Prince Philip Designers Prize 2010

Release date: 15 September 2010

From Olympic arenas to Punk fashion, Formula One to the first laptop: Britain’s design geniuses shortlisted for Prince Philip Designers Prize.

Designers responsible for the 2012 Olympics Aquatic Centre, Burberry macs, Formula One cars, the first laptop computer and the motorway signage system are among the nominees for this year’s prestigious Prince Philip Designers Prize, announced today.

The glittering line-up includes globally renowned avant-garde fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood, designer of the futuristic London 2012 Aquatic Centre Zaha Hadid, inventor of the UK’s signage system for motorways and airports Margaret Calvert, Burberry’s chief Creative Director Christopher Bailey and visionary designer of the world’s first ever laptop Bill Moggridge.

The winner of the Prize, which recognises an outstanding contribution to UK business and society through design, will be announced by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh at a ceremony at the Design Council on Tuesday 9th November.

This year’s finalists cover a wide range of disciplines - from industrial and fashion design to engineering and graphics - and between them provide a snapshot of the creative and commercial strengths of the UK design industry which can be glimpsed on the Design Council’s website at www.designcouncil.org.uk/ppdp.

The full list of nominees is:

• Christopher Bailey MBE - Chief Creative Director of Burberry who has transformed this trad British clothes manufacturer into one of the world’s hottest fashion labels
• Neville Brody - one of Britain’s most revered and influential graphic designers
• Margaret Calvert - graphic designer and creator of Britain’s signage systems for motorways and airports
• Zaha Hadid CBE – visionary architect known worldwide for her boldly innovative deconstructivism
• Eva Jiricna CBE RA – renowned architect and designer known for interiors and architectural projects at the V&A, Prague Castle and the Lloyds Building
• John Makepeace OBE - celebrated designer of quintessentially English furniture
• Bill Moggridge RDI – pioneer of interaction design and responsible for the world’s first laptop computer
• Adrian Newey - Formula 1’s most respected engineering designer and aerodynamicist
• Dame Vivienne Westwood RDI - fashion designer whose journey from rebellious queen of punk to doyenne of immaculate tailoring has raised the international profile of British fashion design

David Kester, Chief Executive of the Design Council, said: “This year’s nominees demonstrate the extraordinary breadth and versatility of Britain’s design talent, from the fearless avant-gardists to world-class technologists and engineers and those whose commercial genius drives our economic success.”

The Prince Philip Designers Prize, which last year celebrated its 50th anniversary, has been in existence since the early days of the Design Council. It was created by HRH as a response to post-war austerity, and aimed to stimulate and reward elegant solutions to design problems.

Former winners of the Prize include Thomas Heatherwick (2006); the architect Lord Foster of Thamesbank (2004); Habitat founder Sir Terence Conran (2003); Pentagram founder Kenneth Grange (2001) and inventor Sir James Dyson (1997).

For more information please contact Saskia Sissons at the Design Council:
020 7420 5248 / 07773 768 073 saskia.sissons@designcouncil.org.uk

For downloadable image bank go to Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/designcounciluk/collections/72157624947881286/

Notes to Editors: 

1.      The Prince Philip Designers Prize is Britain’s longest-running design award. It recognises designers for raising the status of design and improving everyday life by turning ideas into commercial reality. 

