Design highlights

A roundtable with the team behind Design Everything for their new exhibition at Aram: a fictional flat filled with objects created through the limitations on new designers’ work.

Adam Nathaniel Furman, an artist and designer, joins the show to discuss the history of colour in architecture and the challenges of viral design.

Es Devlin’s art direction for the fourth edition of the Homo Faber biennale explores the potential for stagecraft and physical proximity to shape appreciation of craft.

Tanaka Eyewear’s new glasses are made from compressed paper composite, and embrace impermanence by allowing the material to develop a patina and using gold to repair dents or chips.

In Disegno #38, Darran Anderson travels to architect Erich Mendelsohn’s first building in Poland and reflects on desecrated gravesites around the world.

Nosou’s new lamp 0º was designed and produced in rural Japan to support craftsmanship and manufacturing outside of the country’s urban centres.

In Disegno #39, Disegno’s editor-in-chief Oli Stratford tours Mudac’s preppers exhibition and contemplates the movement’s critique of consumerism.

Textile designer Leo Germanangue has created Designrs, a new app which connects a city’s creators, that combines his maximalist aesthetic with his desire to minimise screen time.

Jon Ardern, cofounder of design and experiential futures company Superflux, joins the Crit to discuss the emphasis on materiality, emotion, and sensory feedback in the studio’s work.

In Disegno #38, Ellen Peirson visits Hat Projects’s Sunspot business centre in Jaywick Sands, exploring how the town's history intersects with systemic deprivation, seaside nostalgia, and right-wing populism.

Masquespacio, ambassadors for the September 2026 edition of Maison&Objet, share their belief around why design needs more authenticity.

Pentagram’s Hugh Miller joins the show to discuss the tempo of graphic design, as well as the importance of self-criticism for any creative practice.

Guy Keulemans and Trent Jansen explore the design potential of wear and tear, in an exhibition that seeks to repair the objects we surround ourselves with.

Thélonious Goupil’s Bienvenue spare bedroom expands hospitably out of a small, wooden box.

Food designer Leyu Li joins The Crit to discuss using design to challenge cultural hierarchies surrounding food, incorporating social media into her practice, and the pleasures of commercial work.

In Disegno #39, Ama Benewaa Tawia dreams up alternative uses for abandoned spaces with Ghana’s Limbo Museum.

Communally designed, the Office Series objects by students from ECAL examines alternative, ego-less ways of working.

Industrial designer John Tree joins The Crit to talk production, the challenges of mobile phones, and the need to not obsess over your business card.

Prosthetic movement and wartime testimony form the core of A New Integrity, artist Nikita Kadan’s reflection on the costs of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Disegno is looking for contributions to our 42nd issue, released during London Design Week in September 2026, which will be themed around ideas of “Transformation” in design.

Vitra’s new lounge chair Bascule, designed by Studio Œ, presents a different type of comfort than typical lounge chairs, with slouchy upholstery that accommodates movement and acts more like a jacket than a cushion.

Special Projects’ speculative concept, Aperture, supports digital detox by allowing users to flip their phone case around to reduce their iPhone screens to a small window.

Marte Mei van Haaster’s new collection, displayed at St Vincent’s gallery, presents a method of designing furniture out of plants used to remove toxic chemicals from the land.

Joseph Yang’s bricolage timber furniture, displayed at Seoul’s INSA Gallery, play with the construction logic of a traditional nong cabinet.

A new film shot at El Salón, Disegno’s installation for Clerkenwell Design Week in conjunction with Interiors from Spain, reveals the design process of its creator, Tomás Alonso.

London-based designer Tessa Silva joins the Crit to discuss understanding the possibilities and limitations of new materials.

What role can modularity play in combatting the fetishisation of newness within interior architecture? A new podcast, featuring String’s Bo Hellberg, Ab Rogers, Tola Ojuolape and Lisl du Toit from Universal Design Studio tackles the issue.

Yoshino Takayama’s kinetic machines, exhibited at Designtide Tokyo, reframe technological control through the vagaries of natural forces.

In Disegno #39, Marianna Janowicz investigates the link between comfort and survival in design for childbirth.

In Disegno #39, Studiomama create iron castings that advantage of the brain’s tendency to ascribe human-like qualities to the world around us.