This week the Disegno team is exploring the 2022 London Design Festival. Over the coming days we’ll be sharing our reflections from the festival and picking out some of the installations and exhibitions that stood out.

A new robot from Nike cleans and repairs worn-out shoes, but should the brand’s entry into a new area of repair be seen as a service or an installation?

This year’s Maison&Objet Rising Talent Awards looks to the Netherlands for inspiration. Disegno catches up with the awards’ judges to find out how they chose their nominated designers.

Designer Kate Strudwick prototypes a modern forensics kit that could help clear the backlog of unsolved crimes.

A conversation with Reet Aus and Alexander Taylor about reducing material waste within fashion design and the ways in which global industry could better accommodate upcycling.

From drawing to design, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec unravel the serendipitous process of creating their Rope chair for Artek.

Daniel Weil’s Chess on Earth offers a gentle, peaceful route into a traditionally martial game.

Destiny Thomas asks what the unequal rollout of e-scooters in major American cities tell us about technology and racial equity.

The 1930s legal wrangling over the plywood designs of Finnish architect Alvar Aalto and Bauhaus master Marcel Breuer shows that the control of intellectual property is not a new concern for designers.

Material design studio Polyfloss is working with recyclers, artists and craftspeople in Antananarivo, Madagascar, to spin waste plastic into a soft and flexible textile.

Peek behind the curtain of Plusminus, the lighting system toolkit designed by Stefan Diez for Vibia that has more than one magic trick up its sleeve.

Tesla’s long-awaited futuristic Cybertruck has been spotted on a test track. What can future-concept car designs such as Back to the Future DeLorean Time Machine tell us about how to imagine tomorrow?

Welcome to Malmö, where a new generation of designers are ripping up the Swedish minimalism rulebook and ushering in an era of colour and community.

The FDA ban on Juul has stalled. From Disegno 25, Natalie Kane examines the design themes, memes, and appeal to teens of these slick flavoured e-cigarettes.

Yuri Suzuki’s Ambient Machine reveals the analogue pleasures of a bank of toggle switches.

Mitzi Okou chairs a roundtable with contributors to The Met’s new Afrofuturist period room including curator Hannah Beachler, the costume designer of Blank Panther.

The difference between direct experience versus written evocation comes up for debate as Jonathan Olivares opens his new showroom for Kvadrat in New York.

Danish architect Vilhelm Lauritzen’s midcentury designs for concertgoers and working people have been reissued by Carl Hansen & Son on the centennial of his practice’s founding.