New Designers join Quentin Blake, Zandra Rhodes, and Tim Berners-Lee as Royal Designers for Industry

Today, the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) announced the appointment of three groundbreaking designers to become Royal Designers for Industry (RDIs), as well as four honorary Royal Designers for Industry from across the world.

The Royal Designer for Industry (RDI) title is considered the highest accolade for designers in the UK. Only 200 people at any time may hold the title – awarded annually by a panel of design leaders and overseen by the RSA.

This year’s entrants are Oscar-winning film production designer, Shona Heath; landscape designer, Tom Stuart-Smith; and urban designer, Lucy Musgrave.

They join a roster of internationally renowned creatives including architect Norman Foster, fashion designer Zandra Rhodes, and inventor of the World Wide Web Tim Berners- Lee.

Non-UK designers can be made Honorary RDIs, and this year four join from across the world, including Michael Bierut, Julia Lohmann and Clary Salandy join the ranks.

Charlie Paton RDI, Master of the Faculty at The Association of Royal Designers for Industry, said:

“This year’s awards demonstrate the important role of design in shaping the world around us. With the new RDIs work spanning graphic, regenerative, set and costume, urban, film, landscape and carnival design, we are reminded that the practice underpins every interaction we have with the human-made world.”

Joanna Choukeir, Head of Design and Innovation at the RSA, said:

“The RDIs were introduced when design was widely undervalued and misunderstood, both as a profession and as a tool to boost economic, social and environmental progress. Now, the RDIs reflect the centrality of design in shaping the world around us.”

This year’s inductees are:

Shona Heath - Film Production Design

Shona Heath is a Production Designer, known for her longstanding collaboration with photographer Tim Walker, for whom she curated a retrospective exhibition at the V&A in 2019, as well as a long career of celebrated designs for magazine editorials, album covers, advertising campaigns, and designs for fashion houses that include McQueen and Mulberry. She also won a BAFTA and an Oscar for her Production Design on Yorgos Lanthimos’ ‘Poor Things.’

Shona said: "It is such a fantastic award to receive from the country I live in. To receive this award makes me feel like all my hard work over the years is seen, and that people have recognised my handwriting through all the many projects I have been part of. I am always a wheel or a cog, but this makes me feel like I am driving. I absolutely love what I do, and I am so very excited that other people do too. I still feel absolute wonder that my work is appreciated. I feel very lucky. Thank you."

Lucy Musgrave - Urban Design

Lucy Musgrave OBE is the founding director of Publica, a public realm consultancy that brings research and intelligence to the process of urban change. Over a 30-year career, Lucy has played a key advisory role in policy recommendations, strategic planning and the advocacy of design quality. Lucy has in-depth experience leading projects in the fields of public realm, planning, urban design and master planning, regeneration, infrastructure, cultural programming and environmental design.

Lucy said: “Enormous thanks to the RSA for recognising urban design with civic amenity at its heart. Good urban design requires many hands, disciplines and collaboration to address the varied perspectives on any urban neighbourhood. This is done at Publica by our outstanding team. We research character: the spatial, social, cultural, environmental, economic and historic specificity of place. Our built work, based on this methodology, has resulted in the complete redesign of some significant streets and spaces in central London and wider. All our work represents long-termism, inclusive, generous, sustainable public realm that celebrates civic dignity and enhances everyday life. Thank you for celebrating this.”

Tom Stuart-Smith - Landscape Architecture & Garden Design

Tom is a garden designer of distinction. He is also an author, lecturer and writer. He has made gardens all over the world for public and private clients, although most of them are in the UK. He has created gardens for the V&A, Hepworth and Whitworth. Since 1998 he has been a consistent Gold Award winner at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. He uses ‘local materials wherever we can and select plants fitted to their surroundings, which will endure over time.' He runs a company of eighteen designers and has created three visitable gardens at Serge Hill, Herts which explore different terrains, one of which forms the Plant Library, a collection of 1,500 living perennial plants.

Tom said: “It’s a great honour to receive this award, not least when I look and see the illustrious list of other designers who I join. I think I am the third landscape designer elected as an RDI and I feel this reflects the growing importance of my profession in creating a greener, healthier and more sustainable world for everyone. Attention to the landscape and environment that we live and work in is a true sign of a civilised society and one where we can hope for a better future.”

The Royal Designers for Industry are joined by this year’s non-UK-based Honorary Royal Designers for Industry. They are:

• Michael Bierut - Graphic Design
• Michael Levine - Set and Costume Design
• Julia Lohmann - Regenerative Design
• Clary Salandy - Carnival Design

This year, the RDI Address will be delivered by multi-award-winning landscape designer and new RDI Inductee Tom Stuart-Smith and author of 'The Well Gardened Mind', Dr Sue Stuart-Smith. It will be hosted at the historic RSA House in the heart of London and streamed online.