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Design History at 21

In July Jeremy Aynsley, the History of Design Course leader, asked us to design an exhibition for the 21st Anniversary of History of Design which is jointly run between the RCA and V&A. ‘A Practice for Everyday Life’ is Kirsty Carter and Emma Thomas. We graduated from RCA Communication Art and Design in 2003, to set up our practice and continue our working partnership in graphic design. It was great to be leaving with such a lovely project to work on and for a client who is genuinely interested in what we do.

Jeremy gave us a list of every thesis title from every graduate of History of Design from the last 21 years of the course. It was overwhelming - there were over 300 titles spanning a huge variety of themes. Contributions were arriving for the show by the day - the students, graduates and tutors of the course seem prolific. Working closely with Lulu Dyer, Rachel Woods and Jeremy Aynsley who were curating the show, we wanted to express the energy and diversity of this course which has been busy working within and outside the RCA for 21 years.

We thought it would be great to reflect the extent and diversity of their collective work by creating a show which was a vast inventory of the course. The poster was then a huge inventory of the show. This was set within an odd library which we installed in the seminar room exhibition space. This created a place that people could enjoy and feel comfortable to take their time to absorb the material. Every object which was in the ‘library’, made up by the History of Design at 21, be it a book or journal, a Knoll Saarinen womb chair, an André Klauser, RCA design products graduate, display unit, or a Martin Leyton, RCA buildings manager, bookshelf. They were all identified with signage. This told their design history - who designed them/wrote them and what for. Every object in the space had a chance to tell its own story.

Together we aimed to turn around perceptions within the RCA of a quiet HOD course, to be known more around the college, within the design history and further too letting people know what HOD has been interested in for the last 21 years. We hand-wrote in red markers on the wall of the exhibition space, the titles of HOD thesis ever written. Karin Åkeson, who we graduated with, illustrated over 200 faces of past students of the course which were also drawn on the wall with the help of Hannah Melin. This created an atmosphere that people were interested in and wanted to spend time in. People were entertained by the names and faces of HOD characters from 1972 to 2003. Reading an article in Form magazine by a graduate or about the secular furniture of South East India. Anyone could sit in a Knoll classic and take their time to experience a bit of the world around them through the perspective of the RCA/V&A Design Historians.

Thank ­you to Lulu, Rachel, Jeremy, Barbara, Karin, Hannah, André, HOD students and Knoll.

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