Heralding the deluge of design that takes over London each year in September, London Design Festival’s annual London Design Medals have been announced today. Each year, four medals are handed out in celebration of excellence in the field of design, spanning a lifetime’s achievement to a star ascending. This year’s recipients are: Pat McGrath DBE who has been awarded the London Design Medal; Natsai Audrey Chieza who has been awarded the Design Innovation Medal; Harry Blakiston Houston who has been awarded the Emerging Design Medal; and Rei Kawakubo who takes home the Lifetime Achievement Medal.
The medals are hotly nominated and deliberated over by luminaries, practitioners, critics and commentators within design, including: Es Devlin CBE, Tristram Hunt, Yinka Ilori MBE, Alice Rawsthorn, Wai Shin Li and Jane Withers, to name just a handful of the esteemed jury this year. Ben Evans CBE, London Design Festival director, says of the accolades this year: ‘The 2024 London Design Medal winners exemplify the remarkable diversity and ingenuity that define our design and creative industries today. Their work demonstrates the boundless potential of design to inspire change, challenge conventions and shape our future. We celebrate their extraordinary achievements and thank them for their impactful contributions to the global design community and beyond.'
Winners of the 2024 London Design Medals
London Design Medal: Pat McGrath DBE
Pat McGrath is widely regarded as the world’s most influential make-up artist. Over 25 years, she has shaped and inspired the make-up, beauty and fashion industries at a global level. In 2015 she launched her own line Pat McGrath Labs and has become the biggest selling beauty brand in Selfridges’ history. Alongside collaborations with Prada, Marc Jacobs and Comme des Garcons, she has worked with New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and was the first make-up artist to be awarded by the CFDA in 2017. Of her medal, McGrath said: ‘Design is at the core of everything I do as a make-up artist, so to have my dedication to design recognised and celebrated with the London Design Medal – and in the city where I got my start, no less – it is a complete full-circle moment for me.’
Design Innovation Medal: Natsai Audrey Chieza
Natsai Audrey Chieza founded Faber Futures in 2018 to bridge the gap between scientific innovation and design application, specifically in the realms of biotechnology. She has partnered with the World Economic Forum and the Design Museum and, in 2023, co-founded Normal Phenomena of Life, promoting the potential of biotechnology to generate new materials in support of achieving climate goals. A founding member of the WEF’s Global Futures Council on Synthetic Biology, Chieza has taught a Central Saint Martins and the Bartlett School of Architecture. Of her medal, Chieza says: ‘In a rapidly evolving world, interdisciplinary collaboration is essential for making positive change. It demands us to push beyond traditional models, boundaries and expectations. That’s why it’s particularly rewarding to see the work we do at Faber Futures – where design, biotechnology and society converge – acknowledged for its role in shaping the possibilities of tomorrow.”
Emerging Design Medal: Harry Blakiston Houston
Harry Blakiston Houston studies maths at Bristol University before embarking on a PhD in biotechnology at Cambridge. In 2023 he founded Insulate Ukraine, an initiative to install low-cost triple-glazed temporary polyethylene windows in bomb-damaged homes across the war-torn country. The solution can be fabricated and installed using readily available materials and tools, and is strong enough to withstand localised explosions. Insulate Ukraine has partnered with local governments and charities to install several thousand windows in homes, schools and orphanages across the country, setting up window replacement hubs and training local populations to run them. Of his ward, Houston says: ‘I see myself as an inventor who uses systems to solve problems. When I was told I would be awarded the medal, I asked if it could go to the people on the ground in Ukraine, the civilians who stayed to help their communities. They are putting their lives on the line every single day. I didn’t win this ward; they did.”
Lifetime Achievement Medal: Rei Kawakubo
Rei Kawakubo is a titan of the global fashion industry and culture at large. She founded Comme des Garcons in 1969, and in the five decades since, has challenged, subverted, reformed and inspired fashion, architecture, art, design and retail at several levels. In 2004 she opened Dover Street Market in London, redefining the boundaries and expressions of retail across the creative industries. Today, there are flagship Dover Street Markets in Ginza, New York, Singapore, Beijing, Los Angeles and Paris. In 2017 Kawakubo was the focus of a major retrospective at the New York Met titled: ‘Art of the In-Between’. Speaking of Kawakubo’s legacy to design, Alice Rawsthorn said: 'One of the extraordinary things about Rei Kawakubo is how she uses her practice and the brand to allow her to experiment with anything that seems to interest her. Every aspect of her work reflects her own sensibility, and also our perceptions of her. Other designers have done this in the past but none of them have done it quite so compellingly and critically, as audaciously, as Kawakubo.'
