sustainability enthusiast passionate about creating energy-efficient spaces, with a love for fabrics and textures, and the world of scents and aromas

Hanju researches sensing systems for open land, so that the work and life taking place on it can be understood as clearly as we already read a road or a factory floor.

Sven is a weaver, working on a craft-led research project on seamless garments.

Architect, artist and university tutor interested in open-ended, cross-disciplinary experimentation that explores connections between nature, design, performance, society and the wider world, and how different disciplines, materials and ways of making can intersect to generate unexpected ideas, knowledge and possibilities.

Betha is an Indonesian designer who enjoys untangling complex systems to create delightful, meaningful interactions for a more equitable world.

Passionate about sustainable lifestyles, the wellbeing economy and nature based solutions I work as a sustainability consultant, specialising in research and insights. In a past life I studied fine art at college and a Spatial and Interior Design BA at Chelsea College of Art and Design. Inspired by the book hungry City by Carolyn Steel, my final project centred on a community food growing platform composed of scaffold layers and circular/hydroponic food systems.

I am a Designer Maker and Educator exploring making as a healing process

Teucer Wilson was drawn to the arts from an early age, though choosing a specialism proved difficult. After enjoying art at school, a foundation diploma at Bucks College broadened his interests. Textiles, printmaking, graphic design, illustration, and sculpture all appealed equally. Following a period of “being an artist,” he relocated to Weymouth to study Stone Masonry, Architectural Carving and Lettering, discovering a discipline that fused graphic and sculptural elements. He has worked in this field since 1993. After college, he spent five formative years with renowned lettering artist Richard Kindersley before moving to Norfolk in 2000, where he now runs a busy workshop exploring stone and other materials including sandblasted glass, laser-cut steel, and cast iron.

Photo: David Morris

Chris Wise graduated from the University of Southampton with a degree in Civil engineering. He co-founded Expedition in 1999. Working with leading architects including Rogers, Foster, Hopkins and Piano, Chris has led the engineering of projects including the 2012 Olympic Velodrome; the American Air Museum, Duxford; London Millennium Bridge; and Channel 4 HQ and the SNF National Opera House and Library, Athens. Chris was Design Professor at Imperial College, London, where he co-founded the Constructionarium, later at Yale, and from 2012-15 at UCL, London. He is an 1851 Royal Commissioner, and Visiting Professor at Cambridge’s School of Architecture. From 2007-09 Chris was Master of the Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and an Honorary Fellow of the RIBA. In October 2012 he was awarded an unprecedented double, winning Gold Medals for his outstanding contribution to the engineering profession from both the IStructE and the ICE.

Amy is a visual communicator based in South Wales. Her work is driven by a strong sense of narrative and a passion for translating complex ideas into simple, impactful visuals. She is particularly interested in projects that spark positive social, environmental, or cultural change.