From Mona Chalabi to Led by Donkeys, the Designs of the Year 2019 shortlist showcases activism in all forms

Exhibition graphics by Zac Group
The 76 nominees for this year’s Beazley Designs of the Year awards have been announced, with activist projects and work tackling inequality in creative ways being honoured for their interdisciplinary impact.
Nominated in the Graphic category, Mona Chalabi’s project Who Are You Here To See? visualises data on the demographics of artists featured in a US museum collection, which is 75% white males. Mold magazine by LinYee Yuan explores the future of food and how designers are addressing food crises. Notamuse, a book by Silva Baum, Claudia Scheer and Lea Sievertsen profiles female graphic designers in Europe.
Pentagram’s Sascha Lobe was nominated for the pictogram signage designed with L2M3 for David Chipperfield’s Amorepacific HQ; while activists Led By Donkeys were selected for their work blowing up statements made by politicians about Brexit to billboard size.
It’s Nice That’s own Will Knight even got a mention for his involvement in the UK Student Climate Network protest, designing placards along with Harry Butt, Indiana Lawrence, Lena Manger and Axel Lagerborg for Play Nice and ILoveYou Agency.
In the digital category, nominees include Playdeo’s Avo, a game starring an AR avocado; Meet Q: The First Genderless Voice, the first gender-neutral voice technology; and Olio, the food sharing app. Alterego by MIT Media Lab was also selected, for its wearable neural interface that allows humans to command a virtual assistant by articulating words through thought.
In fashion, Ji Won Choi’s Adidas collaboration, Becca McCharen-Tran’s Climatic swimwear collection for all body shapes, vegan flip flops by Mats Rombaut, and costume designs for The Favourite were shortlisted.
Meanwhile in the product category, ThisAbles, a hack to make Ikea furniture accessible, was selected alongside Nendo’s denqul, a battery pack that charges when shaken; a hands-free breast pump by Elvie; and a so-called “plastic made of plants” called Nuatan, an oil-free bioplastic that is biodegradable in industrial compost.
Beazley Designs of the Year will be on display at the Design Museum, London from 11 September 2019 – 9 February 2020. See the full list of nominees here.

Notamuse

Sascha Lobe: Amorepacific

Sandy Powell: The Favourite costumes

Mats Rombaut: Green Lettuce Slides

Led By Donkeys
- Artist Panayiotis Terzis creates vibrant works inspired by his upbringing in Greece
- Vikram Kushwah shares the intimate and revealing backstory behind his award-winning series
- Can you translate a memory into a digital font family? Klim and Dia collaborate on Söhne
- Satirical and humorous, Megumi Ono-Chan illustrates a “lustful labourer”
- Jessie Makinson on the intuitive process behind her fantastical paintings
- The Adobe MAX Creativity Tour shed light on how to creatively empower ourselves
- Pentagram rebrands Warner Bros. with a “sleek and clean” update to its shield logo
- Manchester Girls, the new series from Dean Davies, is a visual homage to the women of the north
- Relive the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer through Summer of Something Special
- Viktor Hübner photographs American anxieties amongst a shifting political environment
- Jiří Makovec’s photographs meander between the personal and the universal
- Berlin Wall graffiti is made into a typeface to warn how "division is freedom's biggest threat"