2.      The full list of nominees for the Prince Philip Designers Prize is: 

• Christopher Bailey MBE has transformed Burberry from a traditional British clothes manufacturer into one of the world’s hottest international fashion labels in less than a decade. As Chief Creative Director, he is responsible for advertising, art direction, store design and visuals alongside the design of Burberry’s collections and products. He even designed the company’s new corporate HQs in London and New York. Named Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards in 2005 and 2009, Bailey’s commercial and creative genius has had a forceful impact on the British fashion industry.
• Neville Brody is one of Britain’s most revered and influential graphic designers who rewrote the rules of typography and is responsible for no fewer than 24 font families. His career took off in the 1970s and 80s, designing sleeves for Stiff Records and then art directing the now legendary magazines The Face and Arena. In 1989, his monograph The Graphic Design Language of Neville Brody became the world’s best-selling design book. More recently, he has overseen redesigns of both The Times and BBC Online and worked with clients ranging from Dom Perignon to Beck’s. Brody is also a champion of the design industry and a committed educator: he is Head of the Department of Communication Art & Design at the Royal College of Art as well as visiting professor at the London College of Communications.
• Margaret Calvert is a designer whose work helps Britain get from A to B and back every day – and does it so well that it’s been taken for granted as part of our national furniture. With her partner Jock Kinneir she created the signage system first for the motorways in the late 1950s and then for the rest of the road network. She came up with simple, easy-to-understand pictograms – including the signs for 'men at work' (a man digging), 'farm animals' (a cow), and 'schoolchildren nearby' (a girl leading a boy by the hand, whom she later revealed to be herself). It is still one of the most ambitious information design projects ever undertaken in Britain, and went on to influence countless other systems worldwide with its clarity, rigour and elegance. She also created labelling and signage systems for P&O, BAA and British Rail, as well as designing a sign in her own Calvert font at the Royal College of Art, where she was head of Graphic Design for many years.
• Zaha Hadid CBE is known worldwide for the visionary, boldly innovative aesthetic she has brought to architecture and also product, interior and furniture design. It is seen in commissions throughout Europe, the Middle East, Russia, India and China. They include the BMW Central Building in Leipzig, the Bergisel ski jump in Innsbruck and Cincinnati’s Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art. In 2004 she received the Pritzker Prize, sealing her international reputation. The 2012 Olympic Aquatics Centre, with its dramatic S-shaped roof, will be her first London landmark building. Other current UK projects include a city academy and a chandelier for the grand entrance of the V&A. She consistently pushes the artistic and technical boundaries of architecture.
• Eva Jiricna CBE RDI combines scientific training with form and function to bring the precision of engineering to the art of architecture. Her work spans residential, commercial and retail as well as furniture, products, interiors and exhibitions. She works in steel, glass, wood and stone, eschewing ‘craft for craft’s sake’ and advancing modernist principles in work such as staircase at the V&A’s Bollinger Jewellery Gallery, the Orangery at Prague Castle, interiors at Richard Rogers’ Lloyds Building and retail schemes for Joseph and Kenzo . In scale, she ranges from the John Soane’s Museum exhibition case to the Millennium Dome Faith Zone.
• John Makepeace OBE has, in his own words, set out to extend the boundaries of function, structure and expression beyond what is ordinarily associated with furniture. His design and manufacturing represent a meeting of classic and modern, embodying workmanship of the highest standard and championing sustainability. Each piece of furniture, standing alone or as part of a collection, is original and quintessentially English. From the early 1960s he has helped to raise the profile of British furniture making and design beyond the role of reproducing traditional forms, creating a market for original design and craftsmanship. His contribution to design education is also notable – in 1976 he set up his own college of furniture design and manufacture and has been sharing his design philosophy, production expertise and business insight with students ever since.
• Bill Moggridge RDI is one of the most pioneering designers of the 20th century, and has been central to how design makes technology make sense to the people who use it. In the late 1980s, he was a leading force in creating the discipline of interaction design, which has set the terms for how human beings engage with computers. Along the way, he designed the first laptop, the project which awakened his fascination with designing users’ interaction with software not just hardware. In the early 1990s he co-founded the design agency IDEO, which has arguably become the blueprint for the international, strategic creative agency. Today, he makes a forceful educational contribution as Director of the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum. His phenomenal success is emblematic of the industrial designer’s skill in visualising and giving form to intangible data and human sensations.
• Adrian Newey is a major British success story in the world of Formula 1. He has become the sport’s most respected engineering designer and aerodynamicist, with a string of achievements to his name. Not least among them has been that cars designed by Newey have won the Constructers’ Championship six times since 1991. His constant appetite for new challenges means he has had success with Williams, McLaren and now Red Bull, which he joined when the team was founded in 2005. His innovations, such as the quick release drivers’ seat, hand-operated clutch, semi-automatic gearbox and fly-by-wire technology have improved both performance and safety across the sport.
• Dame Vivienne Westwood CBE has had a profound influence on British design and culture over the past 40 years. Fearless, rebellious and groundbreaking, she has embodied subversive and unexpected fashion design, but more recently sealed her reputation as grande dame of British fashion with her exquisite tailoring in tweed and frocks. From rubberwear for the office to T-shirts with zips and holes, the Kings Road shop she ran with Malcolm Mclaren through the 1970s showcased what was newest, most original and most dangerous in British street culture. Her catwalk debut started the 80s New Romantic movement and ever since she developed distinctive takes on traditional tailoring, British fabrics, haute couture and prêt-a-porter. The queen of punk has contributed to education too, first at the Vienna Academy of Applied Arts and then Honorary Senior Fellow of the Royal College of Art.

3.          The Prince Philip Designers Prize, which was first awarded in 1959, is run by the Design Council. It is awarded annually to recognise a design career which has upheld the highest standards and broken new ground, while raising the status of design in business and the public sector and also contributing to design education. Nominees are put forward by professional organisations and educational establishments. 

4.      Judging takes the following into account: contribution to the perception of design by industry and the public, and to the status of designers; influence on design standards and trends; record of successful design for consumer and industrial products or buildings, especially success in the marketplace; originality of concepts, patents and other intellectual property rights; aesthetic quality of designs; structural, manufacturing or engineering quality of designs; contribution to design education. 

5.      The judging panel is chaired every year by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh. Other panel members this year were Lord Bichard, Chairman of the Design Council (Vice-Chairman), Graham Cartledge CBE Dip Arch FCSD, Peter Head OBE FREng, FRSA, Robin Levien RDI, Chris Ramsden FCSD and Richard Williams FCSD FRSA. 

6.      The Design Council: we place design at the heart of growth and renewal in Britain and show how design can help build a stronger economy and improve everyday life. www.designcouncil.org.uk