Award-winning British design

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 | By Angus Montgomery

With the Victoria & Albert Museum finalising plans for its spring blockbuster British Design 1948-2012, the museum’s publishing division has released a small aperitif in the form of new book Award Winning British Design.

Book cover, featuring the Bird bath toy by Patrick Rylands

The book, authored by Lily Crowther, designed by Peter & Paul and published by V&A Publishing, concentrates on projects from 1957-1988 which won Design Council Awards.

In fact the awards scheme went under four names during its lifetime. It started out as Designs of the Year, before becoming the Design Centre Awards, the Council of Industrial Design Awards and finally the Design Council Awards.

Children Crossing Sign, by Margaret Calvert and Jock Kinneir for the Ministry of Transport

Whatever its name though, the awards programme remained committed to recognising the commercial potential of good design and educating the consumer by identifying well-designed products.

So what you’re left with for the book is a greatest hits of three decades of British design, with obvious highlights including Robin Day’s stacking polypropylene chairs and Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert’s road-signs.

Chair Mark II by Robin Day

The earlier part of the collection is rather textile- and tableware-heavy, featuring some lovely Lucienne Day designs as well as ‘60s stereotype casserole dishes.

Bouquet Garni tea-towel by Lucienne Day

Juries in the 70s and 80s seemed to branch out a little more, giving awards to designs for skis, folding bicycles and the intriguing Microvision mini-TV from 1978.

The Microvision pocket television, designed by John Pemberton and company designers at Sinclair Radionics

Many of the award-winning designs were taken into the V&A’s collection, and will form the backbone of the British Design exhibition, which runs from 31 March-12 August.

Award Winning British Design 1957-1988, by Lily Crowther, is published by V&A Publishing priced at £14.99.